Sony PVM Excessive Whine Makes Me Whine

[sloth_armstrong]

I am somewhat new gaming on a RGB CRT. I excitedly purchased a Sony 20M2MDU locally. The picture is great and I loved it. So I went and found another 20M2MDU as a backup in case the first one ever dies. The plan was to acquire and preserve some professional CRTs over time because I find it all so interesting and do believe it is the best way to play retro games.

Last night I finally assembled my little retro station and started gaming and I notice a somewhat jarring high frequency whine. I am familiar enough with CRTs from growing up with them and understand that they do have some audible noise when operating and it never caused me problems. It seems the monitors I have acquired though, are noisy ass sons of bitches. Both of my 20M2MDU's emit an identical noise at what seems to be an identical volume. The noise is fatiguing to me. After playing for 30 minutes or so I found myself actually wanting to stop because of the annoying noise.

I understand that flybacks are often what the cause of the noise is. It seems that it would be logical to replace the flyback in each of my monitors and that would reduce or eliminate the audible noise they are making, but replacement flybacks, to my understanding, are harder to find than the monitors are. So that lead me to trying to find a solution to reduce or eliminate the noise in some way without replacing the flyback.

I ended up coming across a post from Fudoh saying

Of the 4 BVMs I had, two had a high-pitched noise. One just after startup and it disappeared once the monitor has run for about 15 minutes. On the other it wasn't this bad, but it also didn't go away. This one I gave away and to my knowledge the new owner sprayed all coils with some kind of varnish and got rid of the sound eventually.

Could someone kindly point me in the direction perhaps of information about spraying coils with varnish? Or maybe offer some opinions on alternative routes to take before trying to figure out how to spray my coils with a varnish? I am willing to try most anything to reduce or eliminate the noise. Even if it might fry the monitor. I would like to systematically go through every single possible troubleshooting solution to solve this, even if some of those solutions are somewhat dangerous to the monitor and could harm it. The way I see it is, I would like to try everything possible before giving up and buying a Framemeister.

[Taiyaki]

The PVM and BVM sets do have a more audible whine sound but I noticed it can vary too. I had one bvm, the first one I got rid of which was in less good condition, which had a much louder whine. I think it had to do with the power section because when flipping the boards I would carry over the louder whine to the other unit. It was really irritating. I think it must have been a worn or damaged component.

[austin532]

I'm no expert of PVM's but if they are anything like Trinitron TV's then maybe there is a solution. Have you tried lowering the Picture setting to see if that makes a difference? My FV300 had the Picture set to max and it would also make a whine noise. Soon as I lowered it to halfway it stopped.

[Sumez]

It never occured that it's possible to actually do something about it.... Maybe I should try looking into this. Thread definitely subscribed.

[almmiron]

Its easy to find pvms where you live?

Enviado de meu LG-D855 usando Tapatalk

[gray117]

:/ ... whining is a common issue amongst all kinds of components with a coil - it's basically a vibration.

IMHO crt noise is most likely going to be the flyback transformer which typically will be the capacitors in there... You might be able to get someone to repair these, but they're usually tricky to even take apart since they're intentionally sealed from moisture etc.
^^ aging capacitor noise tend to improve/ease as they warm up.

It may also be any other capacitor on your tv boards... exhibiting the same behavior... so working out where the noise is coming from will be first step.



... this being said coil whine can occur in any component (including flybacks) if there is a coil in there... so again isolating where the noise is coming from exactly will help and avoid frustration + unnecessary replacing/fiddling/potential damage.

Coil whine usually gets worse as it warms up and/or is put under more load as vibration increases. Any kind of dampening maybe applied; boxing it up and or sealing it somehow... typically you're risking causing heat increase... varnish or something similar that can help provide a binding/supporting presence with minimal insulation and getting into the smallest of gaps ... in most cases any non conductive varnish will be fine and what you want (i.e. most common kinds - like nail varnish etc.) - It's basically just gunking/glueing the area and helping to prevent small vibrations and won't generally matter if you get a drop on something else.

Similarly if you think something else may be making the noise by being vibrated by a coil component (or anything else), you can try applying said varnish, or something like glue gun glue (typically used to prevent stuff unclipping/falling out - can essentially be used as a pillow to prevent secondary rattling/vibration etc. as long as you're not worried about heat.

[sloth_armstrong]

:/ ... whining is a common issue amongst all kinds of components with a coil - it's basically a vibration.

IMHO crt noise is most likely going to be the flyback transformer which typically will be the capacitors in there... You might be able to get someone to repair these, but they're usually tricky to even take apart since they're intentionally sealed from moisture etc.
^^ aging capacitor noise tend to improve/ease as they warm up.

It may also be any other capacitor on your tv boards... exhibiting the same behavior... so working out where the noise is coming from will be first step.



... this being said coil whine can occur in any component (including flybacks) if there is a coil in there... so again isolating where the noise is coming from exactly will help and avoid frustration + unnecessary replacing/fiddling/potential damage.

Coil whine usually gets worse as it warms up and/or is put under more load as vibration increases. Any kind of dampening maybe applied; boxing it up and or sealing it somehow... typically you're risking causing heat increase... varnish or something similar that can help provide a binding/supporting presence with minimal insulation and getting into the smallest of gaps ... in most cases any non conductive varnish will be fine and what you want (i.e. most common kinds - like nail varnish etc.) - It's basically just gunking/glueing the area and helping to prevent small vibrations and won't generally matter if you get a drop on something else.

Similarly if you think something else may be making the noise by being vibrated by a coil component (or anything else), you can try applying said varnish, or something like glue gun glue (typically used to prevent stuff unclipping/falling out - can essentially be used as a pillow to prevent secondary rattling/vibration etc. as long as you're not worried about heat.

Ok cool. Thank you for this information it has connected a few dots for me I couldn't seem to connect on my own. This weekend I am going to crack both of the PVMs up and see if I can isolate the sound. I probably will look to replace all of the capacitors in the monitor. I don't WANT to replace the capacitors inside the flyback as this may be beyond what I feel I can safely do. I'm confident I can safely remove and take the flyback apart. I don't know about sealing it back properly, though. Maybe it's easier to reassemble properly than I'm thinking?

So if I replace all my caps, replace the caps in my flyback, and varnished down the coils.... That should guaranteed make a dent in the noise I would hope. I'm also considering buying some sound dampening material and placing it along the wall behind my PVMs because the noise seems to be being projected from the back. I don't think I would go so far to insulate sound within the actual monitor as this would cause it to heat up and seems like a bad plan. If I'm not happy with the sound level after taking all of the above steps I think I'll give up unless there's another possible solution to try.

Anyone have any guides and/or videos detailing any of these processes I've outlined or other processes to consider? I would like to learn as much as I can before taking action to reduce the chance of me making an incorrect assumption somewhere along the way.

[sloth_armstrong]

I'm no expert of PVM's but if they are anything like Trinitron TV's then maybe there is a solution. Have you tried lowering the Picture setting to see if that makes a difference? My FV300 had the Picture set to max and it would also make a whine noise. Soon as I lowered it to halfway it stopped.

I did check my picture settings on both PVMs and no setting was all the way maxed really so I don't think that's an issue for me. I've also adjusted the settings a lot and not noticed any change at all in the level of audible noise due to changing settings really.

[honkbahh]

:/ ... whining is a common issue amongst all kinds of components with a coil - it's basically a vibration.

IMHO crt noise is most likely going to be the flyback transformer which typically will be the capacitors in there... You might be able to get someone to repair these, but they're usually tricky to even take apart since they're intentionally sealed from moisture etc.
^^ aging capacitor noise tend to improve/ease as they warm up.

It may also be any other capacitor on your tv boards... exhibiting the same behavior... so working out where the noise is coming from will be first step.



... this being said coil whine can occur in any component (including flybacks) if there is a coil in there... so again isolating where the noise is coming from exactly will help and avoid frustration + unnecessary replacing/fiddling/potential damage.

Coil whine usually gets worse as it warms up and/or is put under more load as vibration increases. Any kind of dampening maybe applied; boxing it up and or sealing it somehow... typically you're risking causing heat increase... varnish or something similar that can help provide a binding/supporting presence with minimal insulation and getting into the smallest of gaps ... in most cases any non conductive varnish will be fine and what you want (i.e. most common kinds - like nail varnish etc.) - It's basically just gunking/glueing the area and helping to prevent small vibrations and won't generally matter if you get a drop on something else.

Similarly if you think something else may be making the noise by being vibrated by a coil component (or anything else), you can try applying said varnish, or something like glue gun glue (typically used to prevent stuff unclipping/falling out - can essentially be used as a pillow to prevent secondary rattling/vibration etc. as long as you're not worried about heat.

Ok cool. Thank you for this information it has connected a few dots for me I couldn't seem to connect on my own. This weekend I am going to crack both of the PVMs up and see if I can isolate the sound. I probably will look to replace all of the capacitors in the monitor. I don't WANT to replace the capacitors inside the flyback as this may be beyond what I feel I can safely do. I'm confident I can safely remove and take the flyback apart. I don't know about sealing it back properly, though. Maybe it's easier to reassemble properly than I'm thinking?

So if I replace all my caps, replace the caps in my flyback, and varnished down the coils.... That should guaranteed make a dent in the noise I would hope. I'm also considering buying some sound dampening material and placing it along the wall behind my PVMs because the noise seems to be being projected from the back. I don't think I would go so far to insulate sound within the actual monitor as this would cause it to heat up and seems like a bad plan. If I'm not happy with the sound level after taking all of the above steps I think I'll give up unless there's another possible solution to try.

Anyone have any guides and/or videos detailing any of these processes I've outlined or other processes to consider? I would like to learn as much as I can before taking action to reduce the chance of me making an incorrect assumption somewhere along the way.

Resurrected! Any update on this? I've got a whine that is coming from the monitors right side.