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iPod owners report whining sound emanating from 2G nanos

In a thread over at the Apple Discussions forums, dozens of iPod owners are reporting high-pitching whining and / or buzzing sounds emanating from their 2nd Generation iPod nanos. Many of the owners cite that their units are fully functional despite the whining, although the volume of the unwanted sound varies between each report; for example, russgra states that the whining sound was the first thing he noticed after picking up his 8GB nano, although Energie claims that he wouldn't have noticed had he not seen the problem popping up in forums. There doesn't seem to be any correlation to any particular model within the range either, with 2, 4, and 8GB owners all reporting the annoyance -- notably, none of the reports notice any sound on their previous generation nanos, leading some to suggest that it's caused by a new or upgraded component such as the backlight or battery. In the interests of investigating the problem ourselves, we commandeered a nearby 2GB nano -- although we could hear a faint whining sound once pressed to our ear (which oddly changed tone after we shook it), we found the whine to be inaudible unless we practically lodged it in our ear. Could it be that this encounter is simply a reverberation of the post-Consumermas hangovers, or is this scenario a repeat of the whining problems with the MacBook? If the latter case is true, then it's worth noting that Apple was relatively quick to fix the problemand silence the buzz, along with the vocal minority of people who had brought the issue to the attention of everyone else.

[Thanks, David B.]