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I have experienced two or three computers in my life (and least one laptop) that produced barely audible sound when CPU activity changed. The most memorable was a PowerBook G4 with a touchpad, and as I slid my finger slowly across the pad in a quiet enough room, I could hear kind of a tick each time the pointer moved a pixel.

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Still happens to me when using software that is GPU intensive, like Blender. When I drag a slider, I hear the buzzing of the GPU.

That's not what's being described in this thread. You're referring to fan noise; the other comments are discussing electrical interference.

Not necessarily. My GPU audibly sings in the KhZ range whenever it comes off idle, a long time before the fans actually start up. It could be electrical noise from the fan drivers and/or motor coils if they're running at low speed, but it's definitely not the sound of air movement. And if you're e.g. processing photos on the GPU, you can hear it starting and stopping, exactly synced to the progress of each photo in the UI.

This was very common with first sound cards (at least on PC). As I remember, only with Creative Sound Blaster, completely finished era of continuous hearing of "machine soul" sounds.

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