Acoustic is an important factor for the ergonomic design of workplaces. I was reminded of that when I started working on my laptop at my new desk. The noise of the laptop’s ventilator happened to be in such a frequency that interacts with that of the desk surface. Resulting, the desk worked as sound box. Whenever I put the laptop on the desk it started to produce very low but still noticeable humming sound, just above the hearing threshold level. First, I did not recognize it as it was more sub-consciously. However, after working a while it began to be very disturbing. Before any action, I wanted to get confirmation of the sound and I asked my boyfriend. After he confirmed the noise I put a layer of fabric between laptop and table surface which helped to eliminate the noise.

Follow this link to an article with more information about low frequency noise.