Surface Laptop 3 Faint Buzzing Sound

Anonymous
2019-10-23T21:50:20+00:00

Hello,

I’ve got the i5 8GB Surface Laptop 3 (13.5-inch), and today, while browsing the internet, I noticed a fairly faint  buzzing sound coming from under the keyboard. It was faint enough you couldn’t hear it from a couple metres away, and sometimes buzzed continuously, other times buzzed in short repetitive bursts.

It didn’t sound like the fan to me, so I opened up the task manager to see if browsing was straining the computer in some way.

I have updated the computer completely, but the buzzing persisted.

Is this a normal electronics problem? Is it actually just the fan? Or is it possibly a defective unit?

Edit/Update:

I took the device into the MS Store today to see if there was something wrong. The staff took it into the back and tested it. They found increasing the computer's workload caused the sound to increase and described it as a popping static-y sound. They replaced the device and I have a new one now. Unfortunately, I've found through usage that this one is also making the sound. I am waiting to see if a firmware update reduces the noise since it seems pervasive across the devices.

Surface | Surface Laptop | Install and update

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-04-14T07:08:08+00:00

    Just trying to understand. Any CPU that goes to idle state should behave like that, doing that crackling anoying sound? Or it's only about some specific defective CPUs that behave like that?

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-04-14T06:55:20+00:00

    I doubt that Microsoft will ever replace the defective Surface laptop 3 devices with the new Surface Laptop 4.

    I've tried many times to get it replaced with a new Surface Laptop 3 but Microsoft always said that their policy is to replace defective devices only with refurbished devices, which are of course also defective.

    I don't know what to say but we are in a big trouble, we paid a lot of money for defective devices.

    Microsoft does not either want to refund us or to replace with new laptop, so it looks like we cannot do anything but to accept that we paid for a defective product and we should stay with that.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-04-13T14:39:02+00:00

    Now that Surface 4 is out they should replace our defective Surface 3 with brand new one Surface 4 at no extra costs.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-04-13T14:30:30+00:00

    It’s very unlikely a new Windows build will resolve it, unless it just changes the way power is consumed like the registry entry does. 

    It is related to the Intel Iris graphics chipset and the power draw off it.  I have yet to see someone with an AMD chipset complain about this issue. 

    There are also other side effects from this.  Like external monitors going blurry (what started me on this), a slight buzzing feeling on the metal casing, constant OEM panel event log errors, and more . 

    I personally think it’s an internal hardware issue after all my research and testing. If there was a way to fix it, the problem would have been acknowledged by now. Instead Microsoft will not acknowledge it is happening until legally required to respond. This is to prevent recalls and lost future sales (their $$$ > a few lost customers).

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-04-13T13:59:00+00:00

    I don't think so. It might increase heat and power consumption on your surface a little but I do prefer a permanent fix (like a firmware or bios update) for the issue rather than a registry mod.

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