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
    2019-12-31T18:08:28+00:00

    Every things Microsoft can do is tell you to run their useless Surface Diagnostic Toolkit.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-12-31T18:30:34+00:00

    Have you updated your SL3 with the latest firmware and updates which came out at the end of November?  That seems, for some people anyway, to have addressed the buzzing noise.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-12-31T20:03:51+00:00

    I found if you do the following steps the buzzing noise can be completely killed: 

    1. Press Win key + R to open CMD
    2. Press shift+control+enter to run CMD as an administrator
    3. run this code (copy and paste): reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Processor /v Capabilities /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0007e066
    4. retart laptop. 

    I found after doing this, my surface laptop 3 has been super quiet without any high pitch buzzing noise even by ear contacting keyboard deck.

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    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2020-01-01T17:03:17+00:00

    I have the same problem with my 15 inch Surface Laptop 3 business version (i7/16gb ram / 256 gb ssd).

    I thought of exchanging mine with a new one, but from this thread, I assume it won't solve the problem. 

    This should be dealt with as a high-priority issue. The buzzing gets on my nerves when I have to concentrate.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-01-01T17:18:33+00:00

    I found that the command you gave is about disabling idle state of cpu's. 

    It seems that this buzz is happening not only on surface products.

    I'm just worried that running this would reduce battery performance or ultrabook-specific power management configs.

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