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
    2020-06-11T19:55:23+00:00

    I have the same issue w/ my 13" i7 256GB SL3. Did anyone from Microsoft get back on this?

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-12T03:45:42+00:00

    Hey everyone, there may be a (partial) fix to this problem.  I took the advice of one of the other commenters here and disabled the touchscreen on my SL3.  You can do this by going into the registry and setting "TouchGate" to 0 instead of 1.

    After restarting the computer, the buzzing did not completely disappear, but it does seem to have diminished.  It's no longer as noticeable as before, and I feel that I can use the laptop in a quiet room now without it being annoying.  I have no interest in using the touchscreen (just switched from a Mac, lol), so this change was a no brainer for me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-12T08:28:37+00:00

    Hey everyone, there may be a (partial) fix to this problem.  I took the advice of one of the other commenters here and disabled the touchscreen on my SL3.  You can do this by going into the registry and setting "TouchGate" to 0 instead of 1.

    After restarting the computer, the buzzing did not completely disappear, but it does seem to have diminished.  It's no longer as noticeable as before, and I feel that I can use the laptop in a quiet room now without it being annoying.  I have no interest in using the touchscreen (just switched from a Mac, lol), so this change was a no brainer for me.  

    I see, makes sense even though you cannot expect to be using such a cliche on a pc worth more than 1500$, it is ridiculous to me. 

    Just about to receive my third one, hopefully they will give me a good one even though I think there's a problem in design building of the machine. Will keep you all posted.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-12T12:57:01+00:00

    Update: THERE IS A FIX!

    If you download and install Winstep Nexus (it's a MacOS style dock for Windows), the buzzing disappears completely!  Not a single sound.   Super weird that something like this fixes it, but I guess computers work in mysterious ways. 

    I don't really want the dock itself, so I just set it to auto-hide on the right edge of the screen. 

    Credit goes to the guy on this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/e9xrip/surface_laptop_3_buzzing_noise/

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-06-12T13:10:16+00:00

    Update: THERE IS A FIX!

    If you download and install Winstep Nexus (it's a MacOS style dock for Windows), the buzzing disappears completely!  Not a single sound.   Super weird that something like this fixes it, but I guess computers work in mysterious ways. 

    I don't really want the dock itself, so I just set it to auto-hide on the right edge of the screen. 

    Credit goes to the guy on this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/e9xrip/surface_laptop_3_buzzing_noise/

    That is probably just preventing your CPU from going totally idle.  Look on page 13 of this thread, there is a registry entry to disable CPU idle states. It removed the buzzing and fix external monitor issues for me, but I still returned my Surface because it is ridiculous to pay so much for something that doesn't work properly.  

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surflaptop3-surfupdate/surface-laptop-3-faint-buzzing-sound/d800b696-ff7c-4cf0-a2db-99c2c2082144?messageId=74c4cd60-6492-4b04-b443-c5db53d7c1d0&page=13

    It's not really a fix, just a workaround, like installing software.  Your battery will drain faster.

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