My Surface Book 2 i7 256gb is experiencing coil whine.

This problem is not limited to MS surface. It's been happening for years (Since 2010) on some machines. Someone mentioned that Microsoft told them this is the first time they'd heard of it... haha... it's the first time some call centre rep heard of it!

It's amusing that it's happening on actual Microsoft designed computers too. 

Anyhow I found a sort of fix for my PC that might also pertain to your MS Surface. I'm still investigating so I'm hoping some genius at Microsoft can write me a patch or create a proper solution. 

I have a HP 8 core Xeon Workstation. It has coil whine coming from the CPU, only when it's not doing much. When the cores are being used intensively, no whine and when i'm in bios (where its not intensive) no whine. The problem I think arises from how the operating system is controlling power states (particularly how the computer/OS handles cores when some cores on the CPU are idling). 

The solution i have for my computer creates another problem and being that your devices are portable it may not be viable but lets try. 

1. Open regedit
2. Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Control\ Power \PowerSettings \54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\ 5d76a2ca-e8c0-402f-a133-2158492d58ad
3. Change Attributes from 1 to 0

- This will add a new entry into the power schema in your power options under control panel=> power options.

4. In Windows Power Settings (I have mine set to maximum performance) select change advanced settings of your plan and find Processor power management -> Processor idle disable, and set it to Disable Idle.

This instantly stops my coil whine. I can switch it on and off and make music with the coil whine!

But (onto the fact it causes another problem) what it does when processor idle is disabled, task manager reports 100% utilisation on all cores on CPU. This doesn't mean the cores are all being used per se but it does mean it's pumping power to the cores so heat and battery life are impacted and therefore probably not a viable solution on a portable device. 

The thing is Microsoft know this occurring. They can also identify why it's occurring (i.e how the operating system is controlling idle states of power on the device) It's been happening since 2010. They've created patches and work arounds on some platforms. On mine they haven't (or I haven't found it and seemingly not on their own product as well. Let's hope they do!

Just be careful if you use Regedit not to alter anything else. 

It's a simple change so can be switched back anytime, plus once you've made the change you can turn on/off processor idle via control panel power options in an instant anytime. 

If your coil whine disappears pls comment... and maybe it will help to get a solution implemented within the OS. 

I'm no expert but I think it comes from the way windows and the device are contradicting on the way power is sent/received to the cores and perhaps the energy dissipation is causing coil to resonant creating that god awful noise or something like that i dunno!

But then again coil whine is a phenomena that can be caused on many electrical devices due to resonantion of electrical coils and various little bits could be the cause so it could just be dodgy electrical components on the surface... i dunno!

thanks for this, have you benchmarked it?

Also i assume you are then trading coil whine for fain noieses right?

The Surface book is usually completly silent for me, which is when you hear the whine the most.

As for it not being there in Bios, thats not true, at least for the SB2, you can put your ear on the backplate, its still there, just way more faint.

TBH none of the powersettings make it completly disappear, but just less of an annoyance. Therefore iam wondering if you approach also costs the user the Turboboost.