High pitched very disturbing noise off my Surface Pro

Anonymous
2013-03-14T21:42:40+00:00

I have had my first surface pro sent on a warranty run because of it producing a very annoying high pitched disturbing noise which came (in "waves") a little now and then, whenever I am using the tablet. It did not come from the fan, I know how that defect sounds, it was more of a electronic noise. The noise isn't very loud, but sounds like you get tinnitus and is so disturbing that I can't use the tablet at all in my quiet room. The noise comes also when I have disabled the sound card, bluetooth device, wifi etc. I've tried to disable most of the drivers that are disableble ;) It doesn't get rid of the noise.

So now the company which I bought it from, sent me a new surface pro 128Gb. The sad thing is that my new tablet produces the very same noise as the one I got changed. So what is the chances that I've gotten two defective devices (assuming that the import company I am ordering from isn't sending me defective devices on purpose...) twice?

With this assumption I guess that most of microsoft surface pro have this defect and I badly need a solution for it. I have waited for one year for a product that I could use effectively for taking notes of lectures and when it comes, I get this noise issue which I have never encountered with any other tablet I've used, ever. When everything else is perfect, why does this thing have to ruin it :(

The fan isn't even on when noise present, but one interesting thing is that the noise disappears when I press the tablets sleep button and it goes into sleep. Is there a way to get rid of the noise? I can live without most things except wifi, screen, soundcard, touch and wacom. Even with only these things functioning (as long as the noise would be gone) it would be worth the 1400$ it has costed me. But this noise makes it impossible to use the tablet.

**Thanks in advance for the help!**All suggestions are welcome.

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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Anonymous
2013-03-18T13:25:33+00:00

That sounds like machine noise from the SSD and is dang annoying! I would definitely return it as you likely have a malfunctioning or dying SSD in the SP.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-06-16T20:01:56+00:00

    There's a few peeps over WPcentral reporting the same.

    http://forums.wpcentral.com/surface-windows-8-pro/216067-surface-pro-static-noise.html

    This bums me out soo hard... I really like this piece of kit, but i can't live with the noise and since MS already replaced mine once, i don't see what i can do. Can't bring it back to the store either.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-07-11T07:27:05+00:00

    You can try following:

    POSSIBLE FIX FOR HIGH PITCH NOISE:

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530

    You can disable the ACPI C2-state and C3-state by setting a registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

    1. At a command prompt, run the following command:

    reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Processor /v Capabilities /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0007e066

    1. Restart the computer.

    Note The computer idle power consumption will increase significantly if the deeper ACPI C-states (processor idle sleep states) are disabled.    

      To continue to benefit from these energy-saving states, remove the registry key that you set in step 1 after you install the hotfix that this article describes. To do remove the registry key, follow these steps:

    1. At a command prompt, run the following command:

    reg delete HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Processor /v Capabilities /f

    1. Restart the computer.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-07-12T03:06:13+00:00

    Well, changing the registry definitely fixes it for me.  I think its definitively related to the c-states of the CPU.  However, I'm not sure what the expense is on the battery life.  The silence is very, very nice.

    Anyone try the hotfix?

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