My speakers (internal) makes a loud buzzing sound when I set the volume to above 90%

Question

Here's the sound it makes, not sure if it'll help: ONEDRIVE DOWNLOAD LINK, CLYP LINK

It's an internal subwoofer. Here are the details:

DEVICE, DRIVER, AND WI

Device instant path: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0256&SUBSYS_102807E1

Operating system: Windows 10 (x64) Build 17115.rs4_release.180302-1642 (Insider Build)

Driver version installed: 6.0.1.8142

Please help, I'm worried about my laptop

Answer 1

What you are hearing is (almost certainly) an audio feedback loop of some kind. Sound equipment, including sound cards, speakers and microphones, can interact in such a way as to boost the strength of a small input signal to ever increasing volumes of noise. Internal speakers can be particularly prone to this.

Microsoft has some tips on reducing the possibility of feedback, but the gist is to open your Sound Panel to the Recording tab (right-click the Speaker icon in the System Tray and select Recording) and:

• Use the Properties button for your microphone to adjust the Microphone Boost under the Levels tab (lower it).

• Enable any Noise Suppression or Acoustic Echo Cancelation options for the microphone under the Enhancements tab.

Note that, in certain cases, disabling Speaker enhancements (under the Playback tab, also under a given device's Properties -> Enhancements) may help resolve some issues as well. As a small caveat, these options are hardware/software specific so they may or may not be available for you.

Issues can also be caused by using certain audio software. Regarding differences in audio handling, take Audacity and Voicemeeter Banana for instance. With Audacity, incoming audio is muted while recording whereas with Voicemeeter, it isn't. This means that I get audio feedback at anything over 20% volume in Voicemeeter if using my internal microphone and speakers simultaneously.

One other thing to try is to simply move any external microphone away from your PC. If it's some kind of internal interaction with the sound card, however, this may not help. Similarly, this is not an option for internal microphones.

Lastly, if all else fails... Just keep the volume below 90%.