What is that buzzing?

[Troyair One 5]

No, it's not the propeller.  I discovered a rather perplexing issue.  When in MSFS, and only when in MSFS, there is a very faint buzzing noise in my headphones.  It almost sounds like static or interference like you might hear from a fan, but it's only buzzing when in MSFS.  It does it during the initial loading screen (AFTER the Press Any Key screen) in the menu or in the sim.  Volume sliders and other settings do absolutely nothing to the buzzing at all. The sound stutters with changes in activity, whether it be sound or graphics, like hovering over a menu, selecting something, switching menus...anything...even if it's just loading something.  But here is where it gets even weirder:  If I have MSFS in windowed mode, and I click and hold on the title bar, it stops.   Sound continues in the sim normally, everything's fine, but no buzz while the title bar is held.  Click in the window to select a menu or spin the globe...still buzzes.  This does not happen with anything else on my system -- I am also a musician who records audio on the same computer I use for MSFS.

Is anyone else able to duplicate this?  It's pretty weird.


 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Troyair One
Added sentence about volume sliders.

[darcartisan 0]

+1 on this topic.  I can't find anything on Steam forums on this topic either.

[reecemj 151]

+1 but once the engine gets going I cant hear it

Edited September 7, 2020 by reecemj

[Sticky 269]

I doubt that MS designed the buzz intentionally, but...

Old beater planes like that make all sorts of noises.  The intercoms hum or buzz, the radios make a tone when transmitting etc.  Even larger airlines have subtle differences between them...even within fleet types..window seals squeal above certain PSIs...windshield wipers whistle above certain airspeeds...even high angles of attacks can cause funny wind noises.  Recirculation fans moan and groan with age...air conditioning packs age causing whooshing surges on occasion..

You get the point 🙂

[snglecoil 1,828]

Search for “coil whine.” That could be what you are hearing. Even if you don’t physically hear it coming from your card, GPUs are prone to emitting all sorts of noise under heavy loads that will be picked up by speakers/headphones. I had the same issue with a few games that really pushed my GPU. MSFS was by far the worst. Thankfully a new set of balanced cables to my studio monitors solved the issue for me. Not sure what might help with headphones 

[ShawnG 1,823]

On 8/22/2020 at 12:02 AM, Troyair One said:

No, it's not the propeller.  I discovered a rather perplexing issue.  When in MSFS, and only when in MSFS, there is a very faint buzzing noise in my headphones.  It almost sounds like static or interference like you might hear from a fan, but it's only buzzing when in MSFS.  It does it during the initial loading screen (AFTER the Press Any Key screen) in the menu or in the sim.  Volume sliders and other settings do absolutely nothing to the buzzing at all. The sound stutters with changes in activity, whether it be sound or graphics, like hovering over a menu, selecting something, switching menus...anything...even if it's just loading something.  But here is where it gets even weirder:  If I have MSFS in windowed mode, and I click and hold on the title bar, it stops.   Sound continues in the sim normally, everything's fine, but no buzz while the title bar is held.  Click in the window to select a menu or spin the globe...still buzzes.  This does not happen with anything else on my system -- I am also a musician who records audio on the same computer I use for MSFS.

Is anyone else able to duplicate this?  It's pretty weird.


 

Are you using an external audio interface or mobo sound chip?  If the former, msfs might be trying to use more than one stereo channel.  Go into your interface, and mute channels until it goes away.  Just a guess.  Also a recording musician.

[rob0203 697]

It is the cosmic microwave background of the Big Bang 

Edited September 7, 2020 by rob0203

[Radial9 69]

I have the exact same issue driving me nuts through my headphones. It has started doing it in both MS2020, which I just got up and running the last few days, and it occasionally does it in P3D.

When I exit the aircraft to a menu, it stops, when I enter the cockpit, it's there,

I'm going with the GPU emitting RF noise. Make sense, I have a 2080TI 13G brand new card in a brand new Jetline Systems PC.

I have the setting pumping in MS2020 fairly high, but dialed some setting back to not max out both frame rates and monitored GPU usage. might have to tweak some more and see the results.

Thanks for posting this. I was going nuts thinking it was my headphone manufacturer software or drivers. It only appears while in game in the cockpit so I began to eliminate that possibility.

It's annoying,

[wisefox7524 9]

Anyone have a fix for this? It's driving me nuts...

I've already tried limiting the FPS via nvidia control panel..

[micstatic 4,337]

I had brief intermittent electrical noises in my wireless headset at times.  This was when I was on the last CPU I had.  When I changed motherboards on my rebuild the noise went away.  It was real weird.