Stuck on troubleshooting my buzzing sound from the front headphone jack when GPU is under load.

Nibbzey · October 4, 2019

I've tried my best at trying to figure out where the buzzing sound originates from and I'm a little stumped and not sure what to try/check next. I've read a bunch of forums before posting this but I couldn't find any information on what to do next.

So far I've concluded that the buzzing sound only comes from the front headphone jack when the GPU is under load, i.e. when playing games. If I plug my headphones on the backside directly to the MB I won't get any buzzing sound at all.
Realtek drivers are updated to the newest version from MSI website but nothing changed.
I tried rerouting the audio cable from the MB to the front panel via the "left side" so that it was as far away from any other cable as possible without any change.
I've disconnected both of the USB cables from the MB and front panel to conclude that it is not a USB ground issue.
Everything is connected to one power strip and I've tried different outlets.

But as you can see in this video https://imgur.com/a/NQwzzI3 I've noticed that I can make the "noise" sound a lot higher by pulling the headphone cable towards the back of the PC and if i push the cable slightly forwards I can make the buzzing sound disappear completely. And finally I noticed that if a push a little on the metal shield where the front PCB is mounted on, I can make the sound disappear aswell.

I believe that it might be a ground issue? I think that when I move the cable I make some of the components in the front PCB touch the metal plating where the PCB is mounted on and it's then picked up by the audio jack. I'm not well educated in electricity and not sure how to check/confirm if this is true. I would like to try and lift off the PCB with the metal plating from the chassi but I'm afraid it could cause a short? I have a multimeter but not sure how to use it for this. So if anyone here could give me any advice I would really appreciate it.

Specs

MSI Codex XE 9SD-258EU

MB: Z370-A PRO

CPU: i5-9600K

GPU: MSI RTX 2070 Armor

Faisal A · October 4, 2019

This seems like a static/ground interference issue. Try to ground your headphone jack externally if you are experienced with electronics

Nibbzey · October 4, 2019

@Faisal A

I'm not that experienced with electronics and not sure on how to ground the headphone jack. Could you send me a link or any information on how I could do it?

I created a smal album with pictures on how the front PCB looks https://imgur.com/a/9JORq3D, I removed the PCB with the metal shield from the PC case and noticed that the noise got louder and that if i touched the metal shield with the case, the noise got much quieter, but as before, even when the metals where touching I still heard the noise through my headphones when in a game and I had to push a little on the headphone cable and that made the noise disappear completely.