White/Static noise like hiss sound from earphones when a sound is played or microphone is accessed

[csuwalaka]

Hi,

I've purchased HP EliteBook 840 G2 (model number: N1H21PP#ACJ) recently.

Issue in short:

Static noise sound audible through the earphones when sound or microphone service is activated or device powers on.

Details:

When an application or driver itself is accessing the sound or microphone, a static hiss sound comes from the earphones (Same sound we listen when we tick the "Listen this device" option in recording devices (microphones) settings but at lower volume or sound of raining or when we tune to wrong frequency in radio). The sound is not noticeable in the noisy environment but greatly noticeable and really annoying when you are in silent environment like in the packed room.

Occurrences:

1) It happens even when OS is in booting condition and it starts just after few seconds the laptop gets power on.

2-1) Also, this sound comes as soon as the application access the sound (VLC, YouTube video playback via any browser including Microsoft edge, google chrome, Mozilla Firefox) (If I pause the playback and stay there, the sound will still be there for more time like till 30 seconds like something is active to produce that sound continuously) or

2-2) microphone (Zoom, WebEx or any app accessing the microphone including the browsers. *When microphone is active the noise sound won't stop till we stop microphone service by closing the app accessing it like zoom).

3) any application which has sound permission is opened like I opened LinkedIn and that static sound is audible through the earphones which stops after few seconds as there was no video was being played on the homepage's visible window.

.

If I close that application accessing the sound (YouTube tab, vlc) or pause the video and stay away from source (like YouTube video tab in the browser) for sometime, or close the application accessing the microphone (zoom, WebEx etc.),  the noise sound stops until something try to access the sound/microphone again or we play the video or open the zoom etc.

More info:

This sound will come even when you mute every playback device from the sound icon or physical sound mute button or reduce the sound level to zero when the sound/microphone service is being accessed. It is just the noise level will reduce greatly but what the use of it if we can't hear from the YouTube video or can't talk via microphone at that time. If we pause the sound source like YouTube video tab, the sound will not come if we muted the sound from the physical button and kept away from the sound source (YouTube video tab for example) and then after sometime coming back to that browser tab having YouTube video in the paused condition. But as soon as the video is played, the noise sound comes again and after pausing the video again it stop again after 5-10 seconds.

Troubleshoots tried:

I tried many solutions from the internet and HP forums like reinstalling the Realtek sound driver with n number of methods from sound icon and device manager, windows update and local device etc., disabling sound enhancements, selecting highest sound quality from playback devices etc. I reset the windows 10 OS and reinstalled the OS n number of times.

I tested this issue with different earphones (including wireless-Bluetooth earphones means not a audio jack issue), different OS like Linux, n number of formatting of hard drive, n number of bios update, bios reinstall, partitioning via MBR (BIOS) and GPT(UEFI) then applying all the listed methods.

Important:

I tested same model laptop at a shop and found the same static sound issue in that laptop. But there is no such issue at higher model like HP 840 G3. And I read somewhere that this issue exist in HP 840 and HP 840 G2 models but not in 840 G1 and 840 G3. So, I'm surprised why HP didn't provide any software patch or recalled the product at that time.

Final:

What I understood by observation is that either the sound driver wakes and sleeps and the feedback is given to earphone by that hiss sound like we hear fan sound when it spins or Maybe due to some hardware bug, the microphone's static sound is being transferred/leaked to audio channel of the earphone without selecting option "listen this device" in the recording devices settings. It is making the user's experience bad by giving the sound feedback through earphones.

Sorry for the long essay. Any solution or guidance will be appreciated and I'll be grateful if HP provide any patch or official solution for this problem. I'm ready to talk in technical terms if there is any solution for this problem. Thanks in advance.