Noise from PSU?

[Savatar]

When I use headphones on some systems, I notice a faint buzzing sound when I browse folders or even move stuff around the screen (?!). It sounds as if the hard drive is seeking, but it is only apparent through headphones, not through speakers - and I am pretty sure it's not the headphone jack itself b/c one of the speaker setups have the headphone jack on the actual external speaker. I think that, somehow, this is a problem with SSDs, since I only started noticing it after moving to a system that had an SSD (my work laptop) - and then noticed the same thing at home when I upgraded to an SSD as well! It didn't happen before that, so I don't suspect a grounding problem. Since I've noticed it on three different systems now it's become 'normal' to me now... but I am really at a loss for what this could be, and it is very distracting when listening to music.

I've been curious about this for a long time but never found a good, solid answer online... the most plausible explanation seems to be the power supply somehow... so I thought I might ask here. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causing it, or how to prevent it? Has anyone else experienced this?

These posts seem to describe similar issues:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1870485/constant-buzzing-static-extremely-faint-sound.html
http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/22316-buzzing-noise-when-headphones-plugged.html
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16171743#16171743
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/254618-28-making-squealing-noise-mouse-scrolling-help

 

[pipm1]

Have a play around with the various channels on your sound card. I used to have a similar issue with noise when moving the mouse around & found that muting the CD channel (i think) fixed it.

 

[john3850]

I had the same problem after installing a G500 mouse with new Sennheiser headphones only when connected to a amp.
The only thing that worked was to connect speakers to rear output and put the headphones on the front which was a pain.
Replaced the Sennheiser headphones with a Soul headphone few days ago and the noise is gone.