A few months ago my Surface Book acquired a problem with the sound. Every time any sound plays, all I hear is what sounds like a sound clip of a failing hard disc drive - a squealing, mechanical sound. It also sounds like a blown speaker, which is what the
Best Buy tech suggested it was. It disappears when I plug into the docking station - sound through those speakers is fine.
But something is fishy about that explanation. First, the sound doesn't vary in volume as I move the volume control up and down. Second, as I go through the sound clip menu and sample them, the sound plays for the same amount of time (about five seconds)
no matter how short the actual clip is. On longer clips or MP3s the sound will persist as long as the clip is active. This suggests that every sound has been remapped to produce this particular sound clip.
I went through the whole Microsoft support routine, and finally did the full destructive reinstall of Win 10, but the problem either persisted through the reinstall or reoccurred, before I even restored a single file from my backups. Based on the hardware
theory, I have asked for a warranty replacement of the computer, which is due in a few days. But I am afraid that somehow the new computer will get this as well. My questions:
- Can a Surface Book be infected by a boot sector virus that would persist through a full reinstall? If so, is there a way to detect / remove it? All my Windows Defender scans are clean.
- I noticed when I brought the computer up after the Win 10 reinstall, it pulled a bunch of my saved configuration data from my "account" somehow (specifically, my Edge configuration). Can that stored data be infected, and might it infect the new computer
when I bring it up a few days hence?
Thanks for any help you can provide.