The CPU fan is a fickle thing. My old fan would not make much noise when the CPU workload was low or high, but it would get very noisy inbetween when the CPU was working on some "medium demanding" thing. And then if it was summer or winter mattered too a bit.

That said, they do get very dusty after a while, so I do recommend you clean the fan as soon as possible.

It may also help to check to make sure there aren't any wires that are vibrating against it. I've had that happen in the past due to a wire that wasn't secured properly. God, that noise got annoying.

The CPU doesn't buzz. It's a solid state device. The CPU fan is another matter. Buzzing is either from a fan somewhere or some other moving device such as a hard drive or a spinning DVD. Likely a fan as posted above.

You possibly notice it when you pause the game since the regular game sound drowns out the buzzing. Case reverb is another consideration.

Thanks for the recommendations guys. I tried cleaning it out and it was pretty clean already, I remember I had cleaned it out a few weeks ago. I managed to record the sound of the buzzing.

I cannot post links so try and following the following to reach the recording. As you can hear I pause and unpause the game, making the buzzing start and stop. At the very end I close the game.

soundcloud.com /zook024 / buzzing

Truth be told I cannot say for certain it is coming from the CPU, just that it is coming from that general area inside the case, could be coming from the motherboard or graphics card for all I know. What baffles me is why it would only be occurring in the menus of Skyrim and nothing else.

And for reference this is my build,

pcpartpicker.com / user / Zook024 / saved / 2WmI

Hmm, i am on a net cafe so i can't hear it loud enough....

I see you have a liquid cooling CPU system.

Either way it comes from the liquid CPU cooling system, PSU fan, or your GPU fans.

It could be a case fan too. (you have one of the back, one on the top and one sideways)

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Open you case, and examine your fans.

Either way, first whilst playing and then if you open skyrim menus. (with open case !!!)

Which fan makes this buzzing noise ???

Unfortunately it is not coming from of the fans, it is coming from the area of the motherboard where the CPU and the graphic card sit, very difficult to determine the exact source.

Because this is only coming up while playing Skyrim, the only thing I can think is that is has to be a mod causing the problem. I am currently using an ENB and several miscellaneous mods, gotta think that must be the problem. What I think I am going to do is uninstall the game entirely and perform a clean install and see if it is still present in vanilla with no mods or other alterations.

If you don't mind, that would be a good start. !!!

Actually, i saw your system....just AWESOME. !!!!!

Most likely its capacitor on the motherboard (or any component) "squealing". To fix you would have to replace the caps that are vibrating or RMA the component.

Well I am happy to report that after performing the clean install and trying it out the buzzing is gone. Very happy that it wasn't a hardware problem! So moral of the story is I just need to keep better track of my mod installs if something funky comes up again.