How much buzzing is acceptable on a panasonic plasma?

I have about 2 weeks left to exchange it but I can't find anything concrete on the net about how much noise my panasonic tc-p60st30 should make. Some people say if you can hear is more than 2 feet away it's broken. Some say what I'm hearing is normal. It sounds like a really loud computer hard drive seeking\\writing\
eading frantically when there's a lot of white, grey, light black, or pure black on the screen suddenly. Mainly when transitioning from one scene to another in a movie or going from one commercial to the next. I'm running a break in slide show right now and it's definitely related to the color on the screen at the time. It's not as big of a deal when the volume is up but there's always times when it gets quiet and I hear those tiny jackhammers going off in the tv. My couch is about 10 feet away and it's very noticeable unless unless something louder is covering it up. Am I just going to get the same thing if I lug this thing back to frys? My old panny 50" was nowhere near as bad and my dads 60" panny from a couple years back is pretty much silent.

Thank you for your quick responses. I'll return it asap.

The new one does it too. It may be a little less noisy than the last one. I'm still trying to decide.

I turned off C.A.T.S. and motion smoother. Everything else is default. It came set to standard mode with brightness\\contrast etc set at 50 iirc an d sharpness at 75.

I did some tweaking on the set. Not 100% sure it did anything about the sound but I'm definitely not noticing it as much as with the first one I had. If I wasn't looking for it on this one I may have never thought about. It's louder than my old 50" but better than the one I traded it in for. I think I can live with it but I get the impression panasonic may have started cheaping out on parts. I'll give it some time. The picture is fantastic I don't feel as bad as I would have if I hadn't gotten it on sale.

This is true but it's a bummer that it's getting worse instead of better over time. You'd think they would keep improving in all aspects the better they get at making them. It is a better set in every other way except the noise but I would have paid another $20 for some kind of sound dampener or something. Whatever works.

My set doesn't have thx mode but it's definitely related to how bright the screen is at the moment. A minute ago I had the PS3 menu screen up and was switching between standard mode and cinema mode. Standard mode has a default contrast of 50 and cinema\\game have a contrast of 100. It goes like this

standard.....
cinema bzzzzzzzz
standard......
cinema bzzzzzzzzz

Back and forth like clockwork with obvious cause and effect. Standard looks a lot dimmer. Hopefully panasonic can put in a "silenced" board or whatever it is.

While I have a thread going, let me ask another question of other owners of this particular set. Do you even see a pattern that looks like rain or sleet that's being driven by wind when large sections of the picture are changing gradually from white to black or dark to grey? It does this on the new one AND the one I replaced with it. I wasn't sure if I was really seeing this or not but I pinpointed it today. I had my pc output to the plasma to watch some internet tv and I noticed it plain as day every time I open the Firefox browser. As you may have noticed firefox has a new theme today because of the whole SOPA thing. When you open it, it starts out white and fades to a black background. Every single time I do this the whole white to black transition area is covered in lines flying all over the place starting at about darkish grey and it stops once the whole area has turned black and stays still. I switched back to my dell lcd monitor to make sure it wasn't the source and it doesn't happen at all. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THESE ST30'S!?

EDIT: Actually now that I've looked a little closer the artifacts don't really stop. I looked closely at the still black background on the firefox search page and there are lines all over the place shifting around! Somebody suggested turning off noise reduction but to no avail. Then I tried turning black level to dark and this seems to have worked, but now I have to tweak all the other settings again so the dark black mode won't make it look like somebodys nightmare. I'll try lowering overall brightness so it doesn't look so drastic.

EDIT #2: I got the black background blizzard to go away by turning the "Video NR" to strong. Weak and medium don't cut it.

Panasonic is sending a local tech out next thursday, fingers crossed. If they can't fix this I may have to return it for store credit. I never thought I'd see the day that I considered an lcd.

They replaced everything that could be removed. It didn't work.

Taking the back of the set off looked pretty easy. If I can't get used to it maybe I'll put some sound proofing stuff on every possible surface that doesn't block ventilation holes.

Welp, I called panasonic to see what they say and they insist I shouldn't be able to hear it across the room and that I should call the techs that swapped out the boards to have them do it again. It's their money I guess. 4th time's the charm!

I told the dude on the phone to tell me if I'm insane and to let me know if this is just how these sets are but he insisted that you shouldn't be able to hear it across the room and that I should get the boards swapped again to see what happens. I guess if you do it enough times they send out an actual panasonic employee instead of a contractor to see if you're full of it or not. Seems like that would be the first thing they would do to avoid fixing a bunch of sets that aren't broken but whatever. I'll give it another shot.