I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:21 pm

I have never come across this before

I wouldn't think it is a grounding issue as it's not constant

but when my external hard drive is accessed, or even when I scroll up and down pages in firefox with the mouse scroll wheel then I hear noise through my sub woofer that quite clearly coincides with it!

anyone had this before? know what it is?

tis worrysome..

I have a laptop with 4pin firewire into FW410 which is plugged into the sub

the mouse is plugged in through an old unpowered USB hub and the hard drive is plugged in to a different USB2 port on the laptop

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:28 pm

I've had the same thing happen, but I don't know what caused it. Sometimes it seemed to be location dependent, which made me think it was a power issue....other times it seemed pretty random. It wasn't just coming through the sub, though, but through all speakers.

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:31 pm

I have a USB mouse hooked up to Macbook Pro and when there is no sound or music going on (rare) I can hear a very faint sort of bleepy-whirring when I use the scroll wheel or left-click etc.

I'm using Firewire Ultralite btw.

siliconarc · Post by **siliconarc** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:45 pm

if the soundcard is bus powered try using the wallwart that came with it. my saffire le makes all types of squirrelly noises when bus powered.

Deadbeat · Post by **Deadbeat** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:46 pm

Hi guys

It's a very common problem witn PC laptops that use a 3 prong plug. Solution is to ground lift it with an adapter or failing that rip the round ground plug out entirely.

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:49 pm

try doing it while running on batteries.
if it doesn't happen anymore, it means it's a ground loop problem.

eamoon · Post by **eamoon** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:54 pm

Also, if the laptop is plugged into an external monitor try unplugging that -- the DVI port on laptops often seems to have weird grounding issues.

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 5:02 pm

thanks all

eamoon wrote:Also, if the laptop is plugged into an external monitor try unplugging that -- the DVI port on laptops often seems to have weird grounding issues.

actually I wondered this - because the lead to the monitor is a bit dodgy and it seems to relate to things on screen too - for example, even when I hover the mouse over links on this forum that change as you hover (like turn bold on mouse over) then I hear a noise

I will try all these things

unfortunately as I am doing voiceover stuff for a living I had to move the laptop out of the way and just use external keyboard/monitor and mouse otherwise the laptop fan noise etc is right next to my mic and very noisy

I also wondered if my USB hub had somethign to do with it because there have been times I've hot plugged or unplugged and got a blue screen so it is possibly a bit dodgy

{edit] BTW Eamoon - you must be one of the loldest posters on this forum! I just noticed your join date!!!

Newecho · Post by **Newecho** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:17 am

forge wrote:I have never come across this before

I wouldn't think it is a grounding issue as it's not constant

I had a similar problem and lifting the ground on the speakers fixed it. If it ends up being ground related, you might want to check out the the The Hum X Exterminator. I blogged about it here http://www.modulatethis.com/2008/09/rem ... und-l.html.

I've not tried this gadget myself yet, but plan to. Anyone else out there have luck with this solution?

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:02 am

Newecho wrote:
forge wrote:I have never come across this before

I wouldn't think it is a grounding issue as it's not constant

I had a similar problem and lifting the ground on the speakers fixed it. If it ends up being ground related, you might want to check out the the The Hum X Exterminator. I blogged about it here http://www.modulatethis.com/2008/09/rem ... und-l.html.

I've not tried this gadget myself yet, but plan to. Anyone else out there have luck with this solution?

wow - that actually fixed it thanks Mark - I have never seen bad grounding manifest like that!

Newecho · Post by **Newecho** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:46 am

forge wrote:
Newecho wrote:
forge wrote:I have never come across this before

wow - that actually fixed it thanks Mark - I have never seen bad grounding manifest like that!

Hey no problem glad that cleared up the problem.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:34 am

Deadbeat wrote:Hi guys

It's a very common problem witn PC laptops that use a 3 prong plug. Solution is to ground lift it with an adapter or failing that rip the round ground plug out entirely.

did you ever stop to think that ground plug was there for a reason?

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:46 am

Johnisfaster wrote:
Deadbeat wrote:Hi guys

It's a very common problem witn PC laptops that use a 3 prong plug. Solution is to ground lift it with an adapter or failing that rip the round ground plug out entirely.
did you ever stop to think that ground plug was there for a reason?

she'll be right

Newecho · Post by **Newecho** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:02 am

Johnisfaster wrote:
Deadbeat wrote:Hi guys

It's a very common problem witn PC laptops that use a 3 prong plug. Solution is to ground lift it with an adapter or failing that rip the round ground plug out entirely.
did you ever stop to think that ground plug was there for a reason?

Your absolutely right. I was just trying to help isolate the problem. Fixing the root cause is the smart thing to do. The really strange thing about this issue when I had is that you don't hear the classic 60hz hum. You just hear the sound when the head seeks on the HD.

Johnifaster, thoughts on this gadet http://www.modulatethis.com/2008/09/rem ... und-l.html?

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:25 am

there is a good article in SOS on this: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul05/a ... 0705_1.htm

years ago I used to work for an AV company where my boss used to just bend the earth pin all the time - really dodgy when you think about it. especially with public liability and all that - but it kind of got me into the habit, but as it says in this article, probably not wise in case there is a fault, and with a curious 6 year old in the house I guess I'm going to have to go through the tedious problem solving process

the suggestion in that article to make up 'pseudo unbalanced leads' looks like a good idea - that never would have occurred to me as I would have just assumed it would be counter productive, but he seems to think it's worth it

guess it's time to get a new soldering iron and make up some leads!

cheers

I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer

I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer

Re: I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer

Re: I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer

Re: I can hear my PC thinking through my sub-woofer