Question to audio experts... background noise

Lennart Sorensen lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
Mon Jan 11 22:19:45 UTC 2010


On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 02:02:45PM -0800, William Park wrote:
> I don't have much experience with what is normal for sound card.
> So, I thought I should ask audio experts here...
> 
> I get high-frequency background noise when I plug in my earphones
> directly into "front line-out" (green) of integrated sound card.  I can
> hear the noise change as I move mouse, type something on keyboard,
> or do something on screen.  My guess is "grounding" problem.  But,
> when I plug in my external 2.1 speaker system, the high-pitch noise
> becomes noticeable only at max volume.
> 
> Is this normal for all sound card or just integrated ones?
> Maybe one shouldn't plug earphones/headphones directly into front
> speaker jack?

Perhaps your headphones are more sensitive than the speakers.  A lot of
onboard audio has had noise issues over the years, although they seem
much better now than they used to be.

Now in some cases you could have noise from an input, in which case
muting them might help.  Also some cards (like the sb live) have horrible
clipping issues and noise if the master volume is set above about 80%,
so keep that one below 80%.

Now if moving the mouse can give noise, it sounds like one awfully badly
designed motherboard.  Not sure if the powersupply can have any impact
on noise through ground between devices.

A friend at university 10 years ago had a machine where all network
and disk IO made noticeable noises on the sound output.  That was very
annoying.  The mouse and keyboard didn't seem to, but perhaps we never
noticed due to the disk and network problems.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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