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sound card noise with hdd activity?

Q

QQuxa

Member
Greetings,

I'm having this problem - whenever there is any disk activity, my sound card starts making bad noises, like cracking and popping and such. This mobo is kinda old, it's ASRock P4AL-800.

Any ideas what could be causing it?

thank you.
 
EMI = electrical magnetic interference. Did this just start happening all the sudden? Get a new sound card? New HD?
 
no.. this has been happening ever since i got this new pc (this is my work pc, at job). the soundcard is integrated in mobo.
 
It sounds like the onboard sound card is crap. Try updating the drivers & motherboard BIOS and if that doesn't work get a PCI sound card.
 
Use Aida 32 and check under [ Devices, Device resources ], see what is sharing the irq with your sound card. You may have a shared resources conflict, just a thought. ronach
 
Wonder if some of his EMI springs on the rear IO shield are not making their connections. That can cause the interference you are hearing. I would check it out Quxa 🙂
 
I was having this same problem and cound not remedy it (also with onboard sound). I ended up getting a Chaintech A700 (I think) that fixed the problem. I think I paid $24.

Page 1 of JBDan's step-by-step looks like it might have the source of the problem, but I could of swore I checked that before I closed the case up. Regardless, I have no desire to go back to on-board sound 🙂
 
i'll try to check the springs. but do you really think it's emi? why would hdd activity create emi? it's spinning all the time anyway! to me, it looks like, i dunno, ide pci traffic interfering with audio traffic.. i tried changing pci latencies for both audio device and ide controller but that didnt help :?
 
Its not the harddrives activity per se: what I'm saying is that the electrical current that runs through all components in your pc create interference among other components. Its just the simple physical properties of electricity hence the reason emi springs are present 🙂 on your I/O! Just check on it we are troubleshooting here 🙂
 
yes but current runs through your harddrive at different rates obviously: while its reading or writing it will use more power. Did you check the springs?
 
no, im at home already 🙂 will check on monday.. i remember having similar problem with old p2 mobo.. i could hear cd-rom spinning up/down on speakers 🙂
 
This always seems to happen with integrated sound. The problem is that it's difficult to properly isolate the sound "card" circuitry from the rest of the motherboard; therefore, the analog pre-amp picks up noise from all the signals coursing through the MB, amplifies the noise, and outputs it to the speakers or headphones.

I have an Asus P4P800-Deluxe which outputs noise during IDE activity, but only through the analog speaker/headphone output. I use the digital audio output, which turns out to be noise-free, to connect to my HT receiver, so that's my work-around.

If your MB supports digital output, you can try a speaker set that supports digital input (or a receiver/speaker combo that supports the same--like many inexpensive new HTIB setups I've seen), a new seperate sound card (might not be an option though, depending where you work), or just live with it if it's not too loud (turn off your speakers unless you're listening to something). Unfortunately, there's probably no free fix.
 
yeah, my home pc also makes noise when i use my wireless mouse - but it's very quiet.. the sound my work pc is making, is like really loud, as loud as the music im listening to, so it's totally unusable.. 🙁
 
any other ideas?
Click to expand...

You don't have an analog CD-Audio cable hooked up, do you? If so, disconnect it (or mute the 'CD Audio' input. In fact, mute anything you're not using.) You want to use DAE anyway, and the analog audio cables pick up noise like nothing else.
 
that cable was my first idea.. but it wasnt that. and i've also muted all playback/recording devices i dont use..
 
you people were right - it was the springs not making enough contact.. i pushed them around and the noise is gone! thanks!

now to solve my usb disk problems 🙂
 
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