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Strange buzzing/feedback from speakers

J

jjanders

Member
Ok I've had this strange problem for awhile now. I have Creative 7.1 speakers, and they emit a weird buzzing/feedback type noise. It's not all the time, but often. I thought it might be the soundcard but it does it even when my computer is powered off, so I assume that means it's the speakers? The other odd thing is it's loudest as soon as I click the volume on, the further I turn it up, the quieter it gets. If I put the volume all the way up (with no music playing), it is still there, but very faint.

I have tried just plugging one speaker in at a time and checking all 7, and they all do it...does this mean something is messed up in the subwoofer which I plug all the speakers into?

Overall I'm not too happy with the speakers anyway. I think I might pick up some of the Logitech Z-2300s at Newegg when they get back in stock since there is such a great deal on them right now.
 
Ok, so the speakers started making the noise again today...I've thought it might be interference as well, since sometimes it does do it if I am on my cell phone or my cell is nearby.

However, when it happened today I unplugged the sub, volume control, and one speaker, and brought it into a totally different room in my apartment, and plugged everything in. The noise persisted.

Either the area I live is full of electrical interference, or the speakers are bad.

I'm going to bring them into work tomorrow and plug them in there, and see if it happens there too. If so, I figure something inside the sub is causing it. I'm not sure if it's something I can fix or if I should just get new speakers. They're well past the warranty period.
 
Interference is typically caused by a relatively powerful magnetic field acting on the 'low level' signal, that is the cable from the sound card to the speaker and even inside the speaker before reaching the opamp... this magnetic field is usually caused by power lines or the speaker's own power supply. For future reference, this would sound like a typical sinusoidal wave at 50 or 60Hz depending on where you live. I assumed this to be the case until I downloaded the provided file, so you make a very good example that providing a sample of the problem will greatly help in solving it 🙂

After hearing that, it's clear this typical problem is not what you're suffering from. I'm assuming when you moved the speakers to another room, you also took the same computer they were initially plugged into. If you try hooking the speakers up to any other source (possibly another computer), it should confirm my assumption that it's your computer that's at fault. My reason for thinking so is that not only is there an obvious pattern to the noise, it also appears to be a square wave, and those are a result of digital interference.

When you do confirm that it is infact your computer, a possible solution could be to enable AGP spread spectrum in the BIOS... again making an assumption that your motherboard does have AGP. If the computer is the source of the interference, the AGP interface is most likely at fault, although if you don't have an AGP video card, it shouldn't be. If your motherboard does not have AGP or if enabling AGP spectrum does not work, there may also be an option for spread spectrum for other devices, or it may just be 'spread spectrum' in general. Some motherboards do not have this option at all however.

But then again it might be an external problem... the intermittant nature of the noise makes me somewhat skeptical that it could be a computer interface, but because this seems to be the most common problem I'll just assume for now that it is indeed your computer. Try hooking up an MP3/CD player to it, or anything else you might have around, if not another computer.

If you have a wireless router or a wireless digital phone, even though I find it unlikely these could be causing the problem, it's still worth a shot in turning them off.
 
I do have a wireless router in one room. And a wireless adapter hooked up to my X-Box in another room.

I don't think it's the computer because the problem occurs even with the computer off.
 
Do you have a Motorola cell phone?

The last 3 cell phones I've had caused a buzzing and humming every hour or so, but the Motorola MPx220 was the worst. I had a Nokia that did it and now an HP 6515. Try turning your cell off and see if it happens.
 
No Motorola. I have an LG phone and Verizon service.

UPDATE:

I brought the sub and one speaker into work today and hooked it up next to me in my cube. Turned the volume up to about 5/10. Haven't heard the buzzing all day.

Something weird must be going on with the electrical outlets in my apartment, or I have really bad electrical interference in my area.
 
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