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#1
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast , Windows Defender and Windows firewall. (1) TB HD Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz Ram 12.0 GB System type : 64-bit operating system I also have I have a Dell Optiplex 780 Tower, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1, with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast , Windows Defender and Windows firewall. Intel (R) Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHz 4GB RAM, 750 GB HD System type : 64-bit operating system and (external hard drives) (8500) WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (780) Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive The problem concerns the 8500; I have an intermittent problem, for some reason when I logged on today there's a humming/buzzing sound coming from the speakers. This has happened several times recently. I haven't done a thing other than logging on. I tried restarting and disconnecting and reconnecting the speaker connections but it doesn't seem to go away until I power off/on. So what could this be? Thoughts/suggestions Robert |
#2
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
Mark Twain wrote:
I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1, with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast , Windows Defender and Windows firewall. (1) TB HD Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz Ram 12.0 GB System type : 64-bit operating system I also have I have a Dell Optiplex 780 Tower, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1, with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast , Windows Defender and Windows firewall. Intel (R) Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHz 4GB RAM, 750 GB HD System type : 64-bit operating system and (external hard drives) (8500) WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (780) Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive The problem concerns the 8500; I have an intermittent problem, for some reason when I logged on today there's a humming/buzzing sound coming from the speakers. This has happened several times recently. I haven't done a thing other than logging on. I tried restarting and disconnecting and reconnecting the speaker connections but it doesn't seem to go away until I power off/on. So what could this be? Thoughts/suggestions Robert Debug by section. 1) Plug headphones into the LineOut Jack of the 8500, where the speakers are currently connected. Is the headphone sound clean ? 2) Plug a portable source (Sony Walkman, iPod, or similar) to the speakers. Is the humming and buzzing still there, with a driven source (that floats with respect to AC) ? I even have a transistor radio that will serve for this purpose (an FM radio with a synthesizer tuner). It's possible the amplified speakers have a leaking cap in the power supply section. Since you had a "power event" at your place, and all your gear operated for a time at the wrong voltage, just about anything could be wrong with it. But first you want to separate the 8500 from the speakers, as in (2) and verify the speakers are the author of their own misfortune. When my computer speakers acted up, I ended up running a finger over the solder points inside it, until I found a solder point that "made a difference" and the sound started working properly again. I re-soldered that point (it was a cold solder joint). Trouble is though, some computer speakers are *glued* shut, so this is not as easy as it seems. They can be very hard to open up. I actually used a saw on mine, and sawed a slot where I could get prying tools jammed into the seam and used brute strength to separate the glue. And the speaker still works :-) It no longer looks all that nice though. I won't be selling it on Ebay ("slightly used, some scratches"). Paul |
#3
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
I don't have headphones, a walkman
or iPod etc. to test and the speakers are brand new Harman Kardon (after the electrician fried all my components) https://www.google.com/search?q=Harm...lboe9gT-etK1M: When I logged on later everything is back to normal. As I say, it's intermittent. Robert |
#4
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
Mark Twain wrote:
I don't have headphones, a walkman or iPod etc. to test and the speakers are brand new Harman Kardon (after the electrician fried all my components) https://www.google.com/search?q=Harm...lboe9gT-etK1M: When I logged on later everything is back to normal. As I say, it's intermittent. Robert Does the Harmon Kardon have a two or three prong plug ? Computer speakers should have a two prong plug. This prevents ground loops from forming. The 1/8" plug has the only ground between the two units, so there's no ground loop. If the audio equipment has three prongs, it *might* need a hum-breaker, which is a form of transformer coupling between units. These require precisely constructed transformers for best results (some of these have a bandwidth of 10KHz or so, not that impressive). You can also solve hum problems, by using stuff like TOSLink between units (optical interconnect, red LED light flowing over plastic large aperture dental fiber). You would have to look at the input options on the HK speakers, to see if there's another way to get there (a way that avoids this stuff). I've never really owned any "spectacular" audio gear, and 1/8" audio input is about as fancy as anything I've had on my gear here. I didn't even have S'PDIF to play with. ******* I've had your problem, between my Mac G4 and the stereo I used for other sources. And the Mac G4 was the only one with funny radio station noises, hum and other garbage. I never managed to fix that. While it's possible to couple radio station signals into audio cables, and have them rectified by the front end of the speaker or stereo, it's hard to say why this happens. I could use the same cable between two different audio sources, have the problem on one source and not the other. Lots of devices in the room with you, use capacitors on input and output for DC blocking. This is supposed to prevent one device from applying a DC input to a transistor on the input of another device, and driving it into a non-linear area of operation. If you look at the sound chip on the computer motherboard, it uses capacitors on all inputs and outputs for this reason. A defective capacitor might cause a problem, but when it happens identically on both left and right channel, you have to wonder whether it's a design issue. You could also move audio with something like Bluetooth, but the default profile for audio isn't all that good. And that would also add latency, which might upset lip sync while watching movies. Paul |
#5
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
The Harmon Kardon speakers use a
two prong. Here's the setup connections: https://www.google.com/search?biw=17...u-MK58fLu9ONM: It's odd that it's intermittent, you would think if it were a capacitor it would happen all the time. Well, I guess I'll just live with it and just power off/on when it happens. Thanks, Robert |
#6
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O.T. Speakers static/humming
Mark Twain wrote:
The Harmon Kardon speakers use a two prong. Here's the setup connections: https://www.google.com/search?biw=17...u-MK58fLu9ONM: It's odd that it's intermittent, you would think if it were a capacitor it would happen all the time. Well, I guess I'll just live with it and just power off/on when it happens. Thanks, Robert So that looks to me, like a 2.1 amplified computer speaker, with LineOut for the satellites and CenterSub connector for the larger speaker in the base unit ? Are both audio connectors plugged into the computer ? Do you have a center-sub connector on the 8500 ? I presume so. According to the standard colors table here, black is "Surround" and lime-green is "front left and front right". You would think they'd want an orange connector for a center-sub (so the computer can send a "sub" signal to make the larger speaker in the base unit work). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide If you leave the second connector "floating", it might pick up hum. Especially as the Sub probably extends to 60Hz for the hum (the Sub would normally be band-limited as to which frequencies it could reproduce). You also want the computer audio settings in the 8500, set to a setting which "matches" the wiring you're using. If your speakers are 2.1, and two plugs are used, you want to select "2.1" in some output selection panel to match. You have a bunch of stuff to check. I thought originally, this was a simple 2-channel setup, with a single green plug to plug in. If you left a plug unplugged, that could well explain the extraneous noises. Paul |
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