PC System noise?

archon

well i just got myself an XP, p4 2mb ram and 330gb HDD pc to make all my recording stuff run nice and you know what? the old win2k AMD 1.4 512mb ram and 40 gb HDD was better!

the toneport wont work due to a chipset compatibility problem and the GNX cant be recorded with because the USB noise of the pc is so loud its pretty much at the same volume as the audio!

any suggestion on copping with this sort of loud background system noise? because at the moment this is the most expensive paper weight i have ever bought!

zap

See Music Computer Articles about midway down for tweaking XP and troubleshooting PC noise for leads. http://www.pcmus.com/AudioTips.htm

So your GNX DID work before on win2K. I have winME and winOffice2K but don't want another paper weight either. That site above has your 240 V and 50 Hz so please keep us posted of your findings. He covers a detailed internal noise list.

archon

Thanks for the heads up - that was a useful article! - i tried all his tips on ground loops and 50hz hum but they didnt work - i could still hear my hard drive as static over the speakers no matter whether i was using the Soundcard or the gnx - Then i disconnected the soundcard from my Hi-Fi and everything went nice and mellow and quiet - so long as the GNX is the default sound card device everything works beautifully - and apparently the toneport is just not compaitble with certain types of intel onboard USB architecture - installing a cheap £5 usb 2 card will over ride this architecture and cure the problem (apparently!) so i dont know if its that i just got a base unit with a crap soundcard or if there was some kind of feeback going on - but taking the soundcard out of the equation made everything work properly.

makes me realise how silent this new tower is!! id gotten so used to the monstrous fan noise on the old one!

thehootman

Yeah the new intel cpu coolers are really good. I've got 4 case fans, the cpu fan, the power supply fan and the graphics fan and its half the loudness of my old AMD one, with just 2 fans....

By the way, never install sound cards next to your graphics card, it can produce sound like you ave described. Put it in the PCI slot furthest away from the graphics.

archon

I just installed a belkin usb 2 card as far away from everything else as possible - its fine now, the toneport works and even the electrical noise from my soundcard and GNX3000 has stopped - the soundcard musnt have liked having powered USB devices so close to the speaker out or something (the onboard USB and Soundcard were adjacent to each other) - sure hope its all grounded properly in there! but - problem appears to be solved so thanks for everyone's input.

pieces

I can't stand computer fan noise. AMD 64x2 based boxes are extremely quite.. you hear almost nothing unless there is a heavy CPU consuming job running... It's because of the new smart fans. For the laptops Centrino CPUS are very quite.

archon

well i installed new USB card and disabled the onboard one but the toneport still makes the most evil white noise every now and again!

luckily my trusty GNX sounds clean, but intermittently crashes sonar...sigh