Noise from graphicscard??

Hey guys!

I have this weird problem. If I connect a guitar to my soundcard and turn up the volume quite a bit then I can hear a weird buzzing sound when moving Windows in Sonar.

Any ideas? I know there's a PCI-slot to avoid when building a computer for musicmaking but cant remember wich one. The first slot?

My setup is the following:

1. Core 2 Duo E8600
2. 3Gb RAM
3. Asus P5N-e motherboard
4. Windows Vista (yeah spare me your comments)
5. Asus 9800GTX+
6. M-audio Delta 66 with Studio I/O
7. Sonar 7 PE

/M

Are you plugging into a breakout box or directly into the soundcard in the back of the computer? If the latter, it could just be a shielding thing and you might have to experiment with the different PCI slot. Breakout box systems exist to cut down on noise.

Also, does the sound change if you move around the room w/ your guitar?... If so it might be your guitar shielding and the sound might be your system's reaction to the guitar shielding.

I'm sure there's lots of other possibilities.... Just a couple of thoughts.....

Peace,

ORIGINAL: metz


Any ideas? I know there's a PCI-slot to avoid when building a computer for musicmaking but cant remember wich one. The first slot?

it's not even avoiding any slot.. it's trying to get cards to not share IRQ's.. if they do clash to an extent where it causes issues, then normally it's moving a card, my machine shares irq's but turning off the networking helps heaps.. the only thing about slots is the heat, I try to avoid putting a card besides the graphics card if I can.

hmm Dom mentioned about ground / shielding.. which is probably what it is.. without the guitar, you turn the volume and there is no issue?

the guitar or the breakout box is causing it to amplify the noise.. I used to be able to do the same thing with a radio, if it was tuned to near 100fm.. it would antinuate (amplify) the signal , so I could hear mouse moves or the hard drive accessing.

how is the guitar being put into the breakout box via an amp? that also might have shielding problem. It's a case of finding what in the chain is causing that problem.

also check for a ground loop, are you using a wall plug splitter? try using a different one, or use the guitar in a different wall socket to test it. A number of customers I used to have had that problem and it went after changing the wall plug adapter.. the easiest way to explain a ground loop , draw a circle on paper, then a smaller one inside about half the size with one edge touching the larger circle. If you imagine the power going around the 2 circles, obviously the smaller circle has less further to travel and it clashes with the out circles signal.


you can get a ground loop isolator to see if that improves matters , or it's called a npr (?) filter.. they are sometimes used in in-car setups.. I had to use one on my car, but you can use them for other things.. so if I rev'd my car engine, the signal would be audible on the audio output and you'd get audible hum, louder the more you rev'd the car.

If I connect a guitar to my soundcard and turn up the volume quite a bit then I can hear a weird buzzing sound when moving Windows in Sonar.

Interesting. Do you get the weird buzzing sound when moving windows in any other app while sonar is open? Do you get the sound when you move the mouse but not a window. You are not talking about crackles that occurr while something is playing in Sonar are you (dropouts) i. e. it still happens if you have a silent track?

ORIGINAL: aj

It is likely to be a ground loop. There are extensive posts on the forum on this topic if you search for that term.

DO NOT, repeat DO NOT lift grounds to resolve the problem. They are there to protect your life and lifting them seriously compromises your safety. If that doesn't sway you then also consider that ungrounded equipment which is not specifically designed to be double-insulated is likely to end up raised significantly above earth potential when not grounded. Plugging a lead in from such a piece of equipment into a mixer or audio interface is likely to induce a voltage spike which can destroy or at the least degrade the preamp input into which you plug it.

You can resolve ground loops but this is done by using balanced I/O, not by lifting grounds. See some of the other posts on the topic.

AJ:

I appreciate your post, and agree. As I indicated in my first post, I intend to bring my electrician back into the studio within the next few months (after some equipment changes) to review my grounding issues - fortunately only my Yamaha's were having a problem.

I would also add that I own a Delta 44 and have found it to be very noisy and not useful even in balanced mode for even the most moderate of recordings.

-D

A few things to remember:

1) Ground loops not only result in hum and buzz noises, but also high frequency noises that modulate into the audio spectrum (like moving the mouse, graphics card activity, etc).

2) Using a balanced line does not necessarily fix ground problems. Sometimes you still need to lift the ground on the audio cable on one end because the ground loop is causing currents to flow in the ground wiring that causes them to be picked up at any number of places throughout your audio setup. Of course you can only lift the ground wire on balanced audio cables, not unbalanced audio cables.

3) Make sure you use ferrite filters on digital cables like Firewire interface cables etc.

SilkTone

What happens when you move your guitar away from the monitor? The pup(s) could be interacting with the screen, especially if it is a CRT. If you are sitting in front of your PC and tracking with a hot or tapped pup you are probably introducing noise into your track even when you can't hear it.

Worth a try to step away from the machine and see if it still produces noise

Luck

I tried using one of those once, but the problem was that the isolation transformer inside the isolation box was so badly shielded that I got more noise when using it. You might be able to get better ones that have proper shielding.

What I learned from this exercise is that equipment with balanced connections is the way to go. For me I use an Alesis io26 for the in/out to the DAW and it has balanced inputs. For system sounds and other non critical audio I have an older Emu 0404 PCI card which only has unbalanced i/o. So, I had to put the isolaters on the 0404 i/o to completely remove the ground loop. The ones I used are relatively cheap ones (less than $10 on eBay) sold for use in cars and they work pretty good. That said, I wouldn't recommend putting one of these cheap isolaters on the i/o to the DAW itself because who knows what it might do to the frequency response. For system sounds, it was fine.

Dave

There are likely a few things going on here. I presume you are not getting this issue when you plug in a mic. There are a few reasons for that:
(1) A mic is usually balanced, a guitar is not.
(2) A microphone is usually low impedance (around 600 Ohms), a guitar is high impedance.

High impedance circuits are way more prone to induced interference than low impedance circuits due to loading. Also a balanced line has a much better chance of rejecting noise induced into the cable (due to common mode rejection). Also, the guitar pickup itself is a coil that will pick up EMF. Your video card/monitor may be spitting out noise that all can be picked up by the coil, the cable, or both. Yes, it could also be a ground loop issue, but only if the guitar has another ground path, like via a guitar amp. If you are just going straight to your sound card, this is very unlikely.

I would use a short jack lead from your guitar to a DI and then run balanced into Studio I/O with a mic cable.. This achieves the following:
(1) The guitar pickup is further away from your PC/Monitor.
(2) The high impedance, unbalaned guitar cable is shorter, reducing inductive pickup.
(3) Your connection to your Studio I/O is lower impedance and balanced, rejecting interence.
(4) If you are using a guitar amp, you can safely use a ground lift on a DI to break the ground loop.

nah Phil they are watching swedish tv...

with such classics as goto 80 performing..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uNWmb3IyK70&feature=related

check the costume..the audience won't forget this in a hurry..haha

64 bit engine? nah 64k

ORIGINAL: Fog

nah Phil they are watching swedish tv...

with such classics as goto 80 performing..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uNWmb3IyK70&feature=related

check the costume..the audience won't forget this in a hurry..haha

64 bit engine? nah 64k

I think, judging by the average age, that most of them must be mentally scarred for life. The way that one little girl turned and looked at the camera summed it up.

"Call any vegetable. Call it by name!"

Hey guys!

I don't think anyone of you still is watching this thread but if for some reason you do. Pardon for not replying sooner. I've been really sick so I haven't really been around the computer.

Anyway, I do have the older Delta and Studio I/O. Or at least I think so. I think I bought it around 2001 or 2002. The thing is that I think my problem is deeper than I thought. It's not just a buzzing sound when connecting the guitar. I've been reading some here in the forums and found people talking about the DPC Latency checker program. I found that this program reported a latency of around 1200us even though I run a pretty decent setup (Core 2 Duo E8600 at 3.3Ghz, 4Gb RAM etc...). I found out that when disabling the network card I got drastic improvments but it sure could be better. I have now changed to another NIC and got better results but still not perfect. I get better results on the computer at work wich is a tired old Pentium 4. I can get pretty good latency from the soundcard in sonar without any glitches or stops BUT... When doing things that involve the graphicscard like moving a window, the window scrolls, moving a slider or knob, things like that, then I get this extremely annoying crackles in sound and I don't know what to do. I've seen people mentioning adjusting the PCI-latency and stuff like that but I really need some guidance here. I don't know what to do. I don't have settings in BIOS for that but apperantly there are programs that helps with this but not for Vista? I don't see any IRQ conflicts in device manager and my bios is set for the Operating System to handle Plug and play devices. Any ideas? I don't know how to move on with this.

I will post this in a new separate post as well since I guess noone is reading this ;)

/Mats

ORIGINAL: pwal

ORIGINAL: RockStringBender
What happens when you move your guitar away from the monitor? The pup(s) could be interacting with the screen, especially if it is a CRT.

+1

i spent way too long looking for a ground loop, when it was my CRT monitor all along...

Nope, -1

I Think the sound the O.P. "suffers" from is so- called zipper- noise indeed typically when moving mouse pointer....That is most of the time an irq or driver (bad video driver) issue. It would be a good idea to borrow another (low end) video card to test this...

"Call any vegetable. Call it by name!"

A Zappa reference!

ORIGINAL: daveny5

"Call any vegetable. Call it by name!"

A Zappa reference!

It's sweet of you to notice.