Motherboard making dial-up sounds whenever there's activity

By Kondrath
in Hardware Hangout

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Kondrath

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Originally, I thought the issue was my mechanical hard drive making annoying "loading" sounds whenever the PC loaded anything or whenever I moved the mouse over certain areas of the screen, but I've since replaced that HDD with an SSD, and I'm still hearing the same issue. If I move the mouse or load something, then put my ear up to the case, the sound seems to be coming from the right side of the motherboard. It's an annoying squeal / buzz, similar to a dial up modem but not as harsh. Unfortunately, the noise also travels into my new Studio Monitors, even through an external firewire sound card. I am at a loss. I have no idea what is making the noise and I have no idea how to stop it.

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

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Bad grounding on your power supply / bad or no ground on your wall outlet? I've seen issues like that occur when this was the issue... or a lot of noise on your electical line (thats why they have isolated grounds for equipment)

try taking it to someone elses house and see if you get the same noise, if so, it is probably an electical issue in the house causing it

Guest LiquidCrystalMeth

Posted
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If you hear it handshake like a modem and then ask "Would you like to play a game", i would be worried :)

Ive had a machine do that, and it was, for me, line noise and its effect on the power supply and on to the motherboard, in the end i put in a surge/noise filtering powerboard

Collaborator

Vambo

Posted
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It sounds like a ground loop. Had a friend with the same problem, every time he moved the mouse it was making a "zipping" noise.

He ended up putting passive DI boxes in line with the speakers and using the ground lift to eliminate the noise.

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Kondrath

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Bad grounding on your power supply / bad or no ground on your wall outlet? I've seen issues like that occur when this was the issue... or a lot of noise on your electical line (thats why they have isolated grounds for equipment)

try taking it to someone elses house and see if you get the same noise, if so, it is probably an electical issue in the house causing it

I leave for work in a few minutes. I'll try taking it over there.

So 3 questions.

Onboard Sound?

What PSU & Motherboard do you have?

Have you tried to see if it's coming from the same spot on the motherboard as the BIOS beeps? Usually the buzz is coming from that speaker.

Mobo and PSU should be in sig specs. EX58 UD3R and...I can't remember the name of the PSU. Doesn't happen with onboard sound. Well, I can still hear it inside of the PC Case / Mobo, but it doesn't travel through my old speakers. It's only really noticeable with the new speakers via external firewire soundcard. (But I've had the sound card for years and it works fine on my laptop). If it's coming from the mobo speaker, can I just disable the speaker somehow?

Dial up sounds ah memories. Maybe your motherboard is just feeling nostalgic :)

Sorry couldnt help, ill depart so that others can continue to offer help.

Haha. The good old days...

If you hear it handshake like a modem and then ask "Would you like to play a game", i would be worried :)

Ive had a machine do that, and it was, for me, line noise and its effect on the power supply and on to the motherboard, in the end i put in a surge/noise filtering powerboard

Man, just looked into noise filtering power strips aren't exactly cheap! But I Actually have one already and it doesn't help. Should I plug the PC into it or the Speakers? With the PC plugged in, it made no difference.

It sounds like a ground loop. Had a friend with the same problem, every time he moved the mouse it was making a "zipping" noise.

He ended up putting passive DI boxes in line with the speakers and using the ground lift to eliminate the noise.

Yeah... That might be an option, but I'd like to eliminate the problem at the source so I don't have to worry about it traveling through the speakers to begin with.

Experienced

CG-88

Posted
Posted

One of my friends had this sorta issue with his computer. He had slightly damaged a capaciter whilst putting a gfx card in and it resulted in this noise. He tried to repair the slightly broken connection and all was well.

Zero explanation why that would cause this problem but it was resolved that way.

Grand Master

neoadorable

Posted
Posted

maybe it's a bad built in speaker and it just sounds like dial up? there's nothing on your board that would sound like that, i mean 10/100/1000 LAN controllers do not make sounds. disconnet the front panel speaker if you have one and see what happens.

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Kondrath

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I don't have a front speaker, but there are a lot of issues reported with static on the Antec 900 front out jack. Except I'm not even using that jack...I'm using an external firewire card.

If you go here and scroll down to the second post, then click "Noise while installing a program", that's what I'm hearing. But mine is a bit stronger than that. http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/450785-ground-loop-i-think-problem.html

Grand Master

threetonesun

Posted
Posted

If possible, try swapping out the power supply. Based on the amount of electrical interference in your computer case, you're probably going to have to switch out everything one at a time if you want to narrow it down, although it's most often your PSU or motherboard.

Veteran

Kondrath

Posted
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If possible, try swapping out the power supply. Based on the amount of electrical interference in your computer case, you're probably going to have to switch out everything one at a time if you want to narrow it down, although it's most often your PSU or motherboard.

The only extra PSU I have is too weak, so that probably isn't an option. Man this is awful. I wonder if buying better speaker cables would help. It's weird; when I use my old mouse, there's no "cursor moving" noise, but I still hear the PC's activity.

Veteran

Kondrath

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New progress -

Adjusting the polling rate from 1,000 to 125 Khz got rid of the mouse noise. On the negative side, there's a bit more mouse latency but it's worth the noise going away.

Now all that's left is the noise coming from any sort of activity, such as a program loading or closing a window. I'm going to buy new 1/4 TRS Cables, but it'd still be nice if I could eliminate the issue from the source (the pc) somehow.

Veteran

Kondrath

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Last bump because I'm desperate. Got my new 20gauge braided shield TRS cables today. They GREATLY reduced the noise, but it's still there. I guess I'm screwed at this point because the speakers work fine with everything but my desktop. Everything is grounded into the same outlet. I even tried plugging the desktop into my hallway outlet to try and space everything out, but I still get interference. I wish I knew how to eliminate the noise at the source.

There is NO interference in the BIOS, but it starts immediately when windows begins to load.

Veteran

Kondrath

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I'm not even using the onboard sound. I'm using my firewire external sound card. And onboard is disabled via BIOS just to be safe.

And the firewire audio interface isn't faulty, because it works on other computers and my laptop. The noise is originated form somewhere inside of my PC case and is making its way into my speakers....

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