Static Sounds

FlatlineUTD

<div class="IPBDescription">with dual monitors</div> I'm running a GeForce3 Ti200 for my primary monitor and a $30 ATI Rage XL for my crap monitor. I'm also running an Audigy 2 for sound.

Whenever I do anything on my 2nd monitor, or there's a lot of "motion" (like, when an IRC window pops up and it lists all the users and MotD etc), my sound gets extremely static-y sounding. When I move the mouse back over to my primary monitor, it goes away and sounds great.

I thought it was my sound conflicting with the PCI video card - the cheap ATI - (I was running onboard SiS until this morning when my Audigy 2 came in) but now I'm thinking the video card is to blame entirely. I don't want to have to go back to a single monitor, but this sound issue is just way to much.

Does anyone have any suggestions or possible BIOS tweaks to stop my PCI card from conflicting with everything else?

FYI I'm also running an AMD XP1700+ with 512MB DDR-RAM with 80GB HD. I don't think that's important in this case, but whatever.

Legionnaired

I had the same problem... mine was caused by my speakers being too close to the second monitor, thus causing interferance. Check that, keep it simple.

FlatlineUTD

EDIT: Actually, that wasn't it. It sounded like less at first but that was probably because the speakers weren't facing their normal directions.

I unhooked my speakers entirely and went directly to headphones - still getting the static sounds in that as well, even when sitting really far away.

Zel

you could try insulating the source of the interference or the receiver.

whichever is easier, try wrapping it in aluminum foil, be sure to leave ventilation but youd be surprised at how it helps.

anecdote: i once had some <a href='http://www.xoxide.com/elwire.html' target='_blank'>EL Wire</a> running around my case window, and this stuff requires a converter from the normal 12 volt power to something else, so it came with a cheap little electrical box, and i found that when it was near my soundcard high pitched squealing came out my left speaker! the noise was also slightly audible coming from the box itself, painful like a dog whistle.

but after wrapping the little box in about six hersheys wrappers to stop interference and a sock to stop audible noise, all of my problems went away. you ahve to be careful the thing doesnt heat up in there, and you dont want to touch the foil to the electronics, but otherwise, some cheap-o insulation is quite possibly the way to go.

Fina

In your case, is your soundcard beside your ATI video card? I've heard issues with video cards causing noise on the sound card, and that it's recommended that your sound card be as far from the video card as you can get it. Worth checking out.

FlatlineUTD

<!--QuoteBegin--Fina+Aug 28 2003, 09:27 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fina @ Aug 28 2003, 09:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In your case, is your soundcard beside your ATI video card? I've heard issues with video cards causing noise on the sound card, and that it's recommended that your sound card be as far from the video card as you can get it. Worth checking out. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'll try that. Currently I've got the GF3 in the AGP slot, the ATI in PCI slot 2 (counting from AGP) and the Audigy in 4 - i can try moving em to 1 and 5 though.