# Parasite sound



## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

Hi,

I've got a problem with a faint parasite sound, mix of static / buzzing /whistling , that starts and stays constant in my headset/speakers from about halfway through loading windows vista (64bit). (Computer is self-built, noticed the noise from the very first boot up of windows about a week ago).

When i play audio files the music plays perfectly (the parasite sound is still there, but covered up).

I solved that problem by putting my microphone playback on maximum volume which seems to cover up the noise, weird (when i have a microphone plugged in, otherwize the sound remains unchanged).

What is more of a problem is that i use voicechat programs such as ventrilo for over 6 hours a day as part of my job. People have reported that they are getting a humming static noise when I speak, which some described as sounding like a fan. However I tried unplugging my cpu fan for 30 seconds and the noise was still audible on ventrilo. 

Tried updating drivers but it made no difference.

Hope you can help


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## johnhook (Apr 23, 2008)

Willberry,

What is the make/model of your PC and or add-on sound hardware? Are you hearing feedback from your Mic? The other noise you describe can be cause by improperly shielded audio cables which are coming in contact with power and other cables on the back of your PC. Not all sound hardware is created alike. There is cheap sound hardware that is prone to noise and interference from external sources. Good sound cards - like the high-end Creative Labs cards have better shielding than other cheap or imbedded cards. Are you using amplified speakers? If so, the source of interference could be a result of these speakers. Try disconnecting the speakers and connect a headset to your soundcard. Do you still here that noise/distortion over the headphones? If not, then the speakers are the problem. Try muting/unplugging the MIX and/or any LINE IN jacks and MUTE these in the Recording Devices section of the volume control. Does that eliminate the noise?

Report back and let me know.

- John


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## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

The computer is self-built. I'm using an ASUS P5KC motherboard and using the inbuilt sound-card (Realtek ALC 883 8 -Channel High-Definition Audio CODEC). The computer itself is made of top-of-the-range components (quad core , mvidia 9800GTX, 750 Samsung SATA) and requires a very heavy power supply (currently using 800W).

The headset is fine, I checked on my laptop and there were no problems there.

Vista makes finding anything terribly complicated but I think I managed to disable/mute all the line in jacks.

Unfortunately I can still hear the parasite sound.

- Will


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## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

i forgot to mention that when i scroll with my mouse I get an extra static noise that coincides with it


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## johnhook (Apr 23, 2008)

Willberry,

What I meant about the headphones was to disconnect any external speakers/devices from your PC (the one with audio distortion) and try listening to the sound over HEADPHONES only. If you do this, do you still get the strange sound?

I say this because the sound could be caused by the external speakers or cables connected to your sound hardware.

Have you played around with any of the Realtek / Soundmax features for speaker output (i.e. surround sound, special effects, etc)?

Also, check out this post - scroll down to the last post from "Phil" and read this:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...O&id=20080102130449187&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Hope this helps.

- John


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## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

The only external audio device I have connected is the headset and unfortunately the noise is there.

I'm still messing around with everything I can in the Realtek features for speaker output but so far all I got was a broken eardrum lol.

The post you linked seems to suggest that I should probably just change my sound card as you suggested may be the solution in your first post, since I have tried any possible driver available.

Thanks very much for the help, my last hope is on a new soundcard 

- Will


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## johnhook (Apr 23, 2008)

Willberry,

If you read in that post - it also mentions that older versions of those drivers or the Windows WHQL drivers may not have this distortion problem. Don't run out and buy a new sound card just yet.

Question - if I haven't already asked you this - has this distortion always been a problem or did it crop up at some point? If so, do you recall what you changed, installed, reconfigured, etc prior to having this problem?

- John


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## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

The problem has been here since I first plugged in my headset after having built the computer and installed the OS last week.

I'm downloading the older version of the driver, i'll report back when its done ^^.

Will


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## Willberry (May 20, 2008)

uninstalled my drivers and installed the older version and it seems to have fixed the problem. very strange since the cd that came with the motherboard had the newer driver.

thanks very much for the help, all the best

Will


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## johnhook (Apr 23, 2008)

Willberry,

So glad the old driver fixed the problem. Sometimes the latest drivers aren't always the best - especially with Video and Sound hardware. MFG drivers tend to be faster and have more features, but buggy and problematic compared to the built-in Windows WHQL drivers.

When it comes to Vista - driver issues are even a bigger problem as Microsoft and software/hardware mfgs are still scrambling to create stable drivers for Vista.

Again - glad you were able to fix this.

- John

PS: Please close out this thread after you receive this post.


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