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Hey Ryszard, I've just had an unpleasant thought... To set the background, I have a time share ownership in a "luxury houseboat", and it is pretty good I must say. ...but there is a slight problem. Being a boat, there's no real ground one can tie the on board power to. Power on board is supplied by 12V batteries connected to an inverter. The batteries are charged by a 240V, 2000W Honda generator via a normal battery charger (actually, 2 fairly smart ones - there's 2 battery banks) Anyhow, that's all to set the scene for my HP notebook and really BAD noise when connected to the inverters. My particular model of notebook has the mains earth extended through the charger and into a 3rd wire in the connector to the notebook. I assume it's some protective arrangement. I MUST disconnect from the charger to stop the noise, and I note it's REALLY bad. I believe it's caused by the floating earth (pun not intended... Oh alright, it WAS intended  ). If the boat's ground were properly earth staked I believe the problem would either not exist or be considerably reduced. By really bad I mean it almost totally drowns out the music!!! This has made me wonder if the ground in your house might be resistive enough to be floating a little above 0V. It's not an uncommon thing you know. You might try locating your earth stake and pouring a bucket of water over it, paying particular attention to where it enters the ground - try to get that quite wet.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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I love it: "floating ground" on a boat. That is indeed hard to get your head around.
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Lawrie, good thought. If I can find the earth/ground stake that will be easy to test. On the other hand, wouldn't a good soaking rain accomplish the same thing?
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Lawrie, good thought. If I can find the earth/ground stake that will be easy to test. On the other hand, wouldn't a good soaking rain accomplish the same thing? Depends where the stake is. I have a garden bed under my bedroom window, small eave, that HAS to be watered - doesn't matter how much it rains the prevailing winds in my area are such that you can stand there in all but the worst downpours and stay dry. Add to that I'm on very sandy soil - actually no soil, just sand  Fortunately, my earth stake is also bonded to the water pipes (legal requirement here in Oz) and the water pipes are metallic out to the street which in turn gives a much larger surface area on the effective earth stake to make it more effective. As well, we run M.E.N (Multiple Earth Neutral), I assume this is also done in the states? M.E.N is where the Neutral is also bonded to the earth at every premises, so, for example, every house in my street has the Neutral bonded to the earth stake AND the water pipes. Even so, you can still get potential differences in the earth from house to house... Electrickery is a curious thing...
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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I love it: "floating ground" on a boat. That is indeed hard to get your head around.
Yeah, I like it too... A mate of mine actually built the boat and he and I and another mate who had shipwright experience discussed the grounding issue. I thought it might be a good idea to have a metallic connection into the water as part of the boats ground but apparently that can cause some serious electrolysis problems so the idea was canned.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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<snip>
This does NOT sound like a ground problem or a ground loop. A ground loop would have a 60hz hum.... like a guitar amp when you touch the tip of the guitar cord. It's approximately a low "B" in pitch.
You can try removing grounds with the adapters..... never cut the ground plug connector off. I doubt that you will solve the whine this way.
Whining sounds are mostly caused by interference. In another forum site, we get this kind of issue from folks using the wireless mice and other radio frequency devices around the audio gear.
You absolutely must find the source of the noise first before you can work on solving it.
Since many folks use unbalanced wiring and cheap cords, the first step here is to ID the offending device. Shut off the wireless devices (one at a time, but then leave them off if there are multiple devices... perhaps the source is not singular but from multiple sources) that are in use in the proximity to the computer/DAW. Did it go away?
<snip>
Leave no stone unturned in the search for this problem.
Guitarhacker makes some really good points here. Particularly: A ground loop would have a 60hz hum. The fact that the interference is a multi-octave harmonic suggests there's some "signal processing" going on. If it were, say approx 120Hz, I'd suspect a badly filtered bridge rectifier somewhere - but it seems to be above the 330Hz of the 1st E string - the B above that is nominally 493.9Hz - the nearest 60HZ multiple up there is 480Hz (3 octaves higher than mains 60Hz) - and maybe a quarter tone flat  Thus there is something processing it and while a simple earth loop may well be the original noise signal source, there's something else going on too.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Rzyard, my noise was exactly what you described. Mac said flat out it's the PC. I spent time checking every audio cable and all the connectors, unplugging the mixer, using headphones alone, using process of elimination, all that stuff. It's the PC. Just find a two prong adapter, follow his instructions and be done with it. If you're really paranoid buy that $75 thingy that truly eliminates the shock potential.
Bob
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Bob, I'm ready. Here I am about to call an electrician to see whether neutral is really 0 volts. Really, now. If I can't find the adapter in my own staff I'll go to Ace tomorrow and get one. If that does it I'll check out true isolators and go from there. I'm tired of this.
Thanks,
R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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A note on inverters. Most of them, especially the cheap ones, do not have "true sine wave" output. (very similar to how our gear "samples" an analog signal and reproduces it as audio later) They use a method of creating an approximation of a sine wave that is basically square waves in steps. For most AC powered devices, this is not an issue. However, sensitive electronics can exhibit side effects from the simulated sine. Hand tools and heating devices are not bothered by it at all and run perfectly fine.
On the house electrical system ground. You can check for corrosion and loose connections. I've seen rods that looked perfectly fine be totally corroded in the ground due to acidic soil conditions. Sandy soil tends to have the higher resistance since it dries out so quickly and doesn't have good conductance period. If you are eliminating possibilities, certainly have an electrician with the proper equipment come and check the ground. An ohm meter is NOT the proper gear for checking a rod to ground connection. You need a ground resistance tester and the test needs to be done according to the instructions. Pouring water on it simply makes it wet unless the ground is totally dry, it will probably do very little to remedy the problem.
I don't believe you are going to find the problem in the electrical system of your house. If the hum was 60 hz, I might say it was possible, but the sound is higher in pitch and freq.
Since it's a tower computer, you can't run on battery to do this next test. But I think you will likely find the issue inside the computer. Since everything else you have done to eliminate the issue from outside, through the cables and the peripheral gear has not found the issue.... I'm starting to think you will need to dig in to the internal components, likely starting with a power supply swap. The switching power supply in the computer operates at a much higher frequency than the 60hz line..... and you mentioned that the freq was 300 something..... It's been a while since I looked at the specs on the switching power supply....
(pause) I went to google to see what I could find on switching power supply freqs..... not too much info on this topic but in one site I did see that some of the switching power supplies have a frequency of "several hundred hertz"...a little bit vague.....however, as I recall from my past studies, the freqs were in the 300 to 400 range in the supplies I was working with. Easiest thing would be to get a new supply and swap it out. Get one rated for more than the computer needs.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 09/22/14 04:36 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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I guess I need to start posting system specs again instead of cutesy quotes. To be honest, though, I'm gonna resist digging around in the guts of this thing. It's a purpose-built heavy-duty machine specced by me for use as a DAW. The PS is a brand-name unit rated well over what I need. I'm just not ready to tear it unless I start smelling smoke. (If I'm wrong, I'll freely and publicly admit it.)
That said, I'll do the ground lift test today or tomorrow. If that doesn't do it I'll be more amenable to doing the computer mechanic thing.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Lawrie's description of the boat issue brought to mind a recent issue I had with trying to use a small portable speaker system designed for use with PCs, connected to my laptop (I've had this arrangement in use for many different incidents) but this time, I used them powered through a GFCI outlet in our home. Hum/buzz city.
I still strongly suspect that there might be some evil in your power signal chain that is not ground related but from some crummy switching power supply or pulse-width-modulated signal to give certain RMS power values. I've had way too many experiences with this to ignore it without peril. Again, I refer to T-series ThinkPad laptops - built to withstand a near nuclear attack, put a terrible PWM-related buzz/hum on the supposed 5V DC in the lappy's USB.
-Scott
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"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Scott reminded me of another great noise source in homes - light dimmers. They are infamous sources of noise on your AC mains.
Just another possibility.
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Given the results Ryszard has had, and the descriptions he's given, I'm inclined to agree that there's something within the PC that's the real cause.
The fact that the noise is apparently 8 times the mains frequency points to some kind of filtering issue as clearly there is some kind of unintended "signal processing" going on.
A temporary ground lift on the PC with a "2 prong" adaptor is a good test. It will at least prove whether breaking the earth loop somewhere will alleviate the problem.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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I'll tell you later today.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Scott reminded me of another great noise source in homes - light dimmers. They are infamous sources of noise on your AC mains.
Just another possibility. Don, I don't think there are any in the house, but there may be a CFL in the studio. I need a ladder to check. Thanks for the thought. R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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ZeroZero, it is in the phones as well. The powered satellite speakers are turned up to their max, which is 6 dB above line level. Everything (meaning software mixers) in the PC is set at max, so there's nowhere to go in terms of S/N. I hope that is responsive to your comment.
Bear in mind that I probably know the least of everyone posting here, but... I don't understand your comment about turning up the speakers. do you mean their amps? Personally I would at least try with levels non maxed with everything. As far as dimmers go just switch them off. Switch off everything, everything, even your fridge in the house, all things you can switch off, except the PC, then plug in earphones to the speaker outs or whatever you have, eliminate everything except for the PC. Try also plugging some other music gear, does that have a hum? Just brainstorming with my only remaining brain cell.. Z[/b]
Last edited by ZeroZero; 09/24/14 10:47 AM.
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Off topic tip: I have my sub running off a spate power supply and I switch it of when I ma not in the mood to rhumba
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Another idea - I used this when my studio has an issue. I used a extension lead to run some power from somewhere else, not on the same circuit, to establish if it was the mains input.
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Okay, I have several new data:
1. There was no fluorescent light in my room. The closest CFL is two rooms away.
2. There are no dimmers or "choppers" in the house.
3. My DAW froze briefly yesterday. During that time the static noise disappeared. Does this point to the VPU? (I hope not, I paid $200 for that sucker.)
4. And the biggie: I put in a 3/2-prong adapter, and Lo! both the hum and static have become barely audible. As in, I have to put my ear up to the drivers to hear it. The noise coming from the liquid-cooled PC is louder. The hum and static are barely audible from my normal listening position.
Onward.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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