Computer noises through speakers

Vincent Oliver · January 16th, 2014, 10:01 AM

Jens, the cables did arrive this morning and they didn't solve the problem, not to worry, I guess I should have used balanced cables anyway. The built in HD soundcard has been disabled via the BIOS control panel. I did try a dedicated USB2 with Firewire card, but this had no effect. I will try the advice that Jay offered later today.

Computer specs are Intel i7 CPU, 16gb RAM, nVidia GX470 cuda enabled card, 2 hard drives, 2 SSD drives, BluRay burner and CD/DVD burner.

I am certain it could be a video driver that is causing the problem as it only occurs when there is action on the screen, mouse movement, windows opening or video playing.

Jens Korsgaard · January 16th, 2014, 10:15 AM

At least you can cross that off the list then! :) I figured you would have done the soundcard thing already, but better safe than sorry!

Drivers are always delicate to diagnose from my experience, although rather easy to test I guess. nvidia recently rolled out a new driver initiative, in which they make it really easy to keep graphic drivers up to date. If memory serves its called GeForce experience. While its mainly aimed for the gaming industry, it does not take up any actual resources, and makes it quite easy to keep everything up to date. It can be found here Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers

All that said, for the purpose of editing video and audio for that matter, I don't think you'll notice much of a difference by keeping the driver up to date per say, other than maybe peace of mind. If you are, however, going to check up on the driver, I suggest you do a clean install of the driver, meaning removing all nvidia driver components before installing. As I said, drivers can be delicate, and if you're just overwriting the previous installation, it may not fix everything, so here is what I would do:

1. Download the newest driver from the above-mentioned link.
2. Go to the control-panel and uninstall everything which says nvidia or geforce
3. Download a program called Ccleaner and run the register cleaner - it'll make sure that the old nvidia references are properly removed from the system
4. Reboot and install the driver you downloaded in step 1!

I should mention that I'm honestly not sure whether or not this will have any effect at all. It is very likely that it may be outside of the computer. I've used a device equal to the one Jay posted, which had great results, but I'm a big fan of testing the computer thoroughly before investing in new hardware!

edit: Another reason for doing this is that the HDMI output of the 470 also have a soundconnection which may or may not have been turned off. In any case, I recently worked on my brothers computer while editing some audio for a friend of mine. I could not, for the love of my life, get the sound level to work properly. It turns out he use the computer for streaming movies on his television as well, and used the HDMI for audio as well, which is smart, but somehow caused the presonus box I used to get confused when to overwrite and when not to. I did not upgrade the driver, but simply turned it off. My point is that software can do the strangest things to the hardware from time to time, and its well worth checking up on before. If for nothing else, then for the heck of it! :)

January 16th, 2014, 10:01 AM	#16
Vincent Oliver Trustee Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Chislehurst, London Posts: 1,724	Re: Computer noises through speakers Jens, the cables did arrive this morning and they didn't solve the problem, not to worry, I guess I should have used balanced cables anyway. The built in HD soundcard has been disabled via the BIOS control panel. I did try a dedicated USB2 with Firewire card, but this had no effect. I will try the advice that Jay offered later today. Computer specs are Intel i7 CPU, 16gb RAM, nVidia GX470 cuda enabled card, 2 hard drives, 2 SSD drives, BluRay burner and CD/DVD burner. I am certain it could be a video driver that is causing the problem as it only occurs when there is action on the screen, mouse movement, windows opening or video playing. __________________ Eyes are a deaf man’s ears. Ears are a blind man’s eyes

January 16th, 2014, 10:15 AM	#17
Jens Korsgaard New Boot Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Aalborg, Denmark Posts: 10	Re: Computer noises through speakers At least you can cross that off the list then! :) I figured you would have done the soundcard thing already, but better safe than sorry! Drivers are always delicate to diagnose from my experience, although rather easy to test I guess. nvidia recently rolled out a new driver initiative, in which they make it really easy to keep graphic drivers up to date. If memory serves its called GeForce experience. While its mainly aimed for the gaming industry, it does not take up any actual resources, and makes it quite easy to keep everything up to date. It can be found here Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers All that said, for the purpose of editing video and audio for that matter, I don't think you'll notice much of a difference by keeping the driver up to date per say, other than maybe peace of mind. If you are, however, going to check up on the driver, I suggest you do a clean install of the driver, meaning removing all nvidia driver components before installing. As I said, drivers can be delicate, and if you're just overwriting the previous installation, it may not fix everything, so here is what I would do: 1. Download the newest driver from the above-mentioned link. 2. Go to the control-panel and uninstall everything which says nvidia or geforce 3. Download a program called Ccleaner and run the register cleaner - it'll make sure that the old nvidia references are properly removed from the system 4. Reboot and install the driver you downloaded in step 1! I should mention that I'm honestly not sure whether or not this will have any effect at all. It is very likely that it may be outside of the computer. I've used a device equal to the one Jay posted, which had great results, but I'm a big fan of testing the computer thoroughly before investing in new hardware! edit: Another reason for doing this is that the HDMI output of the 470 also have a soundconnection which may or may not have been turned off. In any case, I recently worked on my brothers computer while editing some audio for a friend of mine. I could not, for the love of my life, get the sound level to work properly. It turns out he use the computer for streaming movies on his television as well, and used the HDMI for audio as well, which is smart, but somehow caused the presonus box I used to get confused when to overwrite and when not to. I did not upgrade the driver, but simply turned it off. My point is that software can do the strangest things to the hardware from time to time, and its well worth checking up on before. If for nothing else, then for the heck of it! :)