Sound Card - EMI shielding + new GPU = angry cats?

Sasso · 27 Jun 2012 at 16:53

hey... got a bit of an odd issue.

I have an asus xonar dx 7.1 (running the unified drivers

)

up till now I have had minimal issues with it... just some silly niggles... but now there seems to be an interference problem.

I've put it down to when i got my new GTX 680...

basically the problem is, when I am transmitting on mumble, in addition to my voice there is an interference frequency that is proportional to the amount of FPS I am getting in game. i.e. when playing battlefield, if i'm getting 70 FPS.. the noise is rather low pitch... but when the FPS goes up to say 150, the pitch get's proportionally higher..... so when i'm flying around in jets and the fps is going between 80 FPS and 200 FPS it sounds like a really angry cat

So yea... I was confused at first as it didn't do it when in windows... but then in game it goes mad

now i believe the Xonar DX has some shielding... but nothing quite like the D2, D2X etc..etc.. which have a full body shield.

i have a z77 asus sabertooth, with the GTX 680 in the first pci-e x16 slot and the soundcard is in the first slot in front of the card (next to the fan). there is also a 4-pin power lead that runs along next to the pci-e power leads for the GPU... but it was there when i had the 6950/7970 and i didn;t get these issues so i don't believe it's the PSU.

so... what are my options? make a makeshift faraday cage/EMI shield for the card? what would i use? i have read that could use a hard drive static bag over it... but that would look god awful... but i'm going to try to see if it has any effect.

my other option i guess if the shielding does work is to replace it with a card that has shielding on it like the mentioned D2X etc (and the new tasty looking asus xonar ROG

)

I am worried that it could be transmitted through the pci bus itself.... in which case i'm now sure what i could really do about it.

TL : DR

gpu transmitting interference to soundcard when playing games. will shielding the sound card help? easy to make my own shield or just buy a card that has one already mounted.

opinions

Marsman · 27 Jun 2012 at 18:38

I'm quite sceptical of how useful these EMI shields actually are on sound cards. I think they are there to look good, to give the card a more professional look. They may serve some use, but there are some people who have found the shield on their D2/X or Essence, was useless at protecting the card from EMI.

Sasso · 27 Jun 2012 at 21:06

yea.... that's the thing.... i don;t want to spend money on a new card that has a shield and then find it does nothing xD

seems to be less noticeable than yesterday.... but it's still there.....

got my mic on "listen to this device" without the jack plugged in and bf3 sounds off and i can hear the buzzing.... as i look around and watch the fps change i can hear the pitch changing.... could almost do songs with it...

so options?

EDIT:

just done some testing.... tried it in the pci-e slot further away... still buzzed but maybe not as much? seems to be doing it less in general tonight for some reason....

tried using a different power lead (it's own 12v lead with nothing else and held far away) and still did it.

now i've enabled the onboard sound and used the mic input on that.... no buzzing at all :\

I can even unplug my mic from the xonar card and still have "listen to" enabled and still hear it... so it's definitely something with mic circuitry on the card.

i tried putting some anti static stuff (HDD bag) between the gpu and sound card... did nothing.... i don;t think... i thought it got quieter... but might have just been in my head

do i splash out on a random card from the men in purple and test it and if i still get it with that card just take it back?

Sasso · 27 Jun 2012 at 23:25

ok soooo.... weird thing now.... if i unscrew the card (xonar) from the case a bit the sound goes away slightly... but then when tightening up again... onve it's on the last 1.4 turn and firmly sat, it gets louder..... think this could be a grounding issue maybe?

i'm getting more confused by the second

EDIT:

right so after much much more googling about this issue it seems like it could be a number of things or combination of a few. It's only started this issue after I've done some recent upgrades... PSU and the GTX680. now i got the psu a week last Tuesday and was running two 7970's at the time and as far as I'm aware no one on mumble complained about crazy noises coming down my microphone. I then replaced the 7970's with a GTX 680 on sat as x-fire wasn't for me... I didn't play battlefield on it until about tuesday this week when people started to mention some crazy buzzing/vibrator being on in the background (lol

).

some people have resolved the issue by moving it further away.... didn't work
some made a shield using several layers of tin foil..... it cleaned up a little bit of static but the interference was most definitely still present.
some people bought a sound card with shielding on it.... this is an option but I like the DX for it's dolby headphones functionality and can;t seem to find one that has that function for a reasonable price (or at all)...

So tonight I've got allot of testing ahead of me.... luckily i still have a 6950/70 knocking about and my old power supply so I'm going to test using the old (but still power hungry) graphics card with the new PSU and see it I still get it. can also test using the 680 with the old power. I can also see about testing using the two power supplies, i.e. the new one powering everything and the old psu powering just the graphics cards, also can test using the new PSU powering everything except the sound card and use the old psu to supply power to just the sound card.

I hope by these test's i can come to some sort of conclusion as to where the problem lies.... I suppose the question is once I isolate the issue what can be done with it? if it's just the PSU that's just a return job and I'll go back to my old one. but if it's the GPU specifically..... It could be a faulty card, issue with the design of the card and present throughout, issue with the soundcard picking it up over the pci-e bus or something...

ahhhh this is stressing me out

WHY WON'T THINGS JUST WORK!!!!

just had a quick thought.... bit odd that it's only on the mic... but doesn't effect audio output.... is the output more shielded/filtered electronically? could I add something to the card to filter it out? ....tempted to just buy a xonar essence to see if that eliminates the issue...

bemaniac · 28 Jun 2012 at 15:04

I get this a tiny bit on my essence so you won't solve it as easy as buying a new card. You might by getting a new psu though

wazza300 · 28 Jun 2012 at 15:08

look on fleabay you can buy emi shielding foil,

Sasso · 28 Jun 2012 at 15:16

bemaniac said:
I get this a tiny bit on my essence so you won't solve it as easy as buying a new card. You might by getting a new psu though

that's the thing... it's a brand new psu... bought it when upgrading to crossfire (which i then sold and got a single 680 instead

)

so are getting exactly the same as me? the pitch on the mic interference changing with the FPS in say BF3 ??

think it's comming through the pci-e bus or through the extra power cable? (the floppy power lead on my DX... not sure if you have a power plug on yours).

If it's the power lead and not the bus i wonder if there's a filter/capacitor I could solder onto the power jack to clean it up... not really read much on this article but something like this...

(taken from http://www.head-fi.org/t/339127/asus-xonar-dx-mods)

Sasso · 28 Jun 2012 at 19:38

wazza300 said:
look on fleabay you can buy emi shielding foil,

I tried doing this last night with tin foil, it reduced general background static hiss but didn;t touch the interference.

so i've just be running my pc with a combination of PSU's.... it's definitely not the psu as i put my old one back in and still the same....

wazza300 · 28 Jun 2012 at 20:19

its like tin foil but its a different material,it can be psu or gpu or combination of both,can also be the motherboard

the x58 boards suffered bad from it but i have to say personally on my z68 using same psu and gpu no sound/whine at all,only very faint in some game menus,crysis game menu does it a lot but thats only time ive heard it,it can be really annoying though ive gone through plenty whining x58 boards

Sasso · 28 Jun 2012 at 20:39

i see.....

well i;ve just had my pc running with two different psu's, both psu's at the same time (sooo...much....powarrrrr!!!!!) and tried another graphics card and it still did it regardless of the combination.....

so me thinks it's being transmitted across the pci-e bus and it's to do with the mobo....

now question is... can i get a decent soundcard that has better filters on it to remove this? or am i pretty much stuck with it? z77 asus sabertooth board here.

wazza300 · 28 Jun 2012 at 20:46

Well I did buy a xonar dx to try and get rid of the noise but it had no affect on asus p6x58d-e and on gigabyte ud5 x58,I could still hear it through headphones and when I scrolled the mouse wheel to move webpage up/down

Have you tried disabling Intel speedstep and c1 in the BIOS? See if noise goes,using asus z68 v pro here,tested with sapphire 5870 and msi 7850 no whine at all

Orcvader · 28 Jun 2012 at 21:30

Had this problem as well. Even trying the rear port everyone on the same Skype call can hear it when I load up a game. On desktop it's fine. I tried moving the card further away from the GPU, PSU, tin foil shield, different GPU, different PSU, but it's still there.

I gave up in the end and reenabled the onboard, and am now using that for just microphone. It's wierd since the sound from the DX is still flawlessly clear with no hissing noise that I got with the onboard...

Sasso · 28 Jun 2012 at 22:16

Orcvader said:
Had this problem as well. Even trying the rear port everyone on the same Skype call can hear it when I load up a game. On desktop it's fine. I tried moving the card further away from the GPU, PSU, tin foil shield, different GPU, different PSU, but it's still there.

I gave up in the end and reenabled the onboard, and am now using that for just microphone. It's wierd since the sound from the DX is still flawlessly clear with no hissing noise that I got with the onboard...

exactly this! this is what i've resorted to doing... for now. guessing it might be something to do with the outputs being shielded a hell of allot more than the mic amp :\ lame is what it is! i mean the on board is ok but my mates say they can definitely notice a change in quality of the mic.... this is soooo strange!!!

i'll go give that speedstep and c1 a test and report back.

REPORTING:

nope C1 and Speedstep did nowt :\ now when i disable the microphone boost the noise goes away... but i duno know if that's just because the mic is barely audible without boost or what...

wazza300 · 28 Jun 2012 at 22:36

Another thing that caused it for me was the Usb front panel headers on mb,unplug them and see if noise stops

Sasso · 28 Jun 2012 at 23:48

wazza300 said:
Another thing that caused it for me was the Usb front panel headers on mb,unplug them and see if noise stops

nope :\

i did try unplugging all the usb devices. thought it was my keyboard as it stopped for a second... but it was just lagged as it was taken out and put back in

damm false hope haha!

annihil8r · 29 Jun 2012 at 00:13

Might be a grounding issue. Try another plug point to see if the socket is faulty. If you still get the buzz, try grounding the pc case with any old wire to the nearest radiatior in your room (one end of the wire to any metal part of the case and the other end to the radiator). If it still persists, it may well be interference. Does the interference increase with fps or is it because of higher load on your graphics card. Try a low graphics intensive game and see if the interference is the same as when you play BF3 at about the same fps. Also double check tht both cards are properly pushed in their slots. Hope things work out.

l8r

Edit: Oh yeah, do you have the front case speaker and mic header connected to your soundcard? if you do disconnect it from the card and see if it goes.

Sasso · 29 Jun 2012 at 12:09

annihil8r said:
Edit: Oh yeah, do you have the front case speaker and mic header connected to your soundcard? if you do disconnect it from the card and see if it goes.

nah i don't use the front ports... the cables are hidden away.

mmmm could be grounding issue. I'll try using some different sockets in the house and see it that affects it and running a lead from where the case attaches to the sound card so something like a radiator, my AV receiver, maybe just run it into an earth on a kettle lead and plug it in somewhere else

(not turning the socket on ofcourse!!!!! )

wonder if this is a common thing with the sabertooth boards or maybe mine is brokeded

going to get another soundcard for delivery tomorrow for more testing and dsr if no difference. thinking stx maybe? anyone know of any with a mic circuitry shielding? i still find it odd that only the mic circuitry is effected and not the audio out :\ hummmmmm

Sasso · 2 Jul 2012 at 20:34

ok so i bought the xense and no buzzing

wooooohoooooo

though i do have a quick question.

i did have the unified drivers installed but notice they didn;t have the impedance options so i could select the correct ones for this head set. so i've installed the official asus ones and selected it... i "think" it sounds better..

the biggest thing that stands out is that it's louder... not sure about other things.... is that option really important to drive the headset or is it just a gain adjustment so if i went back to the unified drivers it's the same as just turning them up a bit volume wise?

Marsman · 2 Jul 2012 at 23:37

Glad you have no EMI issues.

I use Unified drivers with my Essence, and the headphone amp settings are there. Really surprised they are not there with the Xense. Maybe some bug that needs to be sorted out.

The headset will work fine with whatever gain setting. Ideally, the high gain setting would be the best, which is the middle one. Assuming you are using the PC350's, then they are 150ohm. The high gain setting should improve the sound, as it's supplying more juice to the headphones. Although that is assuming that being 150ohm, they require more juice to get the best out of them. It may be very subtle though, as they may be pretty easy to drive with 0 gain, even though they are 150ohm. Normally one would expect the higher the ohm rating, the harder the headphones are to drive. That isn't always the case though, as some 32ohm and 64ohm headphones can be harder to drive, even though 32ohm is normally considered easy to drive. The most obvious difference will be the volume increase.

I don't think I've noticed any difference between the Asus and Unified drivers. There might be a slight difference, but it's impossible to say. When it comes to sound, human memory is very short indeed. Too much time passes when swapping between drivers. As long as the Asus ones work fine for you, then no reason not to use them.

Sasso · 3 Jul 2012 at 00:05

Marsman said:
I use Unified drivers with my Essence, and the headphone amp settings are there. Really surprised they are not there with the Xense. Maybe some bug that needs to be sorted out.

thanks dude

yea was a big relief not to hear that interference

so on your unified drivers you have the impedance options? on the unified control panel?

think you could get a shot of where the option is? i may just be blind

also can you remember what install settings you used? dunno but might be a factor?