Headphone interference?

[iviv]

This is something I've had for ages, but always assumed it was just 'normal' for things, but figured I'd ask here in case it wasn't.

Basically, it sounds kind of like a low noise, something I only notice when I have my headphones on but no sound playing. Things like opening or scrolling through firefox tabs make a small noise through the headphones, I ran the sunspider java benchmark just recently and it was very pronounced, with a sort of dull noise each time the page loaded the next test.
There's a sort of constant noise if I press down the middle mouse button and scroll through a website, but its only there if there's some (or several) images on the page. And its especially noticible on websites that have those images that scroll as you scroll to keep themselves at the bottom of the page, usually links to go back to the top.

Open a folder in windows explorer, drag the scrollbar to go up and down and it makes a buzz too. Steam makes a louder buzz while scrolling through the games list.


I'm posting here as I guess its a sound issue, but I'm really not sure. Its hardly the end of the world, I've put up with it for ages, but it is slightly annoying.

I'm using a Creative Xtreme Gamer soundcard with the latest drivers (2.18.15), and a Razor Barracuda HP1 headset, if that matters. Any ideas on the causes?

 

[Marsman]

No it's not normal. I have an Xtreme Music, but when there is no sound, I don't hear anything when scrolling or switching tabs etc. The sound card is picking up interference. It's a problem quite a few people have. For some the issues are more severe, for others it's minimal.

There are two things you can do. 1. Try modified drivers. PAX and Daniel K have released modified drivers to help cure issues caused by Creative's own. 2. Move the sound card to a different slot, if you have one spare, and if you haven't tried that already. I remember sometime ago, someone had a similar issue. Moving the card to another slot solved the problem.

 

[iviv]

Unfortunately I only have two PCI slots in my mobo, which are taken up by my sound card and wireless card. Next time I switch off I'll give swapping them over a go, as its currenly in the upper PCI port, switching to the lower one can't really hurt.

As for the modified drivers, which one would you recommend, or are they both as good as each other?

Thanks for the reply

 

[Marsman]

I have never had any issue with Creative's, so I have never tried modified drivers to fix an issue. Although, I recently installed the PAX drivers when I reinstalled Windows last, just out of curiosity. They work great, no problems at all.

You will need a driver cleaner to clear out the old ones after uninstalling all the Creative software. Installing modified ones over the ones you have now, wont help.

 

[hohum]

Wouldn't bother messing around with drivers. The sounds you hear are caused by electrical noise from other components within your PC, and generally there's not a great deal you can do about it (bar using an external DAC). Some of Asus's high-end cards have measures to help prevent/reduce this, such as shielding on the card and sourcing power from a molex instead of the motherboard, but I don't know how effective they are.

 

[Marsman]

Wouldn't bother messing around with drivers.

Strange comment. So what you are saying is, nothing you can do about it, so don't bother. There are plenty of people with snap crackle and pop, that found modified drivers sorted the issues, maybe you would have advised them not to bother either?

I think it's worth trying modified drivers rather than just admitting defeat.

EMI shields help to an extent, but they can be rather useless, as there are cases where people still get interference problems, EMI shield or no.

 

[hohum]

There are plenty of people with snap crackle and pop, that found modified drivers sorted the issues, maybe you would have advised them not to bother either? I think it's worth trying modified drivers rather than just admitting defeat.

The infamous Creative snap/crackle/pop phenomenon you're referring to was caused by latency issues, which a driver version update can indeed resolve. Electrical interference issues as described by the OP can't be resolved by a new audio driver, nothing 'strange' about that.

EMI shields help to an extent, but they can be rather useless, as there are cases where people still get interference problems, EMI shield or no.

That's because most of the unwanted interference is due to noise passed along from the motherboard's power circuitry. EMI shielding helps to a degree, but the biggest improvement should occur when the card doesn't source power from the motherboard itself, but directly from the PSU via molex connection.

 

[iviv]

So, swapped the sound card and wireless card around, and spent most of the afternoon dealing with all the hissy fits it caused, first the sound card not being able to find a temp file for installing... something, then the wireless card didn't want to work either. But I've eventually got them all working, and I think its better! There's still a little noise, though only on a couple of sites I've noticed. So, a result! Thanks for the pointers