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Getting a weired ossilation from computer thru my RME via the fire wire connection
When I unplug the the Firewire cable its gone. this also happens thru the onboard sound card(when hooked up.) you can hear my mouse move or even when a page is loading, and even on start up.. any thought?

Comments

JoeH Wed, 10/24/2007 - 05:32

Oscillation (Hum? Buzz? High Pitched whine?) comes from a variety of things. Sounds like neither device (the RME or the Sound Card) is the culprit alone. Yours sounds like a ground loop or bad circuitboard connection on the computer, perhaps even a missing ground connection somewhere.

For starters, make sure you have everything plugged into the same outlet or circuit breaker. Also make sure the audio cables are seated properly, and that all connections are tight.

What about your amp and speakers? Are they external, or are you driving them from your computer's sound card? If they're external, you should check the ground path there as well.

The best way to check it is to start with the system in its most quiet/well behaved mode and add things one at a time until the problem appears. See which device causes the problem, and if it happens alone or in combination with other devices.

It really does seem like your sound card is picking up trash/noise normally shunted to ground, possibly coming in via the hot side of your audio input. There's a lot of noise made by regular system devices - mice, hard drive chatter, video card raster noise, etc. usually all kept out of the audio chain.

anonymous Wed, 10/24/2007 - 11:43

Thanks for the Quick Reply... Its a High Pitched noise..
Right now the Sound card (Intrenal onboard) is shout off in the bias. So thats not an issue anymore , however its still an issue with my RME.. I think Im going to make sure that my gear is properly gounded to start. That had been mentioned to me by a friend of mine..
With your second opinion Im sure thats what it going to be.. So thank you for your time and Great post.