Thread: The Most Incredibly Un-killable Ground Noise ever...

Originally Posted by insaneramman

This is gonna be a PITA(pain in the @$$) but, after re-reading all the posts I have one last Idea. Do you have a long extension cord and a working PSU (110v) a 400 watt model will work. I had to put one in the other day and thought of you. My M4 ATX has all the molex connectors off one line - while the antec I was installing had two lines with two or three on each. Here comes the PITA part. Go to you car and un plug the comp and only the comp from the mix and power it off the atx (110v psu) with the tios off one line of connectors and your HD off the others(is it(the noise) gone?). My thought is this you have found that your HD is your noise maker. Maybe rearanging the lines so HD is last or first in the series my help unless you have seperate lines then I need Sleep. This may sound crazy and you may have already done it. But, its late and I want a solution as bad as you do. I may need .

Haha, you're hilarious dude. Yeah I know, I definitely need help with the amount of time I'm putting into this. My neighbors think I'm nuts... everytime they've come outside over the last two weeks, I'm hanging out the trunk of my car screwing around.

Ok, well I DID hook up an ATX PSU plugged into a wall outlet for testing purposes, BUT, I only connected it to the Tio's to see if the noise disappeared (it didn't). I did not try what you're suggesting and did not connect the HDD power to the ATX. I will add that to the list for today. Thanks again for the suggestion! I'll let you know how it goes.

Originally Posted by Woofnstuff

na other way round, I ran a big power wire from the battery for my amp, then took a feed off that for the pc and the screen and HU.

since there is an earth connected to the screen already as part of the video cable itself, you should be running both the power wires from the same junction that is feeding the pc.

get some music playing, then try removing the vga screen plug from the pc and see if the noise changes.

I will add those to today's list!! I'll let you know what happens. Thanks Woofnstuff! (love your dog by the way... I'm guessing he's much bigger now though).

Originally Posted by visenri

Don't disconnect the ground of the PSU, you need it to get power from the PSU.

By the way, believe it or not, this isn't true. I can completely disconnect the ground wire from the Opus PSU, and the PC will stay on and operational.

Explain that one to me???

Ekk, sounds like the earth on the video cable is is connected to the earth in the screen and the pc.. or worse the audio lines, the audio lines should defiantly not get capable of carrying enough earth to power the pc, technically as a bit of wire they could, but thats really BAD! most audio plugs should have a floating earth, which means its not connected to the ground of the devise itself.

not recommended btw, and shows that you have more than one earth point, and it will be stressing the psu or the wire or where its getting the earth from by drawing more current than it should thru an earth wire

unplug the video plug first... then unplug the audio, if its still running i would assume your case is grounded to the chassis as well.

the pup is now 8, and ALOT bigger

I see Woofnstuf, so the reason I still have power when the ground wire is disconnected from the PSU is because the PC is getting the ground from somewhere else. That makes sense. I will try and figure out what is grounding it.

I'll just say that I worked out there all day again today and the noise still persists. I am centimeters away from giving up completely. It's so discouraging.

I even tried a USB soundcard, ran it 10+ feet away from the PC, and pulled the Tio's all the way out of the trunk away from the PC and powered them both from a ATX PSU plugged into the wall of the garage. Then I ran the USB soundcard into the Tio's. The noise was STILL there. They were literally picking up hard drive noise being 10+ feet away from the PC. Then I took the harddrive out of the pc and moved it as far as I could away from the soundcard. I also tried grounding the chassis of the hdd to the main ground point. The noise continued. I tried better speaker cables. Noise is still there.

I tried all you guys' suggestions too. I'm so over this. Right now I have the Panasonic HU hooked up, and has not solved the problems, but I did that so I could bring the Tio's inside the house to troubleshoot them further (although I'm pretty sure that w/o my car pc being in the mix, they will not be outputting the noise).

I'll keep reporting back.

Hey insane, sorry, yes I did try that when I was running everything off the ATX psu... I switched things around every which way was possible. I will try the GLI on the AUX input right now.

Woof - I unplugged the VGA cable, and it seemed to improve things a little bit. The static seemed to disappear, but the hiss persisted. So what should I do then with the ground of the LCD? I should ground the LCD to the same point as the PC, or vice-versa?

Insane, I put the GLI in between the PC and Aux In of the HU... no dice

The noise is still there, and at the same level. The GLI literally has no affect on the noise. Weird??

ill post images of mine tonight when i get home
that might give you a visual idea of what im meaning