Started getting hiss from ALL speakers when connected to PC by SPDIF

[s162216]

Hi,

I started watching the Terminator: Ultimate Edition an hour ago and about 15 minutes or so in, I kept thinking I could hear hiss in the quiet bits of the soundtrack, which I thought was odd seeing as I had watched it last week with the same settings (5.1 DTS track, over SPDIF to Receiver which I had set to a volume of 45 and with 6db bass frequency equalization) with no problems at all, absolutely no hiss and a great soundtrack. I thought I was imagining it, but it kept coming back when there is little sound or theres something such the noise of road traffic, it just sounds unnatural. I had a copy I had recorded off the TV before I had got the DVD and played it off my PVR at the scene where I noticed it most. Over the same speakers, there was no hiss at all. I then tried the DD track, the same hiss. I then noticed that when the receiver was on DVD (the channel the computers connected to), if you listen carefully the hiss is actually distictly audible even when nothings being played over them yet if I go onto any other channel on the receiver, the hiss automatically goes away and is inaudible.

I checked in system restore what I had installed since I last watched that DVD. I am pretty certain its not the disk itself as the hiss is audible all the time. Also I watched Die Hard on Saturday and there was nothing audiable then nor when I played Farcry a couple of days ago. The only thing I have installed since then is the Nvidia Purevideo Decoder which really improves the image quality. I am going to uninstall that and see if it improves then, but I can't think how thats affecting it. I have not touched the recievers settings or the cables since Sunday when I was playing Farcry so I don't have a clue what it could be.

Any Ideas?

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi,

I started watching the Terminator: Ultimate Edition an hour ago and about 15 minutes or so in, I kept thinking I could hear hiss in the quiet bits of the soundtrack, which I thought was odd seeing as I had watched it last week with the same settings (5.1 DTS track, over SPDIF to Receiver which I had set to a volume of 45 and with 6db bass frequency equalization) with no problems at all, absolutely no hiss and a great soundtrack. I thought I was imagining it, but it kept coming back when there is little sound or theres something such the noise of road traffic, it just sounds unnatural. I had a copy I had recorded off the TV before I had got the DVD and played it off my PVR at the scene where I noticed it most. Over the same speakers, there was no hiss at all. I then tried the DD track, the same hiss. I then noticed that when the receiver was on DVD (the channel the computers connected to), if you listen carefully the hiss is actually distictly audible even when nothings being played over them yet if I go onto any other channel on the receiver, the hiss automatically goes away and is inaudible.

I checked in system restore what I had installed since I last watched that DVD. I am pretty certain its not the disk itself as the hiss is audible all the time. Also I watched Die Hard on Saturday and there was nothing audiable then nor when I played Farcry a couple of days ago. The only thing I have installed since then is the Nvidia Purevideo Decoder which really improves the image quality. I am going to uninstall that and see if it improves then, but I can't think how thats affecting it. I have not touched the recievers settings or the cables since Sunday when I was playing Farcry so I don't have a clue what it could be.

Any Ideas?

Sounds like a noisy circuit someplace. See if there is hiss on that input with nothing connected. Try another input on the receiver. That should tell you whether the noise is that input on the receiver, or the computer sound card.

It sounds to me as if you have a component failure.

 

[s162216]

Only the DVD channel on the reciever will allow the use of coax SPDIF and the computer doesn't have an optical out, how should I test it over another channel?

I unplugged the coax cable from the pc, the noise instantly went away. When I plugged it back in it came back. I presume thats not good?

 

[TLS Guy]

Only the DVD channel on the reciever will allow the use of coax SPDIF and the computer doesn't have an optical out, how should I test it over another channel?

I unplugged the coax cable from the pc, the noise instantly went away. When I plugged it back in it came back. I presume thats not good?

That shows the noise is coming from the computer. Open the computer. Make sure you are wearing a ground strap. Clean the board contacts with tuner cleaner, and replace. If that does not do the trick you likely need a new sound card.

 

[s162216]

That shows the noise is coming from the computer. Open the computer. Make sure you are wearing a ground strap. Clean the board contacts with tuner cleaner, and replace. If that does not do the trick you likely need a new sound card.

Slight slight problem, the audio is onboard and controlled through the dedicated Nvidia Soundstorm chip which is designed to give optimum digital output as each board was tested and fine tuned by Dolby Labs. So it is is irreplacable and plus it is you could say, the heart of my PC sound system as due to the Dolby Digital Live encoding which is the only way I can get discrete surround sound as my reciever does not have a multi analogue input. It would be impossible to get another suitable card as no other cards that I know of except the Xonar can do DDL by default unless I were to use unofficial drivers.

Could it be anything to do with the coax cable? Thinking about it, I moved some cables when trying to connect my N64 to my capture card, and all my cables got moved around so could it be problems from that? You know like a mains cable causing noise on the cable as it runs across it.

I think I will restart my computer - just in case, you know.

 

[TLS Guy]

Slight slight problem, the audio is onboard and controlled through the dedicated Nvidia Soundstorm chip which is designed to give optimum digital output as each board was tested and fine tuned by Dolby Labs. So it is is irreplacable and plus it is you could say, the heart of my PC sound system as due to the Dolby Digital Live encoding which is the only way I can get discrete surround sound as my reciever does not have a multi analogue input. It would be impossible to get another suitable card as no other cards that I know of except the Xonar can do DDL by default unless I were to use unofficial drivers.

Could it be anything to do with the coax cable? Thinking about it, I moved some cables when trying to connect my N64 to my capture card, and all my cables got moved around so could it be problems from that? You know like a mains cable causing noise on the cable as it runs across it.

I think I will restart my computer - just in case, you know.

I would have thought you would have already restarted your computer, that is always the first thing to do. RCA SPDIF cables are usually pretty tough, but it won't hurt to change it. Make sure you use 75 ohm digital RCA cables, not 50 ohm analog ones. The 75 ohm cables minimize reflections and therefore you have less digital errors. However I think the cable is a long shot, but one you should definitely eliminate.

 

[s162216]

Just noticed something interesting - when I disable the digital output in the sound properties the hiss vanishes. When turned back on it comes back. When I selected analogue output through the weak stereo speakers in my monitor, the noise was slightly audiable there as well. Its like theres something playing constantly in the background of the computer as I also noticed that despite me not making any sound with the computer, the receiver flashes up that its got a DD 3/2.1 input like it does when theres audio going through it. Usually it does not do that until there is an input.

Its very strange.

Restarting did nothing.

 

[TLS Guy]

Just noticed something interesting - when I disable the digital output in the sound properties the hiss vanishes. When turned back on it comes back. When I selected analogue output through the weak stereo speakers in my monitor, the noise was slightly audiable there as well. Its like theres something playing constantly in the background of the computer as I also noticed that despite me not making any sound with the computer, the receiver flashes up that its got a DD 3/2.1 input like it does when theres audio going through it. Usually it does not do that until there is an input.

Its very strange.

It sounds then as if there is something generating the noise ahead of the DAC.

I would definitely clean ALL contacts to your Nividia board carefully. Oxidized contacts generate noise.

If that does not work it sounds if you will need a new board with those chip sets. If this type of noise is not generated by a poor contact, there are a lot of causes, a leaky capacitor, noisy resistor and above all a noisy gate in a chip. Those type of modern boards are usually not serviceable, but you can make inquiries. Usually faults like this come down to board replacement.

 

[s162216]

This board has not been made for about the last 4 - 5 years now, Nvidia discontinued Soundstorm as so few people at the time took advantage of it. I got mine off ebay a year ago and put the PC together about 3 months ago. I got that board as its legendary for performance and for its sound given the hardware it uses.

I think that this could be software based as the reciever has never detected DD stream just because the cable is connected, like I said, its like something is playing in the background. I'll run a virus scan as there are some nuisance ones that do things like that.

Theres no contacts BTW, its on the PCB and its surface mount chip on board.

 

[adwilk]

It sounds to me like there is an audio filter being used in the background.

Do you have any codec packs installed? What operating system are you using?

I would reinstall the card and any players/codecs you have installed.

EDIT: what modems/internet devices might be enabled? Do you have on board wireless? Probably not likely, but wanna make sure?

 

[s162216]

It sounds to me like there is an audio filter being used in the background.

Do you have any codec packs installed? What operating system are you using?

I would reinstall the card and any players/codecs you have installed.

As I said, the only thing related to sound that I have installed is the Nvidia Purevideo dvd decoder. I'm going to uninstall that now although supposedly it only actually operates when an mpeg-2 stream or VC-1 stream is being played. It does darastically improve video quality though. I am using XP Home Edition.

 

[adwilk]

As I said, the only thing related to sound that I have installed is the Nvidia Purevideo dvd decoder. I'm going to uninstall that now although supposedly it only actually operates when an mpeg-2 stream or VC-1 stream is being played. It does darastically improve video quality though. I am using XP Home Edition.

It may have taken over DD5.1 duties, though. You don't have xvid, or divx or anything like that installed?

 

[s162216]

It may have taken over DD5.1 duties, though. You don't have xvid, or divx or anything like that installed?

No I don't. Could dust have causes this problem? Yesterday I used one of those little brush-blower things to remove some dust that had built up on 2 of the fans. A few particles floated down off the brush though, could they be causing interference by laying across a track or something?

Uninstalling the Purevideo did nothing.

 

[adwilk]

The fact that its sending a DD signal to the receiver makes me think its not dust. BUT, dust or debris could be an underlying problem to possible hardware failure. I think theres an audio filter running somewhere in the background. Have you re-installed the sound card?

I believe there is a command prompt to run your sound card in safe mode, provided your sound card drivers are legacy drivers. perhaps its a registry "hack" but it could isolate your problem.

What media player were you using?

 

[Shock]

Having dealt with onboard sound on a number of purpose built PC's, I have encountered every possible problem with audio you could imagine. Pops, hums, hiss', everything you could think of. Every single problem had the same solution, an actual quality sound card.

I have never trusted onboard sound on any motherboard simple because all of my experience with onboard has been bad. THX is a much more rigorous certification than DD, and anything with THX slapped on it you can assume is going to be of the utmost quality.

My advice, is to buy an actual sound card.

 

[s162216]

Something really strange is happening, whenever I try to install any drivers from Nvidia, it will extract the files to C:/Nvidia and then try to install them. Every time, it says the installer is loading and the nvidia logo comes up but then it vanishes and the installer doesn't load. I am now really confuses as to what is happening, I tried installing the drivers with the forceware drivers on the cd, but the same thing happens.

 

[Shock]

I would suggest cleaning out your audio drivers with a driver cleaning program. Driver Sweeper is a free program and works extremely well. If that doesn't seem to do the job I would try to disable the device through the device manager, and restarting. Then enable the device and reinstall the drivers.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Just noticed something interesting - when I disable the digital output in the sound properties the hiss vanishes. When turned back on it comes back. When I selected analogue output through the weak stereo speakers in my monitor, the noise was slightly audiable there as well. Its like theres something playing constantly in the background of the computer as I also noticed that despite me not making any sound with the computer, the receiver flashes up that its got a DD 3/2.1 input like it does when theres audio going through it. Usually it does not do that until there is an input.

Its very strange.

Restarting did nothing.

I am just wondering if you have a ground loop issue caused by the computer.

 

[s162216]

I am just wondering if you have a ground loop issue caused by the computer.

I actually thought exactly the same thing, but I just can't see as to why I would suddenly get one when I have been using it fine for the last few months. The only problem I have ever had is when I unplugged everything going to my receiver so to sort out the cables. For a while after that, the DD would just randomly drop out for sometimes just one second or most of the time more than 30 seconds. I replugged all the speakers into the receiver, checked all the connections etc and it still did it, but it then just stopped and it has not happened since.

 

[s162216]

I've been able to install the latest sound drivers after rolling it back to a couple of weeks ago. No change at all and now for some reason other areas of the Pc have started acting up as well. It will just suddenly restart and then says a conduction error with the IDE control and then start up and restart again as normal. Programs suddenly crash now every few minutes and processes just abruptly say they have a problem and close. I have checked the hard disk and its fine from what I can see, I think that there must just be component failure somewhere on the motherboard and the hissing was just the beginning.

I think I will get another motherboard if this keeps up as its just impossible to use the pc. I might get the same one or a different one but similar.