Strange sounds!

[Wild Bama Boy]

Yesterday I installed a new hard drive, graphics card, and more memory in my Dell Dimension 2400.

Everything is loaded back on to the system but I noticed strange sounds when minimizing and maximizing, and while scrolling down.

When I minimize or maximize I can hear a very faint 'electric' noise. I don't know how else to describe it. And when I scroll down I hear lots of static. Now that I'm typing something I can actually hear a faint click after every letter! It's very annoying!

My sound card is a Diamond XtremeSound XS71/24 bit PCI card and my graphics card is a Sparkle Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS PCI.

The sound card is using the most recent driver for it from C-Media. It says it is version 5.12.8.1733. The drivers on CD were crap.

The graphics card is using the driver it came with, version 191.07.

Also the sounds will quit after the computer is on for about 30 minutes. Then they'll start again after restarting.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[boonality]

Sounds more like electronic interference than anything else. You're probably just going to have to deal unless you want to try and move your sound card as far away from everything else as the PCI slots will allow.

 

[welshmousepk]

have you made sure you have no loose wires making contact with the case or mobo?

open it up, and double check everything is secure and not dangling around.

 

[Petrofsky]

...
Any help is appreciated.

Good, then you won't be offended if I ask the stupid question. Are you sure the sound is coming from the speakers? Turn them off for a minute and listen.

From where I sit a thousand miles away and blind, it sounds like "crosstalk"; some wire inside your case is now too close to another wire since you moved things around while installing stuff. Close-together cables that run any distance parallel to each other can induce current in each other. This happens in telephone pair bundles all the time, and it is a well-known hazard in circuit design. Try rearranging the spaghetti in your case, separating what cables you can and putting them at right angles to each other when possible.

A loose connection can cause noise, too. You get a teensy arc that produces scattershot RF. Yank your cables and reattach them, one by one if you want to have a chance of finding out which one was causing the problem, although this kind of problem will often fix itself the instant you start monkeying around. In that case, if it recurs, just redo all your plug-in connections inside the case.

Let us know what happens.

 

[Wild Bama Boy]

Good, then you won't be offended if I ask the stupid question. Are you sure the sound is coming from the speakers? Turn them off for a minute and listen.

From where I sit a thousand miles away and blind, it sounds like "crosstalk"; some wire inside your case is now too close to another wire since you moved things around while installing stuff. Close-together cables that run any distance parallel to each other can induce current in each other. This happens in telephone pair bundles all the time, and it is a well-known hazard in circuit design. Try rearranging the spaghetti in your case, separating what cables you can and putting them at right angles to each other when possible.

A loose connection can cause noise, too. You get a teensy arc that produces scattershot RF. Yank your cables and reattach them, one by one if you want to have a chance of finding out which one was causing the problem, although this kind of problem will often fix itself the instant you start monkeying around. In that case, if it recurs, just redo all your plug-in connections inside the case.

Let us know what happens.

Yes, it is coming through the speakers. Even if all sound is muted I can still hear it but I cannot hear it when the speakers are off.
And just throwing this in there...I can only hear it from my actual speakers if it's right against my ear. I wear headphones all the time which are plugged into the speakers and they seem to amplify the sound. I tried 2 other headphones and I can still hear it through them.

A wire was touching my graphics card and was wrapped around another one next to it. Fixed that...both of them look like they're going to about the same place though (they go under the hard drive) and are still touching but I can't fix that.

The sound seems slightly less audible. If the volume is normal I can just barely hear it (I don't really notice it unless I really listen for it) but I can still hear it clearly if the volume is turned up.

Sounds more like electronic interference than anything else. You're probably just going to have to deal unless you want to try and move your sound card as far away from everything else as the PCI slots will allow.

I only have 3 PCI slots and the graphics card takes up 2 because it is fanless. I could switch the two but then the graphics card's heatsink just barely touches the case. Plus there would be a wire under the card and I don't know if thats...particularly a good idea.