Laptop power supply noise ting

[Jimfish]

ok so further to my 'help i have a problem' thread i thought id better ask you lot if any of you have problems with the power supplies on your laptops causing some kind of noisey interference shit on your soundcard..
does anybody have any good tips for overcoming this (apart from running off battery power obviously)? perhaps you know of some kind of 'clean' power adaptor you can purcahse or somthing..
also, do mains power conditioners help at all??

[Dustin Zahn]

In the states we have these little guys:
http://209.3.61.141/iecnet/images/jpeg/ADP0004.jpg

They take care of most of the line noise...at least it makes your laptop playable over a big PA system. I'm sure if your stock soundcard is still tied in with the motherboard on your laptop you're bound to get some sort of slight noise coming from the fan. It shouldn't be too noticeable when you have the music going.

[StoQ]

maybe u should try with some usb external cards

[Jimfish]

yeah they look good those little fellas..
the soundcard is one of those ECHO pcmcia thingys

[DJZeMig_L]

jimmah do u have an external power supply?.. If it's noisy then it's bound 2 b some sort of groundloop or power instability.. one of those surge protectors thingys should do the trick...

Z

[Larney]

A DI box with a ground lift will cure the problem.

[DJZeMig_L]

Humm maybe I don't get yer suggestion but as I understand it the prob is that the audio output already has noise so balancing it won't really solve it me thinks, exept maybe 4 the ground lifting on the unit it self, but I guess a surge protector will have the same option, while also stabelizing the power! Maybe even with some back uo time...

Maybe the guy also has some sort of dodgy ground at his home... Tell him 2 try around some m8s which might live on different areas just 2 make sure it isn't a localized problem!

Z

[ampassasinbirmingham]

i had massive problems with this. Power cable in makes horrid nosie. No power cable in and its fine? Why???

[DJZeMig_L]

maybe it's a badly design power supply unit! :(

Z

[massplanck]

ok so further to my 'help i have a problem' thread i thought id better ask you lot if any of you have problems with the power supplies on your laptops causing some kind of noisey interference shit on your soundcard..
does anybody have any good tips for overcoming this (apart from running off battery power obviously)? perhaps you know of some kind of 'clean' power adaptor you can purcahse or somthing..
also, do mains power conditioners help at all??

jim the reason that there is noise is because the laptop's power lead is earthed and so is the soundcard power both earths are phasing. If you have an external soundcard like the FW410 dissconnect the earth wire from the pin in the laptop plug. The laptop will now be earthed thru the soundcard plug. Even better make your own power block for the laptop and just unearth that and plug the laptop lead into it and the soundcard into somewhere else.

It works for us.