weird hum/noise thru monitors

[teddyastuffed]

hey everyone! i just recently setup my home studio in a different room in my apartment and now im getting a weird hum/noise through my monitors, but it only occurs when my computer is under stress/under load. for instance if i close my sequencer and just have my computer on idle, i hear no sort of noise, but even when i drag a file w/ the mouse, i hear a weird hum. the most noticable time it happens is when im using a lot of vst instruments and effects in my sequencer, there appears to be a weird hum constantly coming out of the monitors. even if i mute the channel that the output from my audio interface is going to, i still hear the hum. i didnt have this problem before and i cant figure out what the problem is. the conclusion i came to is the fact that i have everything (computer, monitor, studio monitors, mixer, podxt, and keyboard) all plugged into a simple power strip. but the only problem is, thats what i was using before and never had this problem. i was going to go buy one just to see if that was the problem, but i wanted to know if anyone knew of any other problems. just for reference my setup consists of a daw, an unbalanced mixer, yamaha keyboard, podxt, and the monitors. everything is connected through unbalanced connections, which i know can cause a lot of noise to occur esspecially with bad cable management, but its just weird cuz that problem didnt exist before. so any suggestions would be great. thanks !


ps: sorry if this is the wrong forum, but no other forum seemed to fit the question

[phaqu]

See if any of your power suppy cords (that are close enough)are running parallel with your speaker wires. And ,if you have a separate circuit,try plugging the computer into it (might be a grounding problem).

[cpl_crud]

Is the "weird hum" when you move the mouse like a series of low "bumps" (not quite clicks) that are in harmony with your mouse movements (ie fast when you move the mouse a lot etc)?

If so, it could be an address/intterupt error, or you could be overstretching your PC.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Maybe you're compuer is humming because it forgot the words? SORRY SORRY SORRY, I had to let that one out .

Seriously, check all your audio cable runs and try to route them as far away from your CPU and your monitor and monitor cable as possible.

G.

[teddyastuffed]

Originally Posted by cpl_crud

Is the "weird hum" when you move the mouse like a series of low "bumps" (not quite clicks) that are in harmony with your mouse movements (ie fast when you move the mouse a lot etc)?

If so, it could be an address/intterupt error, or you could be overstretching your PC.

sorry for the delay guys, internet has been down for days . that is EXACLY what is happening to the (kinda like bumps when i move the mouse fast or slow or in general). i just dont know what u mean by address/interupt error or what overstretching the PC means. if u could elaborate a little, that would be great!

[cpl_crud]

Okay, what's happening here is that, through some magic of computers, your mouse and soundcard are sharing some of your CPU's recourses.
This is a common thing, and is usually fine.
There are two main parts to the way a device "talks" to the CPU, the Address (where the device is in relation to the CPU, and the path that any information must take) and the Interrupt {IRQ} (which is something that the CPU "listens" to- when a device wants to use some CPU time, it "interrupts" the CPU and lets it konw that there is information to process).

This is a pretty basic view of somethign obviously more complicated, but I digress.
What I'm assuming is that your mouse is shairing an intterupt channel with your sound card. The computer magic then turns your mouse's intterupt requests into those little "bumps" in your audio.

To fix this is a bit of a pain, and newer versions of windows make it fairly hard. I'd suggest moving your soundcard to a different slot. That will usually change the IRQ of the device.
The reason you hear the noise more when you're using a lot of effects is probably due to tw oreasons- firstly, the increased load on the CPU/memory means that more intterupt requests are going to be bouncing around, and that you're probably paying more attention to the sound when you're using a lot of effects.

Finally, update your drivers for both your mouse and your audio card. Also consider upgrading the drivers for your motherboard, usb ports and firewire ports. As these things usually come with the computer a lot of people neglet ever having to install drivers for them, but a proper set of motherboard drivers will usually fix up this issue.