Bad electrical buzz in all equipment...

  • Thread starter Thread starter googlydog
  • Start date Start date
G

googlydog

New member
Hi there,
I record at home with a pretty simple, unimpressive set-up...
but since I've moved my new house seems horrible for any sort of electronics.

There is a bad buzz in pretty much all electronic equipment I have plugged in, in every outlet of the house. Obviously guitar amps pick this up the worst, but it's also audible in my stereo amplifier, some light bulbs/switches, the doorbell transformer, etc.

The buzz is also inconsistent, almost like there's a tremolo on it that is sometimes faster or slower. A light on a power strip switch of mine actually flickers in time with the audible buzz.
... and then some days the buzz is almost totally absent. It seems to be worst at night.

I've tried turning off every single electronic appliance, light, whatever in the house except the amp I was trying to play through... no luck.

Any ideas? The house is quite old, over 100 years, but is grounded according to the plug-in tester I tried.
 
serious drag... you may have something in the neighborhood that's transmitting it... or there's something wrong with the wiring it's self... are you buying or renting??? if the former then get yourself a good electrical contractor to go over it...
 
I'm wondering if...

a Furman Power Conditioner might solve your problem.
 
Sailjunkie said:
a Furman Power Conditioner might solve your problem.
Click to expand...
perhaps... but ithink if it did it would probably take one of those that have a balanced power output and they aint cheap... probably cost less to have someone troubleshoot whats there..
 
Before doing anything else or using any gear, "CHECK THE THE HOUSE HAS AN EARTH" It sounds like the main house earth has become disconnected. If it has THIS IS DANGEROUS.

I have had this happen to me when I once moved into an old house, the main earth wire through the roof had been stepped on and broken sometime in its past, buzz on everything including the stereo.

The next thing it could be is a loose connection in the mains supply.

I would get an electrician there as soon as possible.

Cheers

Alan.
 
Actually, right before I put up this thread I tried out one of the cheaper Furman m8 power conditioners... didn't do a thing. Honestly no change whatsoever.

Like I mentioned, I checked all the sockets with a little tester and it said they were all grounded...
can something be grounded, but not WELL grounded?

My father-in-law says he can install another ground, another friend of mine says he could too, they say it's not that difficult,
but we're just renting, should I try to force the landlord into looking in to it? Could I claim it's possibly damaging the stereos, computers, TVs, etc.?

The fact that it has a pulse is the weirdest thing to me. Tonight the rhythm is eighth-eighth-quarter (or ti-ti-ta if you will), other times it's a four on the floor beat.

Maybe I'll try my amp at the neighbors next week and see how it acts.
 
I would still get it check by a licensed electrician as soon as possible as a safety issue, if he says all is OK then thats good piece of mind.

It could be outside interference but more likely interference caused by the mains supply, is there a neon sign or flashing street sign nearby? Telephone exchange?

My next check would be a loose mains connection which could be in the fuse box or on the feed to the building, the noise caused my this will change due to how much load is present.

I have in the past put extra earthing in, I put a long galvanized pipe into the ground and connected a link from the building earth to it, I also ran a dedicated earth from the pipe to the studio supply. You usually find the building earth fixed to a water pipe somewhere out side the building. It all helps.

Cheers

Alan.
 
In the states the preferred method is a copper ground rod, probably followed by Ufer (named for the inventor--- grounding to rebar in the concrete footing of the building.) NEC requires grounding water pipes within the first 5-feet of entry into the building.

Tell your landlord to get a licensed electrical contractor out there ASAP to check everything out and make repairs as necessary.
 
googlydog said:
Actually, right before I put up this thread I tried out one of the cheaper Furman m8 power conditioners... didn't do a thing. Honestly no change whatsoever.

Like I mentioned, I checked all the sockets with a little tester and it said they were all grounded...
can something be grounded, but not WELL grounded?

My father-in-law says he can install another ground, another friend of mine says he could too, they say it's not that difficult,
but we're just renting, should I try to force the landlord into looking in to it? Could I claim it's possibly damaging the stereos, computers, TVs, etc.?

The fact that it has a pulse is the weirdest thing to me. Tonight the rhythm is eighth-eighth-quarter (or ti-ti-ta if you will), other times it's a four on the floor beat.

Maybe I'll try my amp at the neighbors next week and see how it acts.
Click to expand...

FWIW--the Furman M8s are nothing more than rack mount power strips. (I know--I've got some!). They won't do a thing to clean up your current.
 
c7sus said:
In the states the preferred method is a copper ground rod, probably followed by Ufer (named for the inventor--- grounding to rebar in the concrete footing of the building.) NEC requires grounding water pipes within the first 5-feet of entry into the building.

Tell your landlord to get a licensed electrical contractor out there ASAP to check everything out and make repairs as necessary.
Click to expand...

Actually, after the first couple weeks of moving in (this past autumn) I did get them to send an electrician out...
The pulse was picked up and amplified by the transformers for the doorbells near the fuse boxes (two fuse boxes, it's a two unit house, and the girl downstairs hears the sound as well), so I was concerned it was a fuse box problem.
An electrican came out, said "yeah that's weird, but the fuse boxes are almost brand new, and I don't think it's dangerous." and he left.
That was that.
He thought the buzz was from some sort of FM thing, but at the time I had only noticed it in my amps/speakers, it was before it was visible in the lights and audible in other non-audio electrical equipment, so I didn't get to give him the full scoop.
Somehow, I don't think he would've cared or done anything about it anyway.

So, do you all think I should try to get my friend and/or father-in-law to run another ground? At least for one room? Can a non-professional do this?
 
Buzz with harmonics

I'd check to see if there is a ground loop problem for sure!
AC power operates at 60Hz in the US and 50Hz in the UK, so that could be the reason it hums to the cycles.

The grounding needs to be done at the main power entry point for all power coming into the house, I don't think that grounding just the room would fix the problem.
 
I agree...sounds like you need a good ground. If it's affecting everything, I'd think that can only be at the source of the power and that would be the main box.

Sound about right?

If you're ok with doing this stuff, you can run another earth ground. If not, it'd be worth it to pay someone to.

my 2c anyway...
Good luck.
Kel
 
Buzz

I lived in an older house before that had a buzz...the main was grounded, the cause I found after months of hunting was in a couple of ceiling outlets where the installing electrician got sloppy. What a nightmare :(
 
faxquo said:
I lived in an older house before that had a buzz...the main was grounded, the cause I found after months of hunting was in a couple of ceiling outlets where the installing electrician got sloppy. What a nightmare :(
Click to expand...

How do you mean "sloppy"?
and how did you find out?
 
Buzz....ards

I opened every outlet box to check the wiring, I found 2 boxes where the ground wire wasn't even attached to anything (one was a fan box in the ceiling) and in another they had swapped the neutral and hot posts in the receptacle.

Hopefully the 100 year old house has been re-wired in the 20th century, in some older homes they still have fabric braided two-wire....yikes!
 
UPDATE
(possibly useful for someone with a similar problem, or anyone just curious):

My father-in-law checked all the outlets, checked the ground, and decided that the house was very well grounded. So that's not the issue.

We might have figured out problem IS though:
a malfunctioning light next to the back door of the house. The lamp is light-sensitive, so it only turns on at night, which is when I was having the trouble. The light pulses severely in exactly the same, variable rhythm as the buzz in my amp/tape machine/any electronic shit.
The buzz problem seems to go away when the lamp is off, it's on the west side of the house, so that means it is off from about noon to dusk.
The girl who lives in the bottom half of the house might have a switch for that light, my next step is to ask her to turn it off during a night of buzzing/pulsing, and see if that works.
Make sense?
 
Yeah it does make sense.

A ground problem will generally be one of 2 beasts: 1) Your ground is not actually grounded (as suggested above) and you have voltage and noise on your ground circuit. 2) You're actually grounded but something is dumping so much noise on the ground circuit that it affects everything else in the house.

It sounds like you have number 2. Throw a rock at the light and break it. :cool:

It's important to know that "ground" is a relative term. If you have 110V wiring (like in the US) your ground isn't necessarily 0V. It's just "roughly" -110V to your supply. You can have some serious noise (like several volts) mucking up your ground connections and a circuit tester will STILL say that you're "grounded". One faulty ballast on one faulty light fixture can mess up the whole thing.

Good luck.
 
Well, crap, the whole fixture was replaced this afternoon, and tonight....

the new light pulses/flickers just like the old one did. The amps, transformers, everything buzz in time with the light's pulses. Just like before.

...so is it probably an internal wiring issue with that light?

Any ideas?
 
Gnds, Gnds, Gnds!

googlydog said:
Well, crap, the whole fixture was replaced this afternoon, and tonight....

the new light pulses/flickers just like the old one did. The amps, transformers, everything buzz in time with the light's pulses. Just like before.

...so is it probably an internal wiring issue with that light?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

googly dog,

The ground rod ideas are good but one thing people may not know is it could be a bad power transformer (your power company) or a leaky one (to ground that is). The pole transformer (or underground vault Xfmr) could have poor or high resistance grounds or have a neighborhood ground loop also. As far as your structure, it could be the ground rod or pipe connection like others have mentioned. I would try calling the power company and see if they have any ideas. (put a scope on it) Also re-check you main units breaker/fuse box input ground rod or pipes connection. Clean and tighten all grounds, hots and neutrals in the box. One loose connection can cause a mess! (oops have electrician do it)! I forget I do it myself!!

good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top