Computer noise while recording

[newguy]

First time posting here, but I spent the last 4 hours or so reading hundreds of posts before posting my "Hey, what soundcard should I buy?" post.

One thing that I've found interesting is that I didn't see any posts about the electronic noise/interference from the computer system itself. I saw some posts about getting quiet fans/power supplies, but that was about it. Obviously I could have missed something somewhere, but isn't there some level of electronic noise inherent in recording audio onto your computer? I mean, my television is 10 feet away from my PC, but I certainly get better reception when my computer's turned off.

Do some cards handle this better than others? Does a breakout box minimize this? Or is this somehow just not an issue?

Okay, how's that for a first post? I'll post my real newbie-dumb question later

 

[drstawl]

Not dumb at all. But it has been discussed. When I first got involved in PC recording this never occurred to me, probably because I didn't own any mics with the sensitivity of a condenser. There are at least two kinds of computer noise that can rain on your recording parade. One is ungodly fan noise that will be picked up by sensitive mics and the other comes from the EM radiation from CRTs that can make guitar pickups sound like a nest of bees. If you really get picky a third would be HD noises.

The interference you hypothesize about can certainly play a role if your analog signal gets stepped on by electronic interference inside the computer case. Breakout boxes with the converters in the box should help here but the two main problems mentioned above are generally louder.