Buzz/interference in headphones/speakers when using graphics card (Rome 2:Total War) ???

[FrankJaeger]

Sup dudes,

When I open Rome 2:Total War I hear a strange buzz coming from my speakers/headphones as soon as it executes.

It's a high frequency buzz that jolts up and down in pitch when I do stuff on the game (Go onto different menus ect) It reminds me of the sound I heard when my old PC's headphone input suffered some electrical interference due to a nearby USB port.

The buzzing doesn't happen when using VLC/Firefox with either headphones or speakers (Headphones plugged into the front header)

This may have something to do with the graphics card or a piece of hardware that's activated when Rome starts. The buzzing stops when I use the motherboard's audio input instead of the front header's. This leads me to believe it's an issue with the front audio header

I hear the components on a front header are not shielded well but this does not explain my problem when speakers are plugged into the MB's audio

So far I have only encountered this problem whilst using Rome 2

Here's a few things that might help narrow down this issue
-The USB devices (Wireless receivers for keyboard & mouse) once located at the 2 front USB slots have been relocated to 2 downstream USB slots on my monitor. This proves it's not an interference with activity of the front USB ports; a problem I've had in the past with a different PC
- My PC sits on a carpet?! Static issues?
-I have tried plugging my headphones into the front after unplugging my speakers from the back to no avail
- I have tried unplugging everything connected to the PC, bar power lead to no avail
- I have updated to the latest realtek driver
- When I say speakers in mean amp, one for a bass guitar. I thought maybe this could be the problem with the buzz in the speaker playback but the buzz is identical to the sound heard when using headphones via the front header, therefore meaning it's the same issue
- With Rome's audio muted the sound persists

Does anybody have any suggestions to what is causing this interference?

Thanks for reading, Frank

 

[makkem]

Hi
This is almost certainly EMI from the graphics card.
It will likely be worse on the front sockets as the cable connecting the motherboard to the front header will be acting like an antenna.
It is also likely that the audio components on the motherboard are picking it up.
It will be worse when the graphics card is heavily driven.
The first thing to try is to move the graphics card to another slot .