How to avoid buzzing speakers/headphones?

Cinders1

Estimable
Jan 4, 2016
3
0
4,510
I'm building a new computer from scratch and I want to know how I can avoid buzzing speakers. In my previous 2 builds, I've had buzzing speakers when playing games. The buzzing correlates to my mouse movements, panning in-game camera, or when the graphics really get busy, and other miscellaneous things. It seems to be related to what is being sent to my monitor and/or what my GPU is doing. It buzzes on graphically un-taxing games too, like FTL.
I tried moving all other cables away from sound cables and ports, tried different headphones/speakers. No difference. I believe interference is happening on the board, or at the ports. I built the previous machine in like 2012, so maybe this has been fixed by the industry by now with better shielding?

If not, what can I do to stop it? I had the same case for both builds, is that part of it?
 
Solution


I second this. An external soundcard is the way to go. USB bypasses/ignores your internal soundcard. Unless it's a scam unit, you also get an internal amplifier, meaning you get lossless volume control, which is rare in Windows, because everything except 100%/100 on the volume slider, means that you're losing audio quality. People lower this slider, because their headphones (majority) don't have a seperate volume control, without realising they're reducing audio quality, if you're picky, and don't want interference, USB is the way to go!

A common cause for buzzing/interference is the fact if you use a 3.5mm (1/8") 3 pole...

jimmysmitty

Distinguished
Oct 5, 2007
551
0
19,010
There are two solutions:

1. buy a sound card and place it at the bottom of your board, if able to. I have a sound card and never get any interference.

2. If the above option does not sound appealing buy a motherboard that has the sound card portion shielded. Most high end decent boards have this.
 

Cinders1

Estimable
Jan 4, 2016
3
0
4,510


How do you identify whether a board has good shielding?
 


I second this. An external soundcard is the way to go. USB bypasses/ignores your internal soundcard. Unless it's a scam unit, you also get an internal amplifier, meaning you get lossless volume control, which is rare in Windows, because everything except 100%/100 on the volume slider, means that you're losing audio quality. People lower this slider, because their headphones (majority) don't have a seperate volume control, without realising they're reducing audio quality, if you're picky, and don't want interference, USB is the way to go!

A common cause for buzzing/interference is the fact if you use a 3.5mm (1/8") 3 pole, there could ltierally be a 1 mm difference to get rid of it, if the cable is old but the jack is not. 4 pole is the modern standard, and with my own amplifier, 3 pole to 3 pole to 4 pole to 3 pole was the only way I could get rid of the buzzing. This was using a 3.5mm jack on my projector (HD141X), directly to an amplifier.


All the best!
 
Solution