Broad spectrum noise from laptop driving me NUTS!

Posted on May 13, 2009 09:46 am
bandspaguy
Member Since: May 05, 2009

I am attempting to play music via my laptop, out to my PA system. I have researched on the internet, w/o success. Here is what I know / what I have tried... 1) Noise is broad spectrum, if I knock down the eq's on the pa amp, I effect it for every eq band. 2) Noise has nothing to with volume level on laptop. 3) Noise is not in the PA, I have tried different sources of amplification (bass amp, etc.) and I get the same result. 4) Noise doesn't seem to be related to a ground loop. I have plugged both laptop and PA into the same outlet, switched outlets and tried the same thing, etc. 5) Noise doesn't seem to be related to HOW I get the music signal out of the laptop. It is there when I use the headphone jack, and it is there when I use USB via a Behringer UCA202 (which I bought because I thought it might help to use USB) 6) Noise doesn't seem to be related to cabling, I have swapped in several different cables, with the same results. 7) Noise -IS- related to the laptop being plugged in to 120VAC. If I unplug the charger, noise is gone. 8) I seem to "hear" what I am doing on the laptop in the noise. When I move the mouse around, etc. the noise seems to change with the movement.

Laptop is a few months old, a Dell Inspiron. ANY help or suggestions would be much appreciated. I am looking at dropping 400 bucks on a Line 6 UX8, for recording my band, but I don't want to do that till I solve this issue.

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