humming sound with two sound cards

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darkpark

Gawd
Joined
Aug 15, 2004
Messages
696
I have just recently installed two sound cards into my computer which are then connected to my computer speakers via a y-adapter-cable. They both work fine but I'm getting this humming sound when they're connected. The humming sound isn't constant but it doesn't sound like it's random either. Anyhow, if I disconnect one or the other sound card than the humming stops. The two sound cards that I have are the X-fi XtremeMusic and the EMU 0202 USB. Previously, I had the M-audio Revolution 7.1 and the EMU 0202 that were connected the same way and with the same cable but they didn't exhibit this problem.
Another strange thing that I have noticed is that if I disconnect the X-fi the volume of the speakers increases noticeably.
Does anyone have some ideas or advice on how to remedy this? I have already tried placing the X-Fi in another pci slot, but that didn't make any difference.
 
It sounds like you have some kind of ground loop or interference going on. Doesn't seem like it's a bad cable since you said the sound goes away using just one card. Maybe the 2 internal cards don't play nicely trying to funnel 2 stereo signals into one Y-cable output. Their signals "converge" and are causing the noise you hear. I'd suggest NOT using the Y-cable. If you must have 2 sound cards hooked up like this, connect them to a cheap audio source selector box ($10 or so at Radio Shack) and run the box's output to your speakers.
 
That seems to make sense about their signals converging and causing noise, but if one card is not being used than that should not happen. Weird...
 
I couldn't find any source selector boxes that would work with computer soundcards so what else could I do? I am sure that I am not the only person with two soundcards in their system. If this is a grounding problem, what could I do to remove it?
 
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