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Will adding a soundcard fix hiss?

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philtheskipper

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Joined
Aug 11, 2004
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I have the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard and currently using it's onboard sound. When the computer is on you can hear a hiss or static coming through the speakers. It gets louder if the volume is turned up. If I turn the computer off the hiss stops. Do you think this is some type of interferance that can't be fixed, or is it from the onboard sound? Will the addition of a good sound card get rid of the hiss?
 
It sounds like it might be sound card related, if it goes away when you turn off the comp. Try plugging the speakers into a portable CD player and see if you get any hiss there. You might only be able to hook up 2 channels at a time, but it'll give you an idea what's causing the problem.

If it is your onboard sound, that wouldn't be too great of a surprise, as OEM's generally skimp on their audio sections, using crappy parts. In that case, I'd say almost positively that a new sound card would fix your problem.
 
I just got my speakers yesterday. When they arrived I tested them with a portable cd player and there was no hiss. The hiss is computer related but I'm not sure if it's interferance or the on-board sound. The onboard sound is NVIDIA Soundstorm which I thought was the top on-board sound?
 
It may be a good onboard setup, but that doesn't make it immune to problems. However, it could be a faulty board, as it shouldn't hiss so much to be that noticeable. Try hooking up some headphones to the outs, see how badly those hiss.
 
I'll mess around with it tomorrow. I've been told that since I'm using the analog output I'm really not using the Soundstorm sound. Guess there's a second generic sound chip for analog? Is this right?
 
I have the same board and when I tested it I had no hiss

Have you installed the newest drivers?
 
Not sure, I'll check for updated drivers. I got the current bios but don't remember anything about the drivers. You use the analog output?
 
This is a known problem with the Asus NF2 board. Check around. I think there are new drivers that alleviate some of that. If not, a sound card solves the problem. But you lose the onboard encoding.

How you go depends on what features you really need. The Chaintech AV-710 is a really nice sounding card for around $25.
 
philtheskipper said:
Not sure, I'll check for updated drivers. I got the current bios but don't remember anything about the drivers. You use the analog output?
Click to expand...

Yes, I tried the analog output, but I use my GTXP instead.
 
Open your mixer and mute the microphone input. I've had computers with onboard sound, and there would be noise and hiss even if there wasn't a microphone attached. So I muted it and it fixed it. Maybe this will help.
 
OK, tried all of your suggestions. Here's the results....

Tested with headphones.... no change
Checked for new drivers....All drivers up to date according to Asus website.
Went into mixer:
muted mic input.... very little change, but there was a very slight improvement
muted cd input......Man! This cut out more than half of the static/hiss!
muted master and everything else.... very little change, put master and wave back on


OK, now I have a few more questions....

What is the cd input for? You can still listen to cd's with it off. When building my computer I did run the separate audio cable from cd drive to board. What is the purpose of it?

I also noticed that when I move across the screen with mouse you can hear interferance through the speakers. Same thing happens when minimizing and restoring windows. Will a sound card cut out interferance like this?

I use a wireless mouse and keyboard, could it be causing interferance?

If not, a sound card solves the problem. But you lose the onboard encoding.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean dolby or surround encoding? I only use 2.1 speakers. All I want is good quality audio for stereo music. If I get a soundcard it will be the Chaintech av710.

Thanks for all your help so far!
 
CD input is only if you use the audio cable for your CDROM, otherwise it doesn't do anything. You used to have to use that damn cable, but now the audio data is sent over the IDE/SATA cables instead [which makes a lot more sense anyways]

If you just want 2channel, get the chaintech anyways. It's really cheap, and would be better quality.
 
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