Audacity Forum

I really need some help, I've been with this all day...

I bought a USB soundcard for my laptop because it doesn't have a line in, only a mic input, so I try it on 2 other computers and it records fine, but with my laptop, every 15 seconds, it buzzes weirdly, like interference for around 5 seconds...

It only does this when I'm recording...

I've tried with the mic input on the USB soundcard too...and it still does it...

Anybody got a clue what I can do?

<<<I bought a USB soundcard>>>

Which one? I used an iMic for a while until I found that I could hear my hard drive running in the background of the show. Ticks, pops and whines. There is no wall power supply for your sound card, right? It gets all of its power from the computer?

These sound cards use the 5 volt battery supplied by the computer inside the USB connection. If the computer supplies dirty or noisy power, then there will be damage on the show. Try plugging into a different USB connection. Sometimes the only way out of this is to get a USB sound card that plugs into the wall in addition to the computer. That's not fashionable, so they're hard to find.

Koz