Background Noise From Computer

[RockyTunes]

How do I get rid of the noise.

It's a very loud humming noise. If I turn off the computer, it goes away. Can't hardly rip albums without the computer.

Everything with the audio system is grounded.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[DVDdoug]

Power line hum? Or a higher-pitched "whine"?

How bad is it? Is the hum as loud as the music?

Maybe a ground loop or a missing/broken ground...

Can't hardly rip albums without the computer.

Vinyl albums?

Please tell us about your equipment and how you're hooked-up. i.e. Using a USB turntable, from "tape out" on your stereo system to "line-in" on a regular soundcard, etc.?

[RockyTunes]

Power hum. It's registering between 30 and 33 on the Recording Level input bar. Definitely a low level hum. When I turn off my computer the hum goes away (from the speakers).

Recording vinyl albums to digital in uncompressed audio format.

I'm using a JVC Professional turntable with an Empire Gold 2000 stylus. I'm running through a pre-amp to the laptop computer which is an ASUS gaming computer with a 1TB hard drive.

Always had a little bit of a hum but I filtered it out using the Noise Reduction feature. Now it's overwhelming.

[DVDdoug]

I'm running through a pre-amp to the laptop computer which is an ASUS gaming computer with a 1TB hard drive.

I assume your laptop does not have a line-input? Most laptops have only mic-in and headphone-out. A microphone input has too much gain (which means it amplifies any noise and you'll probably get distortion) and it's usually mono and often noisy & low-quality. (And you probably know the mic preamp built into a soundcard/laptop is "totally wrong" for a phono cartridge. )

If you don't have line-in and you don't have another desktop/tower computer with a regular soundcard, you'll need a USB audio interface with line-inputs.

The Behringer UCA202 is popular and inexpensive. (I don't own one.) The similar UFO202 has a built-in phono preamp so that can simplify your setup and there's a switch so it can be used with line-level signals. One potential downside is that neither of these have an analog gain/recording level control. If the signal is too low that's not a problem because you can amplify digitally after recording. But if you have some "hot" records and a "hot" phono cartridge and you overload (clip) it's built-in ADC, you can't fix that. (I haven't actually heard of that happening with these little Behringer interfaces.)

The ART USB Phono Plus is about twice the price (or more) with a built-in phono preamp and a gain control.

Or there are lots of higher-end Audio interfaces with switchable mic/line inputs. (The mic inputs on these work with Stage/studio microphones, not "computer mics".)

[RockyTunes]

Thanks very much.

[roadsterUK]

Yes an external device is definitely needed. I use either of a couple of RME boxes to carry out analogue to digital conversion and provide a USB sound device on the computer. The RME Babyface can be picked up second hand at reasonable prices now. You also need some sort of cartridge pre-amp with line out and this can affect quality as much as any component in the chain if not more. You may still get noise on playback if you use the laptops internal audio but something like the Babyface outputs should be free of this. Incidentally I have always found the biggest source of RF interference comes from the monitor or from the mains power supply. You can test by seeing if the noise changes as you move the mouse pointer or drag a window. Similarly see if the noise is the same when running on battery only. You say that everything is earthed but one of the problems with that is ground loop related although I can't say I have had a lot of success playing with interconnects when the source is radio frequencies from adjacent electronics.

[RockyTunes]

Really appreciate the advise. I'm having the computer cleaned this week. I found out that a dirty fan can be an issue as well.

I will be upgrading on the pre-amp too. Good advise.

Thanks again. I'll let you know how everything works. It really is a lot of undesired hum really interfering with my audio experiences