Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

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kozikowski
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by kozikowski » Wed Jan 01, 2014 3:27 am

Excellent. That means it's almost certainly a problem with soft or ratty USB services.

You're upgrading from a 600W power supply? Are you welding steel girders?

You may have inadvertently pointed to the problem. If you have a rock-crusher, nuclear weapons-grade video card, that can totally create noise and damage to the systems inside the computer. They warn you when you buy a new simple soundcard to mount it as far from the video card as you can get it.

Does your video card have its own dedicated connections to the power supply? Do you wish it did?

Koz

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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by Trebor » Wed Jan 01, 2014 10:00 am

mrsomedude wrote:Even when I moved it the full length the lead will go it still makes the noise. Same with it being close to the pc.
Then Koz is correct , the 1KHz + harmonics whine noise is on the 5 volt power supply at the USB socket powering the microphone.

Maybe someone has made a gadget to fix this : a decoupling capacitor [which costs pennies] fitted to a USB cable could remove the 1KHz ripple signal from the 5Volt DC power supply.

mrsomedude
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by mrsomedude » Wed Jan 01, 2014 1:08 pm

I'm sorry but i'm of lost. So is replacing my power supply and gpu a good thing or a bad thing?

kozikowski
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by kozikowski » Wed Jan 01, 2014 6:38 pm

GPU? Graphics Processor? So I was right. You have a killer video card and it is indirectly causing sound problems.

The only thing we can do from multiple different time zones is tell you what is likely wrong or the conditions likely to cause problems.

It's very likely your microphone is fine and something in the computer is causing sub-standard USB services which is then causing the microphone to act badly. Most mom and pop computers do not have killer video cards and their microphones tend to work just fine, so it's pretty safe to assume your customization may be causing the problem.

Full stop. We have no idea what you did or how to solve it, except it's a better than even chance if you split the USB services by installing a wall-powered USB hub for your microphone alone, there's a good chance that will cure the problem. It has for similar situations in the past.

No guarantees though. We have also had posters with bad or miswired wall power and fixing the wall power in their house cured all the sound problems.

I think that's the whole list. Good Luck.

Koz

mrsomedude
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by mrsomedude » Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:51 am

Hey thanks for helping me out on this by the way. About the wall powered usb. If I connect my mic to the wall if I got one installed then how would I link that up to my computer?

kozikowski
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by kozikowski » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:48 am

If you're going to upgrade the PS and GPU anyway, do that first and see if it helps. If it doesn't, connect a wall-powered USB hub to the computer like you would if you were going to put your keyboard and mouse through it, except put the microphone through it and leave all the other ports blank. The voltages to run the microphone will come from the clean wall power and not the noisy computer.

A regular USB hub isn't going to do it. They get their voltages from the noisy computer and pass them right on to the microphone.

Also if you have a choice, get the USB connection from the back of the computer not the front. The front connections usually go through a wiring harness which can pick up noise.

That should do it.

Koz

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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by mrsomedude » Fri Jan 03, 2014 9:55 pm

Could you send me a link of a wall powered usb hub. I keep coming up with phone charger plugs and I don't think they will connect to the computer. Also the new power supply and graphics didn't help the problem. Its just the same.


kozikowski
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by kozikowski » Sat Jan 04, 2014 2:50 am

That looks like it should do it. I don't have one, but the specifications appear good. I don't know why you would need a 4 Ampere power supply, but I've been the subject of product advertising people before, so I understand..

Koz

kozikowski
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Re: Blue Snowball High Pitched Humming

Post by kozikowski » Sat Jan 04, 2014 2:56 am

Please be clear that it could still be something else. We are diagnosing problems from half-way around the earth and not seeing the same things you are, but this hub thing will probably be successful. I have done similar tricks at work.

Koz

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