Weird computer speaker problem

I’ve been doing some searching on this and have yet to find this problem addressed anywhere. The speakers on my computer pick up radio transmissions. Sometimes it’s truckers’ CB radios and sometimes it’s foreign language broadcasts (i.e. many different languages but never English). The volume dial on the speakers doesn’t affect the volume of what is picked up; sometimes I have had the it turned down all the way and something still comes in very loud–I leave my 'puter on all the time and I have been awakened a couple of times by this. I cannot possibly be the only person in the world who has ever had this happen (at least, I hope…?), but I’m darned if I can find any info on this. Has anyone heard of this happening, and is there anything I can do about it short of buying new speakers???

Cheaper speakers don’t have properly shielded wires, which means they can act as an antenna. If your computer is plugged into a grounded socket, you could try wrapping the speaker wires with aluminum foil right up to just before the plug, then tape a strip of foil to the foil on the wire, with the other end taped to the metal of your computer.

If that solves your interference problem, you might look into a more aesthetic (and robust) solution.

Disclaimer: if you don’t understand why this would work, maybe you should ask a more technically oriented friend to do the job for you. I wouldn’t want you sticking the foil anywhere where you might get shocked.

That makes sense. Thanks. My brother built my system for me, and while he’s a whiz at a lot of things, he’s not an audiophile, so I suppose he just got cheap speakers (he bought everything at a computer show).

BTW, I was an electronic tech in the Navy, so not to worry about sticking metal things into electric sockets–I left that to the radiomen. :stuck_out_tongue:

In my mis-spent youth I was a Radio Shack manager and this used to happen occasionally when an over boosted CB or HAM radio would broadcast too close to the display stereo system and pass by outside. Can’t say re the foreign language broadcasts but it sounds like a better shielded PC speaker wire might help. Inexpensive lengths of shielded 2 conductor cable are available at RS. As these are usually wired directly to the speaker in inexpensive units they may be impossible to replace but you could probably reduce the problem somewhat by “twisting” the wire if you can fix it so that it will not un-twist and spring back to the original flat shape.

As a secondary WAG even near a busy road in a crowded suburban shopping center this broadcast effect throught the speakers only happened occasionally. If this problem continues, you may have a more fundamental problem with the audio card beign poorly shielded.