Lately there has been a very bad static hiss in my computer speakers. Sure, before if I turned the volume all of the way up you could hear a slight hiss, but lately it is always there. I am using Klipsch 5.1 speakers with an Audigy 1 card on an XP computer.
Not to hijack your OP, but perhaps any speaker gurus in here could help with my problem that I just noticed, as well. For the past month or so I’ve been running external speakers on my laptop, so tonight when I had none in, I tried to play sound on the built in speakers. At first, the sound wasnt there-- every volume notch had been turned up to make sure it was a problem and it wasn’t that I just couldn’t hear it.
While looking at troubleshooting, the speakers magically began playing (very loud) music. So I was like “Wee, ok, fixed”. Then, later, they stopped. I discovered that by depressing both the up and down volume controls on the side of the laptop, sound would play. And at times, it would kick in when I randomly changed the volume using the side buttons. But it kinda hissed.
What gives?
Any new radio equipment or large appliances operating nearby? Are the cables shielded? Sounds like e-m interference.
Ahh… forgot to mention that it could also be a dodgy power supply. In my old flat, there used to be a lot of static when the washing machine was turned on. Solved that problem by running the speaker’s power through my computer’s UPS.
I have a near-identical setup (Audigy 2 card) and there is also a slight hiss. I had checked a Klipsch FAQ and the answer was there will always be a hiss due to there always being a signal going to the speakers, IIRC.
Turning the computer volume up and the speaker volume down seems to help.
usually a hiss is from an open input of some kind.
On my computer I found that if I didnt use the digital connection for playing music from my cd, there was a constant hiss unless I turned off the cd input in the volume control.
The best way to figure out if this is related is to turn off the different inputs one by one and seeing if the hiss stops.
Wow, I went into the computer volume control and turned off the Auxiliary 2 input and the Line-In 2/Mic 2 input and the hiss has almost entirely disappeared! Thank you very much. 