[HN Gopher] Why are my headphones buzzing whenever I run my game?
___________________________________________________________________
Why are my headphones buzzing whenever I run my game?
Author : pacificat0r
Score : 119 points
Date : 2025-12-03 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alexene.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (alexene.dev)
| vanschelven wrote:
| There's a certain cinematic quality to this story... perhaps so
| much so that if it were to be included in an actual movie it
| would be seen as "too over the top" (i.e. CSI-like)
| Popeyes wrote:
| I was going to say get a DAC, but they already had one in their
| setup.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| The DAC is what is causing this issue for me sometimes -
| unplugging and pluggin it back in solves it though.
| kevindamm wrote:
| The source is electrical noise, but the solution of isolating the
| audio chain from the computer's USB means that in the future you
| might not notice when you've introduced another GPU memory
| bandwidth hog into your rendering loop.
|
| Good story, though.
| jraph wrote:
| That might be the strongest spacebar heating workflow situation
| I've actually run into so far
|
| https://xkcd.com/1172
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Just attach a scope to your power lines, boom, live feedback on
| what your renderer is doing.
|
| I wonder if that will be next fad in PC building, just putting
| live power line graph on the screen inside
| kevindamm wrote:
| replace the scope with a dimmable light and we might have a
| better solution than low-decibel audio hum
|
| or perhaps live wire into the seat, tied into a transistor on
| this signal, so if performance drops enough you're sure to be
| alerted to it
| ZeWaka wrote:
| Honestly, would be a sick mod for the upcoming configurable
| Steam Machine front face.
| LM358 wrote:
| Not at all surprised to see that it's a Schiit DAC causing this
| problem
| ShipEveryWeek wrote:
| What's with the animosity towards Schiit? They seem to make
| decent products. Noise from using USB power delivery for audio
| devices is common.. that's why you can (and should) use the
| dedicated power input to you DAC/amp
| LM358 wrote:
| >They seem to make decent products
|
| I don't agree with that sentiment. Their designs are subpar
| and the quality of the soldering is (maybe was) unacceptable:
|
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/h.
| ..
|
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/b.
| ..
|
| The above review specifically goes into the problem from OP.
|
| There's also their amplifier with a rather non-standard
| architecture that tries to solve a non-problem (injecting
| feedback in a NFB loop - I might remember wrong, if so,
| forgive me) which leads to it measuring double digit (!) THD
| if you feed it a sine wave. I'm not an experienced engineer
| but it is IMO a non-starter to have an amplifier try to
| decide what is and isn't a musical signal as part of its
| protection circuitry, short of detecting DC offsets or shorts
| (pun not intended). I'm not in the market for a 1800$
| amplifier that goes bzzzt if you feed it music it disagrees
| with [1]
|
| https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-ragnarok-
| in...
|
| >Noise from using USB power delivery for audio devices is
| common.. that's why you can (and should) use the dedicated
| power input to you DAC/amp
|
| I don't _disagree_ with your point. However, a company
| designing products like these should be able to design a
| filter for this usecase unless you 're trying to use your DAC
| as a a measuring device, or there is something _seriously_
| wrong with your motherboard. I honestly haven 't heard of any
| other brand product with this problem unless it's ~20 years
| old and in need of repair. It doesn't cost much in the BOM,
| however it does cost in engineering hours/competence and QA
| and this is something that should have been caught by the
| latter.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMbY4sZvIw
|
| Edit: I just want to add that I don't _want_ to hate on
| Schiit. Honestly I 'd like new audio companies to succeed and
| I applaud them for rejecting MQA back in the day and for not
| going all-in on the audiofool bullshit one sees too much of.
| But seeing such poor engineering and QA leaves a sour taste
| in my (electronics engineering) mouth. Maybe they have
| improved lately, I wouldn't know. I'm not really in their
| market anyways.
| pacificat0r wrote:
| Wow, that's exactly what I have, a MODI 2. Time for a
| change I guess
| LM358 wrote:
| Look, if it works for you and you're happy with it - keep
| it. More power to you.
|
| I just know that if I handed over something with such
| shoddy soldering to a customer, I'd lose my job or at the
| very least lose soldering privileges. But I am working
| with things that cost _slightly_ more than 99$ that you
| can 't find on store shelves :)
| scrlk wrote:
| Schitt did step up their engineering and quality in the
| last few years, in response to Amir/ASR reviews.
|
| E.g. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?thr
| eads/s...
|
| > No doubt you have noticed my frequent use of terms "nice"
| and "excellent" and that sums up the performance of Modi+.
| At this price point, we don't expect objective perfection
| but competent engineering and that is what we have.
| Physically, the unit is solidly built and of course
| supported by an English speaking US company. For people
| with such preference, the Modi+ provides an excellent
| option. That they can stay competitive with far east audio
| companies is definitely a feather in their cap.
|
| > I am going to recommend the Schiit Modi+ DAC. Great to
| see Schiit continue the (new) tradition of optimizing
| objective performance as they cater to their traditional
| audience.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I'm not sure if you are joking around the sound of the brand
| name, or complaining about the actual brand
| fbd_0100 wrote:
| why do you say that? I used a Schiit Bifrost for many years
| without issue
| nickdichev wrote:
| Why is that? I've generally only seen positive feedback on
| their stuff
| ge96 wrote:
| That's funny it's actually named Schiit I thought that was a
| joke
| tristor wrote:
| Schiit Audio makes great stuff, I've been using it for years
| and have other gear as well to compare to. I think it's good
| for what it is, although their pricing has gone a bit out of
| control lately. The problem here is not the maker of the DAC,
| it's that it's bus powered over USB, which is a problem
| regardless of who makes it.
| vardump wrote:
| These effects used to be much worse in the nineties, often even
| if you had a fancy sound card. Electrical noise is significantly
| reduced now.
| Garvi wrote:
| That's a common problem. It's electrical noise in your signal.
| The only way I know how to completely eliminate it is using
| external DA/AD converters and connecting them to the PC using
| optical wires. We used MADI cards back in the studio back in the
| day.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| you can do a lot with just good power filtering and maybe a
| ferrule on the USB cable to cut the high frequency stuff before
| it even gets to device. I'd imagine powered USB hub might help
| too.
|
| I wonder if there is a market for motherboard targetting
| musicians that just have extra power filtering on USB power.
|
| There are also just USB devices that have just plugs + some LC
| filter that might help, for example
| https://oshwlab.com/wagiminator/usb-power-filter
| diath wrote:
| > A picking texture is a very simple idea. As the name says, it's
| used to handle picking in the game, when you click somewhere on
| the screen (e.g. to select an unit), I use this texture to know
| what you clicked on. Instead of colors, every object instance
| writes their EntityID to this texture. Then, when you click the
| mouse, you check what id is in the pixel under the mouse
| position.
|
| Unrelated, but why? Querying a point in a basic quad tree takes
| microseconds, is there any benefit to overengineering a solved
| problem this way? What do you gain from this?
| rcxdude wrote:
| It aligns with what appears on the screen accurately and
| without needing any extra work to make sure there's a
| representation in a tree that's pixel-accurate. It's also
| pretty low overhead with the way modern GPU rendering works.
| diath wrote:
| What if you have a collision system where collision filters
| can exclude collisions based on some condition in such a way
| that their bounding boxes can overlap? For instance an arrow
| that pierces through a target to fly through it and onto
| another target? How do you accurately store the Entity ID
| information for multiple entities with a limited number of
| bits per pixel?
| pacificat0r wrote:
| Entities that can't be picked, don't write to the texture,
| entities that can be picked, write to the texture their id.
| Whatever is closer to the camera will be the id that stays
| there (same as a color pixel, but instead of the object
| color you can think object id). So you are limited at one
| ID per pixel, but for me that works.
| pacificat0r wrote:
| Well, it's significantly easier to implement than a octree.
| Game is actually 3D under the hood, projected at a careful
| angle to look isometric 2D.
|
| The reason the game is 3D has to do with partially visible
| things being way easier than with isometric textures layered in
| the right order.
|
| Also, now that i just grab a pixel back from the GPU, it's no
| overhead at all (to construct or get the data for it).
| matja wrote:
| A point in screen space is a line in world space after inverse
| camera projection, so this way you get the line-to-closest-
| geometry test in O(1), after the overhead of needing to render
| the lookup texture first.
| asimovDev wrote:
| I have a similar issue with Genshin on PS5 when using the
| headphone jack in the controller with IEMs (didn't happen with a
| headset). It starts buzzing in my left ear when I open the game
| menu or open the map. On the map it only buzzes when I move the
| cursor, interestingly enough. I later noticed that the PSU coil
| whine coincided with the same events. Still no idea why it's like
| that
|
| Thankfully doesn't happen with an external DAC.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > On the map it only buzzes when I move the cursor,
| interestingly enough
|
| Sounds like the game is doing more when the cursor moves
| around, they're probably checking for where the cursor is, and
| something is making the CPU/GPU do a bunch of extra work, which
| finally triggers the coil whine when the PSU is more heavily
| used.
|
| I've basically had the same issue with Nvidia cards since the
| 2080ti started doing coil whine as soon as I opened Unreal
| Engine. Some programs trigger different sounds, depending on
| how much/well they use the GPU, and I've had the literal same
| experience with "hovering with my mouse over element X triggers
| coil whine" multiple times before.
| trillic wrote:
| They connected the headphones to a wireless controller. The
| wireless controller doesn't have a GPU.
| bluedino wrote:
| I remember 15+ years ago reading about certain laptops (Dell?)
| that you could 'hear' scrolling on websites, somehow the video
| chip was interfering with the sound chips. I had one at the time
| it was pretty weird.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Pretty common problem on builtin sound cards, even now. It's
| just very close to the noise source.
|
| Shouldn't really happen on USB DAC, it should have enough
| filtering to get any interference injected by power, and enough
| shielding (and just being far away enough from machine) for
| other EMI
| icelancer wrote:
| Yeah this is the main reason to use a USB DAC. I guess you
| get marginally better sound quality (more noticeable on
| expensive studio headphones that need more power to drive
| them) but better isolation/removal from the noise source is
| the main reason I use them. Especially relevant because in my
| travel I'm often in countries that don't have ground plugs in
| their power sources.
| azraellzanella wrote:
| I get this on my MacBook M1, I "hear" some websites "static"
| tecleandor wrote:
| Happens to my Lenovo X390, specially with disks writes...
| bogwog wrote:
| Maybe I have sensitive hearing, but I encounter this frequently
| on machines from all manufacturers. It is very much still a
| problem today.
| distances wrote:
| Quite a flashback. I switched to optical TOSLINK maybe about 20
| years ago, which solved all those issues obviously. It's a bit
| weird how rare optical outs are on motherboards even today --
| clearly less than half have them -- when it is such a useful
| interface.
|
| Just ordered a hat for my Raspberry Pi with optical out, with a
| plan to make that my main music streamer. Excited to see if
| that works out!
| pyrolistical wrote:
| Ditto. It's is hard to find non-wifi motherboards with
| toslink.
|
| All the cheap boards have neither. Most of the high end
| boards have both
| distances wrote:
| I updated my computer this year, and didn't find anything
| without wifi either. So it seems it's a small tax you just
| have to pay now.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I wish Mini-TOSLINK[1] had been more successful. It's allows
| you to put an optical and electrical audio output on the same
| 3.5mm connector (i.e. headphone port), which is helpful for
| saving space on crowded panels.
|
| The trick is that your 3.5mm connector only needs to connect
| on the sides, so the end of the jack can be open for light to
| be transmitted.
|
| This was seen pretty frequently on laptops for a while, but I
| think two things doomed it. One, most people just don't use
| optical. Two, there's nothing to advertise its existence. If
| you do have one of these ports, you probably don't even know
| you could plug an optical connector in there.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK#Mini-TOSLINK
| kace91 wrote:
| I hear my second hand dell XPS laptop running fedora when I
| scroll through dropdown lists.
|
| It sounds exactly like the reads on a physical hdd, which is
| silly because it has an SSD. Haven't figured out what it is
| yet.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I can hear when my Dell laptop uses the flash drive heavily. It
| sounds kind of like a hard drive, so I actually had to verify
| that I have a flash chip. Apparently it's a known issue; I've
| assumed that something in it vibrates due to EMF.
| 0xc0ff338 wrote:
| I get fairly audiable coil whine when scrolling websites.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| It's funny that apparently "high performance" DAC doesn't handle
| the common issue every single USB audio device have to worry
| about - noisy power. From the vendor page (on MODI 5, no idea
| which one author has).
|
| > SPECS THAT MATTER
|
| > Distortion: inaudible; 100-1000x lower than any transducer
| (speaker or headphone) you're using > Noise: inaudible; far below
| a typical headphone or speaker amp
| pier25 wrote:
| > _100-1000x lower than any transducer_
|
| This seems like a lot but it's only 20-30db lower than whatever
| reference they're using.
|
| This is the spec that really matters: THD+N: 0.0003% which is
| roughly -110 dB. It's very good and completely inaudible but
| not exceptional these days.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| THD+N is irrelevant for the issue the author is describing,
| through. You need to spec PSRR (power supply rejection
| ratio). Many individual ICs do not spec this, and pretty much
| every system does not spec this.
| pier25 wrote:
| Indeed. I was only commenting on the 100-1000x claim.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| The fact audiophiles talk about "DAC"s is really telling.
| Transparent digital-to-analogue conversion is a solved problem.
| Any computer or smartphone worth a damn has a DAC whose output
| is indistinguishable to the human ear from anything "better".
|
| The truth is that _DAC_ is not the problem... _everything else_
| in the analogue audio chain is. Amplifiers are messy analogue
| devices. Speakers and headphones are _incredibly_ messy
| analogue devices. Power supplies and power conditioners are
| messy analogue devices. And noise is not down to any one
| component, but is a whole-system design problem. A particularly
| cool thing about power supplies is that they often create noise
| that will be picked up by other devices on the same circuit.
|
| Of course, when people are buying a "DAC" they are really
| buying a box of some kind that also includes an amplifier, but
| this naming choice surely contributes to people paying
| attention to the wrong specs.
| klamann wrote:
| I've been using optical connections for audio on my gaming PCs
| for decades now, exactly for this reason. Though wireless
| headphones will work just as well these days. Too many game
| developers mess this up (e.g. by having no frame limiter in the
| game menu) and many of them never fix these kinds of issues.
| Thanks for caring and fixing this in your game!
| tristor wrote:
| Which is why I consistently have told people to ensure that they
| pick a DAC which is powered independently if they intend to
| connect it via USB. Schitt Audio makes great stuff (it's what I
| have sitting on my desk right now) which is designed in that way,
| but there's no magic formula to beat physics when you physically
| power an audio device over a connection that is vulnerable to
| induced noise.
|
| If you're trying to eliminate noise in your audio setup, the
| first and most important thing is having audio converted from
| digital to analog outside of the computer chassis itself (e.g.
| instead of a soundcard get a DAC). The second thing is to
| disconnect the power flows between the two systems (e.g. get a
| DAC which is separately powered). The third thing is to connect
| the DAC via a non-electrical connection so that the signal path
| is not vulnerable to noise in the environment between the two
| systems (e.g. use Toslink/optical and not USB/copper). The fourth
| thing is to condition the power input to DAC to remove transients
| (use an audio power conditioned, which does not need to be some
| grandiose thing, it's a bunch of capacitors).
|
| Beyond that, there's not much you can do, after all there's
| EMI/RFI all of the time in the environment. If the DAC chassis is
| metallic and properly grounded, it should reject most, and the
| same should be true for the computer chassis, but there is always
| going to be /some/ incidental noise. As long as the noise floor
| is low enough that it's well below even quiet listening with
| amplification, you'll never hear it. But the default state of
| audio on most computer systems is pretty shit and people don't
| realize it, because they are mostly listening to Bluetooth
| earbuds (which at least provide no physical path for induced
| noise).
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Moving my cursor makes an audible sound over my (builtin) audio
| card. I always blamed inductors somewhere (noisy power). This has
| never not been the case with any desktop with built-in audio I
| have owned over the past 25+ years
| distances wrote:
| For your next desktop, get a motherboard with an optical audio
| output. Or add a soundcard with that for your current computer,
| those are still made.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I have a Modi DAC I've used for years with several different
| gaming and development rigs and I've never had a problem like
| this. Sounds like a failing component, maybe a capacitor or
| regulator--the article author should contact Schiit.
| nottorp wrote:
| I have an usb "audio card" for other reasons (since my
| hackintoshing days).
|
| It works fine in some ports, it has a lot of background noise in
| others.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I run into a similar problem. I have a power-hungry GPU (3080)
| and CPU (9800X3D).
|
| All my audio equipment was on the same UPS (and therefore outlet)
| as my gaming PC.
|
| The result is that any time a particularly stressful game would
| be open, I'd get buzzing in the speakers. (Especially if the
| framerate was at 360) If you ask audiophiles online they will
| swear up and down that a cheater plug, balanced cables, or
| optical isolation will fix it - that will not fix it. It's not a
| ground problem. It's not coming from the connection from the PC
| to the DAC - it's a power issue.
|
| It seemed almost inconceivable to them that the problem was EMI
| from the computer making it into the equipment.
|
| I temporarily got a double-conversion UPS (converts AC to DC to
| AC again) and housed the audio equipment on that instead
| (separate from PC) Lo-and-behold the noise was completely gone.
|
| However, those UPS are _extremely_ expensive, and far worse they
| 're very loud because the fans run constantly.
|
| So, I went with a simpler alternative. Just get a power strip and
| plug all the audio equipment into that on a _different_ outlet.
| That reduces it massively. You can also get some strips that are
| designed to reduce EMI, but I haven 't felt the need as of yet.
| monster_truck wrote:
| Pure sine wave UPSs are not that expensive anymore man. I think
| the biggest "desktop" pure sine wave cyberpower sells
| (1500VA/1000W, CP1500PFCLCD) is <$300 now. I have a couple of
| them, they are great.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| It's not about pure sine wave - it's double conversion. Only
| double-conversion would actually isolate the equipment from
| EMI on the line. Without that pure sine wave won't do squat
| for EMI.
|
| And one of those, even the cheapest ones, run for about
| ~$900. And they are LOUD.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Are they loud because they're double-conversion or are they
| loud because they're designed for server racks? When I
| search for double-conversion online I can practically only
| find rack-mount solutions.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| They're loud because unlike a regular UPS they need to
| run continually to convert the power back and forth. That
| generates a lot of waste heat, which fans must remove.
| arde wrote:
| They're loud because silence is not a priority in their
| design and their fans run non-stop.
| saltcured wrote:
| I wonder if modern motor and power control tech could be
| adapted to make a desk-side motor-generator set that is
| efficient enough to rival an always-active, dual conversion
| AC-DC-AC UPS.
|
| How efficient could a small AC->motor->generator->AC chain
| be with a modest flywheel mass to provide cycle-to-cycle
| stability?
|
| Could it ever make sense to put one of these after a
| standby UPS so the output is always filtered by the motor-
| generator but the UPS only has to kick in for outages?
| mrob wrote:
| One advantage of a motor-generator set is that it's
| relatively easy to get high-voltage isolation using an
| insulating shaft. It might be possible to build something
| that could survive nearby lightning strikes to the
| incoming AC line. I don't think any standard UPS can do
| this.
| Gracana wrote:
| If you're a bit handy, you can assemble a line filter using a
| part like this https://enerdoor.com/products/fin27/ for a heck
| of a lot cheaper than you can buy a filtered power strip.
|
| You may also be able to solve the problem with a simple common
| mode choke, either the clip-on type, or a toroid that you wrap
| the cable through a couple-few times. https://palomar-
| engineers.com/rfi-kits/acdc-power-line-choke...
| LM358 wrote:
| A filter like that will have very little attenuation in the
| audio spectrum.
|
| I agree however that indiscriminately throwing ferrites at
| problems can be a good solution!
| Gracana wrote:
| Maybe you're right. My experience is with radios, where
| it's possible that high frequency noise is conducted into
| the RF section rather than into the audio amplifier. I know
| that in one case, both my transmitted signal and received
| audio output were absolute garbage (edit: because it was
| picking up noise from the vehicle ignition) until I added a
| choke to the power input wiring.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| This reminds me of my favorite "Downfall" meme video.
|
| [Youtube] "Hitler fails radiated emissions" - Orin Laney:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeo8ZZTfwZQ
| mrob wrote:
| Even if there's very little audio-frequency attenuation,
| it's possible for higher frequencies to produce audio-
| frequency intermodulation distortion, and filtering could
| reduce this. This is one reason "high definition"
| (ultrasound sampling rate) audio is a bad idea as a
| listening format.
| Yeask wrote:
| No need for UPS, a good external usb soundcard with power
| supply will solve that problem.
|
| I have all connected to the the same power circuit and with a
| Elektron Digitakt as audio device and have zero noise.
|
| With audio devices powered by USB there is a lot of noise.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| I also have a splitter which lets you power an USB device
| from a separate power supply (i.e. D+/D- lines are connected
| to a host and +5V comes from a separate plug, ground is
| shared though). And optical TOSLINK is a nice option where
| available.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| _Sigh_ , it's almost like I had this conversation before.
|
| My audio equipment is not connected by USB. It's connected by
| optical (TOSLINK) to an external DAC. TOSLINK is not great,
| but it shows that it is not a USB noise problem.
| Yeask wrote:
| If you had that conversation before and you still having
| noise, maybe you are not doing the right thing... Sigh...
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I got rid of the noise via the method I described in the
| original comment? Moving my audio equipment to separate
| power strip on a separate outlet. It didn't totally
| remove it, but made it quiet enough to deal with.
| butvacuum wrote:
| Don't mind them. I've had a similar thing happen, but
| with power line Ethernet. In your case however, I'd be at
| least a little concerned about the building wiring.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I ran into a similar problem! I briefly used CAT6, which
| is _required_ to be shielded.
|
| That shielding was carrying noise from my PC, through the
| network switch, to my raspberry pi that I used for music
| streaming. Absolutely nuts.
|
| I swapped to unshielded ethernet cables and it went away.
|
| As for building wiring, this issue has persisted in
| multiple buildings.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > If you ask audiophiles online they will swear up and down
| that a cheater plug, balanced cables, or optical isolation will
| fix it - that will not fix it.
|
| Lifting the ground on my studio monitors absolutely fixed my
| noise problems. I run them off a MiniDSP 2x4HD, so other
| sources like EMI aren't really a factor.
|
| The problem I have with a double conversion UPS is that it
| isn't an ideal sinusoidal source. It implies it is on the tin,
| but when you've got protected loads with PWM power delivery
| slamming around 1+ kilowatts, there's no way to guarantee a
| smooth waveform with a typical ~2500VA unit. Directly passing
| through to the grid could provide cleaner power under the most
| transient conditions.
| brigade wrote:
| Well the OP's electrical noise almost certainly is coming
| through the USB connection as their DAC has no external power
| supply. _Extremely_ common.
|
| Your problem of an AC power supply not sufficiently filtering
| out high-frequency noise from mains is exceptionally rare to
| the point that yes, I also don't believe that was the correct
| diagnosis of your issue.
| voldacar wrote:
| You could also chuck a bunch of ferrites on your PC power cord
| ck2 wrote:
| isolation transformers are way cheaper than double conversion
| and should work as well?
|
| well they used to be cheaper, not sure what is going with
| prices these day, I remember this being around $100 a decade
| ago
|
| https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/146730/Tripp-Lite-500...
|
| https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/493958/Tripp-Lite-100...
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| >the problem was EMI from the computer making it into the
| equipment
|
| Do you have a PC case with a huge window? They (used to?) have
| grounded metal housings with only tiny openings for a reason.
| terribleperson wrote:
| So in your situation, noise from your PC was showing up in
| other equipment on the same circuit.
|
| Did you try replacing the PSU?
| bitbasher wrote:
| Not sure if it's related-- but anyone else get a buzz or pop in
| their headphone/spear when loading certain web pages?
|
| I've been curious if this is some form of browser fingerprinting
| or just crappy speakers.
| LUmBULtERA wrote:
| Since switching to the $10ish Apple USB-C to headphone adapter
| vs. just plugging in my 3.5mm headset into the computer, the
| buzzing when gaming completely stopped for me. Cheap solution.
| hlynurd wrote:
| I have this weird thing whenever I have headphones and open the
| Dota2 settings on my Mac, then I not only get buzzing but the
| overall sound quality plummets!
| DefineOutside wrote:
| Bluetooth headphones? the settings menu could be using the
| microphone somehow and switching to mono audio because
| bluetooth is low bandwidth
| hlynurd wrote:
| Oh yeah, Bluetooth headphones, I think this might actually
| explain it.
| digitalsushi wrote:
| anyone else get big audio buzz relief using the extra, three
| prong cable on their normally two prong apple laptop charger? it
| felt as good as having my wisdom teeth out after i switched
| phaser wrote:
| Your game looks super interesting! Very looking forward to
| playing :D
| spiritplumber wrote:
| I had this problem on my Oculus Rift box (remember those? it
| still runs beat saber just fine) and the solution was to solder
| some beefy capacitors on the end of unused power cables coming
| out of the power supply. If I recall correctly it was the 12V
| line that did it, which I didn't expect.
|
| The buzz isn't completely gone but now I can't hear it unless I'm
| paying attention to it, which if I am playing beat saber, I'm
| not.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| I am a bit confused. Based on the earlier paragraphs, it hinted
| that the solution would be related to the frequency of the job,
| not necessarily its load (since other games do not have this
| issue), but then the fix was not changing the frequency but the
| load of the job.
|
| What am I missing?
| glitchc wrote:
| Reading through your post, it's likely the noise sourced from the
| network cable is coupling into your headset cable. Check how
| close those cables are to each other If you're using a USB port
| at the back for your DAC, try switching it to the front. The
| noise can also come from the power supply which couples into the
| motherboard's ground plane and shows up on all USB ports.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| I hit a similar issue on my MacBook Pro. Whenever I watched
| YouTube or streamed Spotify while playing a game, the audio broke
| into little "clipping chirps" and static.
|
| For me the culprit was Game Mode. I still don't really know what
| it does, but disabling it fixed everything. None of my games come
| close to stressing the CPU, yet Game Mode was throttling anything
| that wasn't the game. It was also on by default, which felt like
| a design miss.
|
| For MacOS, a better approach would be to check what's happening
| on the second monitor or at least avoid throttling apps that
| aren't being displayed. Assuming the game deserves all system
| resources and that the user doesn't want to watch or listen to
| anything else is a bad bet.
|
| Anyway, the good news is the fix on a Mac is simple once you know
| where to look. (=
| kg wrote:
| Great write-up. This is basically spam but I want to specifically
| thank the author for pointing out their solution, because it's
| directly applicable to one of my own projects and I'm going to do
| it tonight!
|
| > There's no need to download the whole texture each frame, just
| the part of the picking texture that's under the mouse. So I
| implemented that and it worked and buzzing is gone. As a bonus,
| now it's also not visible at all on the GPU trace.
| mistyvales wrote:
| Schiit Modi 2 is notorious to struggle with cleaning up USB power
|
| Example
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/b...
| lnx01 wrote:
| 25 years ago my 3.5mm jack headphones would buzz whenever I moved
| the mouse... Bzzzzzzzzz,tk, tk, tk ,tk, bzzzzzzz, tk, tk, tk, tk,
| tk....
| pfcd wrote:
| > I am working on an isometric game inspired from Gnomoria,
| RimWorld, Dwarf Fortress, etc.
|
| That sounds interesting. Could you elaborate further?
| jofzar wrote:
| > I had a fairly decent CPU, a 3090RTX card, 32GB RAM
|
| The answer might be more simple, OP when have you updated your
| chipset/mobo drivers?
|
| This was a known issue (which I was also effected by) for amd
| chips that would fuck with the USB driver when the PCIE lane
| pulled was in pcie 4 (my memory is a bit rough in this)
|
| https://au.pcmag.com/motherboards/85999/amd-offers-tips-to-m...
|
| Here's an article about it at the time but tldr update your
| chipset+motherboard drivers.
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