Does everyone have headphone hum? - Page 2

Ok, Machina, that is a temporary solution, but unless you sit your iXPS on a box fan, I don't think turning off all fans for extended periods of time is a good thing.

not here,everything working fine

my solution is only good at home with a spdif reciever... output the sound through the spdif connection that comes with the s-video adapter thing... then put it through to a reciever and then hook up your headphones to it or not... That's the only way i've been able to eliminate the humm...

hmm i have some decent sony headphones, quality sounds crisp, and i even plugged into my tv but didnt hear anything, ill ask to borrow my friends really nice headset

however my laptop was made in ireland (im from england) , or maybe it was just a good model, ill report back later

speedracer, I have done that SPDIF also and it is fine. Just make sure you click the check on PC Spkr Mute under the advanced settings of volume controls or you will not get any bass response.

Solution for some...

A friend of mine was having the same issues with the humming headphone jack. He actually came up with a cool solution on his own. He started by trying to run the fan gui program and adjust the fan speeds. As most have reported with the lower speeds you get less feedback. He had his laptop pluged into a surge protecter the entire time. He later went ahead and plugged his laptop into a three prong to two prong adapter plug. After that he said the humming was gone. Could it be that the ground on the three prong was making the noise? I havent tried this myself but I figured I would passs it on. He is emailing Dell to see if this is a fix. Let me know what you all come up with.

the brain

Yeah it was mentioned earlier that it could be the ground of the adapter. The thing is the ground is there for protection of the electrical system. Also if you use fan gui to stop the fans, these things run too hot to have the fans off if you're doing something power hungry. Maybe if you are just lowering the fan speed, but i'd say do that at your own risk as the prescott already gets super hot internally with the fans going on while doing something cpu intensive.

well, don't have any hum here. I listen the headphones all day at work, and I haven't heard anything

with the discussion of the fans being heard and the 3prong/2 prong issue, let me say it is sounding more and more like a simple grounding issue.

Think about a car. New cars don't seem to ever have engine noise over the radio, but older cars sometimes do. What's the difference?

Radio's pick up noise because of the ground of the radio, which is connected to the car's chassis (the chassis is a car's main ground), as the chassis ages. If the ground between the radio and the engine isn't neutral like it's suppose to be, the noise doesn't exit the radio circuitry. As a car ages, the ground bolts and the chassis become less tight, noise isn't grounded as well. Next thing you know, everytime you accelerate you hear the sparkplug wires over the radio. Find the loose ground connection and that will go away.

That being understood, I'm betting there is a loose ground within the chassis, likely the motherboard. It could be a poor solder connection on the headphone jack, or just a loose groundplug to chassis screw. The hard part will be tracking it down. while I'm not "sure", I would not be the least bit surprised if that is what someone finds if they take the time to try.

Just like the buzz of an engine, the whirl of the fans can't make it to ground, so it ends up taking the closest thing it can find to a ground, and ens up in your ear, or so is my hypothesis to all this

Well.... I thought I had become exempt from this issue until I turned my fans up...

WTF!?!?!??! You spend $2000 on a laptop that has more issues than playboy.

Now is there a way we can hold Dell accountable for this?

Oh.. I am on my third fan now too... No help.

I dont hear hum unless the fans are on high tho'

Yeah, I get a hum, It's eletrical interferance with the fans. If you really want to get rid of it, turn the fan off.

I wasnt saying its a solution I just narrowed down where the hum is coming from

one of you brave folks should maybe try resoldering those 2 connections or another test, from the headphone jack's ground, run a wire to another chassis spot or the power cord. essentially create another path, one that is completely free from resistance. especially if the fan and the jack share a ground connector, jump their ground to another ground to see if you can get a more solid connection. heck a wire with 2 clip ends might work for testing purposes

It's not about fans at all. Try it with the XPS plugged in to the wall and without. That is what the humming is caused by for me.

My hum is also unchanged whether I have the AC hooked up or if I am on battery, it is there wither way. That is why I am confused over why using a two prong power plug would fix the problem.

I have exactly the same problem with my brand new 9100. As described above the hum changes depending on the fan speed. It does not matter whether the notebook is running on battery power or on AC.

I have discussed this issue with Dell Germany and pointed them to this thread. They do not have a fix yet. They want to further investigate this issue.

I have not returned my Inspiron since I was able to fix this problem myself. I used big fat high quality cables to connect the laptop to my amplifier. Moreover, I used a more expensive headphone with a fat cable. In both cases, the hum was gone.

I still believe that the line out of the Dell is of a very low quality. Therefore, I consider to purchase a USB audio adapter like Audio Advantage from Turtlebeach (unfortunately not yet available in Germany) or M-Audio Transit USB (bigger, more expensive but really high quality).

i think some people here are having a hum only when they have their adapter plugged in... thus they recommend trying to take the ground out of the equation when using your ac adapter. I think most people here have a hum related to the fan located near the headphone jack, which i don't know could be fixed... I'm guessing it can, but don't know how.. im going to try to speak with dell tech support

if you any of you with the hum have a reciever with an spdif connection... just use the spdif output on the back of the dell if you're at home and hook up your headphones to the reciever if possible... that's my only way to get rid of hum... but if you're doing something with music, it'll drown it out ne ways unless there is silence on the track...

I have this problem too. To be honest I didn't noticxe it until today, after owning the machine for 6 months and using the same headphones frequently.

I can only assume i've

a) broken a connection by moving the machine about
b) installed a Bios that causes the fan to change speed
c) Installed an audigy external, and its drivers have interferred with the setup.

One of these is probably the case, as this was not an issue for me at all, and I've installed a new bios, audio codecs and external soundcard in the last few weeks.