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M70 and Echo Indio I/O PCMCIA soundcard problem

post #1 of 13
6/8/05 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 
Hello,
I have an M70 and I'm using an Echo Audio Indigo I/O cardbus soundcard.

Playback of audio is great - absolutely no noise (unlike the slight hiss from the built-in audio in the M70) but when I try to record audio, everything I record has terrible interference from what sounds like hardrive/processor "chatter" - a steady stream of bleeps and clicks that I can only describe as computer noises. I haven't been able to fix this and it makes recording impossible. Now that I've heard this noise amplified through the headphones I can actually here it without, and it's slightly annoying - kind of a high pitched whine.

I know there's not a problem with the card, as it records perfectly silently in a powerbook I also use. It seems to be a problem with the M70.

I'm wondering if anyone else has this soundcard in an M70 and has it recording succesfully without the chatter - or if anyone can point me in a direction to fixing this problem, or if anyone with an M70 can hear this chatter in their system.

thanks for your help,

mm
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post #2 of 13
6/8/05 at 11:32am
Do you have the 7200rpm hitachi hard drive? If so, you could download the centrino hardware manager I think it is called. It is mainly for undervolting your processor, however, it has a tab with hard drive info and you can switch the loudness of your hard drive with it. As most people hear clicks and such from the hard drive. Once you set it, it is much much quieter and from my personal benchmarking not at all slower.

I'm not sure if this would fix all your problems, but it may be worth a shot if you have the hitachi hard drive.

Tellerve
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post #3 of 13
6/8/05 at 3:40pm
Thread Starter 
thanks, I do have the 7200 drive, so maybe i'll give this a try.

thanks.

mm
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post #4 of 13
6/8/05 at 3:45pm
Thread Starter 
I can't seem to find this software on the dell site. Any clues as to where it's located?

mm
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post #5 of 13
6/10/05 at 9:39pm
http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm

never said it was a dell software. You'll need framework.net installed, which you should have already as I did from dell's factory. I have since taken it off, however.

In any case, once you install the software go to the hard drive tag and switch the pull down from default to the lower setting and apply.

You can uninstall the software after the change to the hard drive and the change will stay btw.

Tellerve
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post #6 of 13
6/10/05 at 11:11pm
Thread Starter 
ok, thanks for getting back to me.
Unfortunately, this didn't solve the problem. I think the M70 is just a noisy unshielded beast, as this card is super quiet in my powerbook. I'm confused as to why the outputs are quiet but the inputs are noisy but I don't know how to solve it.
Talking to Echo Audio tech support didn't help - they recommended disabling the built-in sound, which I did to no effect.

mm
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post #7 of 13
6/11/05 at 4:23am
I'm afraid I can't offer much help with the noises. I was just wondering how the recording is with the Indigo in general. I was looking at the Audigy 2 PCMCIA as a possibilty, but I know many people love the Indigo. Ultimately I'd like to get an mbox (and actually I believe this may solve your clicking problems because it's entirely external), but until then I'd love to know your thoughts on the Indigo (in terms of your powerbook use, putting aside the M70 issues). Thanks.
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post #8 of 13
6/12/05 at 1:01pm
Hi dude. I am planning about upgradding one of my M60s to a M70. Since you are regular user of one, can you tell me your experience with it? Something you don't like?
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post #9 of 13
6/20/05 at 4:57am
Thread Starter 
hey guys, sorry for some reason i wasn't getting these emails.
The indigo is pretty cool in the powerbook. For some reason, it wasn't working for awhile, I think my pcmcia slot was a little screwy. Now it seems to power up every time. latency is good. very quiet. I like it much better than the maudio firewire external that i had, which was always flaky.

Besides this audio issue, I like the M70.

mm
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post #10 of 13
6/20/05 at 1:21pm
I doubt your issue can be fixed. THe PCMCIA slot on the M70 is bolted pretty good to the motherboard which can pick up all the noises of the internal cooling system and of course the whines of harddrive. The powerbook has the slot elevated from the motherboard so it doesnt pick up the noises the M70 generates not to mention the qeaker and much more quieter cooling system the Powerbook utilizes.
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post #11 of 13
6/20/05 at 4:02pm
Thread Starter 
I think you're right about it not being fixable. It's strange though that the playback of audio through the card is fine, it's only when I connect something to the inputs that i hear the noise. It must have something to do with shielding/grounding and other electrical stuff I don't quite comprehend.. It's too bad, as I really prefer this card to having an external unit which is so cumbersome just to record audio.
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post #12 of 13
6/20/05 at 4:06pm
Thread Starter 
Oh In answer to an earlier question I cannot BELIEVE that they didn't put a firewire port on this machine. Whoever made that decision, I would like to slap silly. Now i have to have a stupid firewire card always jutting off the side of the computer. I mean it's not as if we're using M70's to do spreadsheets and check our emails, yet they have firewire on their little office machines but not their workstation, where it would actually be used!!!

argh.
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post #13 of 13
6/21/05 at 7:30pm
Does the Indigo record problem exist whether the M70 is running on battery or
external power ? On internal sound-card in latitude 640 I observed noise on
recording which seem attributable to laptop injecting noise onto earth connection
common with source device for recording, changing to 2 wire/pin laptop
power supply cable (no earth) or battery removed problem.
I also use Indigo IO on c640 and have been very happy with quality, and had hoped
indigo would work in either d610 or m70 that will replace c640.
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