i have just bought a brand new Dell laptop, and its brilliant.

 

However, when I connect it to my amp via headphone socket there is an inconsistant interferance noise.

 

I connected exactly the same way with my 10 year old Packard Bell desktop machine and it was fine, crystal clear sound, with no interferance...

 

Any ideas...?

is it the same when running on batteries as well as mains?

it is yes

can you hear the noise through headphones aswell? it could be that the noise suppression is good enough for headphones but is being amplified by your amp.

Twist and wiggle the Jack in the headphone slot! i have similar probs on my Lappie and i put it flat on the back of the screen (Screen facing up) and it is all good! lol give it a try!

is it a latitude? I had same probs - there is no fix - its down to poor design of mic/headphone input placement.

I was told by Dell to get a pcmcia soundcard.

i have just bought a brand new Dell laptop, and its brilliant.

 

However, when I connect it to my amp via headphone socket there is an inconsistant interferance noise.

 

I connected exactly the same way with my 10 year old Packard Bell desktop machine and it was fine, crystal clear sound, with no interferance...

 

Any ideas...?

 

Im not sure if this could be causing it BUT most sound jacks on PC;s are auto sensing. Thats to say the jack works out what is plugged into it on its own. Now if for whatever reason the autosensing technology cant identify whats in the jack then it'll perhaps keep trying voltages and signals until it does work it out... meaning that you could possibly get intermitant interferance.

 

There is probably a way of turning the feature of within the sound driver but i wouldnt know where to tell you to look without seeing the software. Basically if you can tell it that its plugged itno somthing and tell it NOT to auto sense it might fix the problem :)

Im not sure if this could be causing it BUT most sound jacks on PC;s are auto sensing. Thats to say the jack works out what is plugged into it on its own. Now if for whatever reason the autosensing technology cant identify whats in the jack then it'll perhaps keep trying voltages and signals until it does work it out... meaning that you could possibly get intermitant interferance.

 

There is probably a way of turning the feature of within the sound driver but i wouldnt know where to tell you to look without seeing the software. Basically if you can tell it that its plugged itno somthing and tell it NOT to auto sense it might fix the problem :)

True - many of the Dell sound card jacks can be configured as mic or speaker/headphone. Take a look at the Dell utility for the sound card and you should see the option to specify this.

 

Steve :)