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active WLAN produces noise on headphone

Posted: 12 May 2009, 20:37
by nikgid
Hi folks,

I wanted to ask if some of you have the same problem:

When I have an active WLAN connection and data is transeferred (loading a webpage), some quite annyoing and loud crackling sound is produced - I can only hear it on the headphone... so I guess it is only produced on the headphone jack. I have crystal clear audio without unwanted noise while listening to mp3 files from my harddisk and while WLAN is inactive.

I am running Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11 (the latest default-kernel) on my Samsung NC10 (model with BT but without UMTS).

Maybe it has something to do with IRQs?! But where could I change them. Found nothing in the BIOS.

Help please! I would really like to solve this because it makes listening to music over headphones while surfing via WLAN quite unpleasant.

Cheers,
Niklas

RE: active WLAN produces noise on headphone

Posted: 12 May 2009, 23:00
by kadrach
Most likely your headphones are not shielded. You are picking up a GSM/EDGE/IEEE802.11 radio frequency.

Solution: Try headphones with shielded wires.

RE: active WLAN produces noise on headphone

Posted: 13 May 2009, 15:20
by nikgid
'kadrach' pid='1129' dateline='1242165609' wrote: Most likely your headphones are not shielded. You are picking up a GSM/EDGE/IEEE802.11 radio frequency.

Solution: Try headphones with shielded wires.
Thanks for the suggestion! But sadly, it doesn't seem to work. I tried 4 different types of headphones - among them at least two of very good quality (Grado SR80, Etymotics ER4P, and then Koss Porta Pros and some cheapo Sony earbuds). All of them had the same funny noises.

So if it would have to do something with unshielded headphones, then I suspect that many people would be able to reproduce this symptom of headphone noise during wireless activity. Maybe some other forum users can confirm or tell if its the same with their NC10?

And the noises are very clearly connected to activity on the WLAN - they only are there, while _loading_ a youtube-video for example. As soon as all the data of the video is loaded, the noise stops. So that would speak against the noise being sourced by GSM/EDGE/..., right?

Hoping for further help/ideas,
Niklas

EDIT: tested this under Windows (I am keeping a dual-boot still) - the noise is there, but it is _much_ more silent, almost unnoticable - not disturbing at all... have to crank up the volume to the max to be able to hear it (and then the music is unbearably loud with my etymotics headphones :-).

So... this is most definitely a Software(Linux)-issue. (Which I am happy for... at least it's not defect hardware.)

RE: active WLAN produces noise on headphone

Posted: 13 May 2009, 18:19
by voria
Mmm, I have no problems at all on my NC10, using cheap sony headphones. Audio is always clear, even when I use the wireless card.

EDIT:
What about the internal microphone? It may be the cause of the noise. Check if it's enabled, if so try disabling it.