How do I get rid of fan or hard disk noise through headphones?

I've recently bought Sennheiser HD-215 headphones to replace Senheiser PC Headphones. With the new headphones I hear a lot of fan or hard disk noise coming from the headphones themselves. The older headphones had a little bit on the cord with a volume knob. I guess that also contains some filter that filters out these noises.

Does anyone know a good way to get rid of fan noise coming through the headphones?

PIBKAC: I just tried playing something and realized there is an immense difference in volume between the two headphones. It's enough to have the soundcard at about 20% volume to for the HD-215 and at that volume I can't hear any of the interference.

Sindri Traustason

Posted 2010-08-20T10:56:40.167

Reputation: 748

I get this issue with headphone port at front but not the ones at the back of the case. Any explanations? – Tom Kelly – 2017-04-18T04:13:34.053

Your follow up post is interesting. Have you tried these two sets of headphones plugged into an iPod or some other audio device? – Doug Harris – 2010-08-20T14:30:44.223

Answers

shield your cables from electrical interferance. Check the routing of any cables inside the machine which may go close to part sof the motherboard that contain high voltages, or the psu. Get better fans in the case which produce less interferance.

etc..etc.

Sirex

Posted 2010-08-20T10:56:40.167

Reputation: 10 321

+1 - this is interference. Relevant example - my mobile phone is a Samsung Moment. My car has a 3.5 audio jack in it. If I run a cable directly to the phone and play audio over my stereo, it sounds fine. If I then plug the phone into the car charger, a humming noise starts over the stereo that raises and lowers in pitch with the RPM of the engine! Electrical feedback can be a huge pain. – Shinrai – 2010-08-20T17:43:06.560

I had this same problem with a pair of sen HD515's. I'd recommend using a USB soundcard or DAC/headphone amp combo. Obviously throwing money at it isn't ideal but you don't really want your speakers/headphones connected directly to anything with moving parts that cause unwanted vibrations and thus interference. I got a firestone audio DAC/Headphone amp and I hjave to say music has never sounded this good but be warned it will make you want to replace your entire collection with 320kbps or flac recordings as you will notice every last imperfection.

majormashup

Posted 2010-08-20T10:56:40.167

Reputation: 1

One thing you can try is to plug your headphones into the hole labelled as 'out' (some radiating waves for an icon) on the motherboard/soundcard. If I use the 'headphone + Speaker icon' hole then I get a really bad high pitch grinding sound everytime my hard disk does something. (Gigabyte Z97X). My headphone connection goes through a Razer keyboard and then into the motherboard however I have always had this setup and never had this problem. Swapping the plug resulted in the hard disk sound disappearing.

Scott

Posted 2010-08-20T10:56:40.167

Reputation: 1