• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Why can I hear my SATA drives through my AVR+amp?

Fillius

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 6, 2020
Messages
86
Likes
64
I'm not familiar with the 0V option - possible to link an example?
0V is just ground for components of a PC, the black wires. Red wires are 5V, Orange are 3.3V and yellow are 12V. 0V will be connected to the shielding of USB connectors and presumably also the shielding of the HDMI.

If the noise is happening on both SSD and HDD then the problem isn't likely to be the drives, it's more likely to be crosstalk/noise on the PSU or motherboard when under load. Can you hear any noise coming from the physical components? Coil whine from inductor coils can make quite a racket, usually from the graphics card or the motherboard VRM next to the CPU. It would vary with load, like if you're playing a game without a frame rate limiter and the graphics/CPU are under stress.
 

b4nt

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 29, 2021
Messages
803
Likes
270
0V is just ground for components of a PC, the black wires. Red wires are 5V, Orange are 3.3V and yellow are 12V. 0V will be connected to the shielding of USB connectors and presumably also the shielding of the HDMI.

If the noise is happening on both SSD and HDD then the problem isn't likely to be the drives, it's more likely to be crosstalk/noise on the PSU or motherboard when under load. Can you hear any noise coming from the physical components? Coil whine from inductor coils can make quite a racket, usually from the graphics card or the motherboard VRM next to the CPU. It would vary with load, like if you're playing a game without a frame rate limiter and the graphics/CPU are under stress.

Audible noise the PC makes shouldn't be the issue, nor any indicator of what can happen at electrical levels. Any stress test app may help, to make the CPU, CGU and disks work a lot, for diagnoses.

Is the noise radiated? Could be tested by moving the PC at distance.

The other only electrical pathes I see are via the HDMI cable, mainly 0V and 5V rails (plus the data rails, which is digital). This is why I ssugested the test at #17 then #20. Doing more, like on 5V HDMI rail would be complex.
 

dougi

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 31, 2020
Messages
845
Likes
763
Location
ACT, Australia
It still might be worth trying a new HDMI cable. Grounding/shielding requirements in older cables was not well specified I believe. The latest spec to support 8k "ultra high speed" cables have strict shielding specs which may also help with grounding. I can't quickly find a good link for this though.
 

b4nt

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 29, 2021
Messages
803
Likes
270
It still might be worth trying a new HDMI cable. Grounding/shielding requirements in older cables was not well specified I believe. The latest spec to support 8k "ultra high speed" cables have strict shielding specs which may also help with grounding. I can't quickly find a good link for this though.

I didn't find either. Older may have different wires gauges, up to small. This is why I suggested to add a wire between PC OV and Denon GND. Won't cost anything, just the time to test.
 

dougi

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 31, 2020
Messages
845
Likes
763
Location
ACT, Australia
I didn't find either. Older may have different wires gauges, up to small. This is why I suggested to add a wire between PC OV and Denon GND. Won't cost anything, just the time to test.
Sort of found it. A description of the original problem related to EMI and plan to solve it with the latest spec. HDMI and EMI.
 

oupee

Active Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2020
Messages
157
Likes
57
Years ago, growled in speakers and a subwoofer, and I couldn't figure out why. So my father came and twisted the power cord of the AV receiver in the wall socket. I don't know why it helped.
 
OP
T

tifune

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 18, 2020
Messages
1,085
Likes
767
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and sorry for delayed response to my own post. I decided I'm just going to replace it outright. The final straw was, the wife and I were having a moment and the PC gave a BSOD causing our romantic soundtrack to skip like a CD until the entire 12GB dump file finished writing to disk followed by a reboot wherein 2 of my drives failed SMART causing the motherboard alarm to start firing until I hopped over to hit F2 for [Continue Anyway]

Not that you needed so much info, I just thought it's an amusing anecdote. I now know my exact threshold for how much bad behavior I'm willing to accept from my gear to save a buck. I got 16 years out of it, I'd say that's a pretty good run! (i7-970 based)
 

Berwhale

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 29, 2019
Messages
3,933
Likes
4,922
Location
UK
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and sorry for delayed response to my own post. I decided I'm just going to replace it outright. The final straw was, the wife and I were having a moment and the PC gave a BSOD causing our romantic soundtrack to skip like a CD until the entire 12GB dump file finished writing to disk followed by a reboot wherein 2 of my drives failed SMART causing the motherboard alarm to start firing until I hopped over to hit F2 for [Continue Anyway]

Not that you needed so much info, I just thought it's an amusing anecdote. I now know my exact threshold for how much bad behavior I'm willing to accept from my gear to save a buck. I got 16 years out of it, I'd say that's a pretty good run! (i7-970 based)

I'd say it's definately time to replace it with a little NUC!
 
Top Bottom