Sounds to me that the video card and the M-audio are getting things crossed.
There is the M-Audio Delta 410 and the M-Audio firewire 410.

If you are using the delta move it to a different slot. If you are using the firewire try changing to a different firewire port. Or if possible manually reassign interrupts to get the video card and sound card separate.

to the first reply: I'm using the firewire cable that came with my M-Audio FW 410.

I'll definitely check the IRQs again when I get home tonight. I'm pretty sure that they aren't shared though. I always check that stuff after I do a new OS install (just did it a week or so ago).

I'll describe a few more specific things that happen, and maybe that'll tell you better if the video card / audio card crossover thing is the culprit...

When I double click a folder to open it in windows explorer, for a brief second the sound gets quiet.. then the new window pops up and the buzz comes back with it. the mouse movement i already mentioned too. and every time i click something, drag something, or just move the pointer, i can definitely hear that reflected i the static noise from the FW410.

Thanks guys for your replies. It's greatly appreciated. You're all very helpful and responsive on this forum. :)

I hear mouse noise on one system, probably the home system and over a fairly decent set of headphones. I don't own an M-Audio card though. Honestly don't remember which system but it wasn't anything crucial so I've ignored it.

Any cables running alongside each other? Mouse cable running alongside audio cable? USB Mouse or PS2?

No answers, just playing 20 questions.

Rob Mack

I've got this problem with the Firewire 410 and Behringer monitors. I suspect it's induced noise into the unbalanced inputs to the monitors. It bugs me but not enough to fix it until I build a new systems. I don't hear the same noise on the headphone outputs from the 410.
The outputs from the 410 are not balanced and nor are the inputs on the monitors, you could try two things.
Powering the 410 from the mains instead of the firewire cable.
Putting balanced transformers between the 410's ouputs and your monitors.

Before doing either of those check the headphone outputs on the 410. Mine are dead quiet apart from a small click when the sample rate changes.


Bob.

farss,

yeah, my headphones are very clean. no noise. must just be the nature of the outputs. shame, but what can ya do. :)

> must just be the nature of the outputs. shame, but what can ya do. :)

There is nothing inherently wrong with the FW-410 outputs. I have an M-Audio FW-410 with the M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 System + LX4 5.1 Expander System speakers and my speakers are dead silent. The FW-410 is powered by my motherboard FW port and the speakers are connected with heavy Whirlwind cables to the sub/amp, and then heavy speaker cable to the monitors. Like I said, they are dead quiet. No noise from computer activity at all.

Could be from other PC outboard devices? CRT or LCD monitor AC cable? Could be from using thin speaker cables or running the speaker cables parallel with other electrical cables. I doubt that it's coming from the output of the FW-410. As others have suggested, use your headphones to check. If the noise is in the headphones then it's coming through the firewire cable from the PC to the FW-410. If the headphones are silent, it's from the FW-410 to the speakers.

~jr

Definitely NOT an irq problem. My firewire is on it's own IRQ. I moved to another firewire port and even installed another firewire card and tried it in that. same result no matter what i did. bummer.

i'm gonna try some new cables between the 410 and my power amp, but the sounds i am hearing are definitely being generated by the computer, it's not normal interference heard on audio lines.

I did a few more tests last night. Turning the output level down in the 410's control panel makes no difference. Turning the gain down in your amp and the level up out of the 410 would almost certainly help though.

Bob.