speakers buzz/humming
 

Right now I'm using the alsa drivers and the 2.4.22 Kernel w/Slackware 9.1. When I watch movies there is a buzzing sound when the volume is up loud using the software controls. With movies I have always had to turn the volume all the way up, they arn't as loud as everything else for some reason. I tried the nvidia drivers also, and I have the same problem. (I think I'm using the alsa drivers right now, but I'm not sure if it's actually just using the nvidia ones or not still, I installed them and configured them to work with my card but do not know which drivers are being used. I'm fairly new to linux. btw, I'm using an nf7-s v2 and the onboard soundcard.

With many soundcards there is a problem that sound quality suffers when PCM volume is taken to it's maxium. For good quality, it is recommended to keep it in 75% of maxium.

Are you using the little headphone socket and amplifying the sound with an analog amplifier? I think the buzzing sound is probably electrical interference from electromechanical components in the computer (fan, hard drive). The best solution is to use the optical output (if you have one) from your soundcard and a separate digital to analog converter. That way you eliminate electrical interference.

I was using w/e the front speakers plug into on the soundcard, not sure what you mean by the microphone, but yeah it is the pcm volume, when I turn that down it's fine in a sense that there's no more buzzing, but then I can't hear the video's anymore. In windows I can turn the sound up all the way and it's fine, so I dunno what it is, I guess maybe linux just dosn't allow you to make it as loud with the software controls.

What are you using to adjust the volume? As root run alsamixer , it has many options for controlling the levels.

I do use alsamixer, but I went into windows, and now it's doing it too. It's only when I watch movies I think though. If something was causing interferance would it be like this?

I'm kinda stupid, I found out the problem was the video I was watching lol. It happened on another one too, but they came from the same place. (downloaded the sopranos, 4th season, and it did it on the last couple episodes). I just thought to check by watching another video, and it's fine, uses the same codec and everything so I guess it's just these couple video's that are messed lol, well anyways, thanks for the help guys.