Additional Noise When Laptop is Plugged In, Please Help!

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JCarpe

New Member
Hello everyone. I'm new to OBS, this forum community, and streaming in general.

I have everything set up for streaming church services. But I've been having a terrible time with noise and volume issues on our live streaming page on Facebook. I have fixed the volume problem, but when the laptop is plugged in, I can't turn the gain volume on my electronic interface and gain filter within OBS up, without getting a lot of noise. When I unplug the power cable from the laptop, the noise goes down significantly, therefore I'm able to turn the gains up. But I don't want to stream the services on battery alone, due to my fear of the laptop dying during the service...

Has anyone have or had this issue? What did you do to fix it? Any advice would be grateful.

Specs:
Laptop Dell Latitude E5470
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.82 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
It could be a grounding issue with the power supply connection on the laptop, but as that may, or may not, be fixable, and probably won't be cheap regardless, have you tried an other power supply? or using the E-Dock?
 
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deFrisselle

deFrisselle

Member
How good are laptop power supplies at filtering out line noise
Try another outlet, preferably on another circuit, or another Laptop power supply as mentioned
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
wvtracyg said:
I went from a 3 prong to 2 prong AC cable on the power supply.
Click to expand...
If that solved your problem, then that would seem to indicate a site electrical wiring problem

As to original poster, another option if it is site electrical wiring that is the source of the noise, is to use a UPS, and I'd recommend an Auto Voltage Regulating and it may take one that has Pure Sine Wave output... but I'm not an electrician, so I'm sure it depends on the exact nature of the problem as to what battery backup unit would provide the necessary line filtering. You could get just a quality AC line filter, but at least around here, you'll pay almost as much for a good line filter as you would for a CyberPower AVR UPS that is frequently on sale. Not liking electrical damage to equipment, I've got something like 6 or 7 AVR UPSes in my house covering every computer/bedroom/office in the house, as well as one for main network router/cable modem, and another for our main TV (Oh and child away at university took 1 with her as well)
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
I've not run into a laptop with an issue regarding PFC, only certain desktops (and desktop power supplies), and even then many years ago.
 
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jredmond108

New Member
it is a grounding problem. some possible solutions:
1. lift the ground off the laptop if it has 3 prongs for its power supply
2. reverse the prongs on the laptop
3. put the laptop power on the same circuit as the audio mixer, amp, etc.

I haven't tried a UPS as noted above. Most of the time I am in a temporary location (hotel ballroom) and have to solve this occasional challenge. Good luck, James
 
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konsolenritter

Active Member
Beware of lifting the ground-earth connection at the power supply! Hazard possible...

At first you should clarify if your audio is at least strong enough (leaving the noise thing aside).
You didn't specified what your audio interface exactly is. Never try to get high quality audio into your latitude on a direct basis (mic input or similar).

For church services you better pickup the audio signal from a professional mixing desk (even if it's a little one like a portable mackie or something alike) and route via xlr cable into a sophisticated interface for that matter (just to number one: a steinberg ur-series - or something alike -, there are tons of available on the market. Get one with neutrik connectors and metal housing, these are the better ones) to get audio at sufficient signal-to-noise-ratio into your encoding laptop. (The stronger the signal, the less the influence of line-noise. ...naturally you should never overload the interface to peak with the signal coming from the mixing desk!)

If there are still ground loop problems really, insert a di-box into the xlr line and use the ground-lift it provides for exactly such purposes.
 
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