In the 6 or so years I have been using and learning Cubase I have really never had issues beyond simple tweak elements that were not Cubase problems but my own. I could post this on some other forum but I have seen substantial demonstrations of broad skill and knowledge here that I have come to trust and look forward to learning from so here goes.
My new system is a Gigabyte Z68 AD3HB3 motherboard, an 850W Corsair AX power supply, 2 Crucial Solid State Drives used in RAID 1 configuration for a windows 7 boot only. My Cubase and other software is on another drive, a 2tb WD 7200 Blackand connected via 6gb Sata ports as are the SSD units. My audio monitors are spewing out noise from the mouse as it rolls across the desk, noise as the computer runs and in general just annoying spurious hiss that is driving me nuts. Particularly when I compare it to ANY of the older computers I have used from Cubase 2 SX and every upgrade until now Cubase 6. It is NOT Cubase but anytime the audio monitors are on. Clearly a power problem of some kind but I find it odd that the mouse movements are picked up in that noise.
On playback it is not varied by the volume levels, just a low level background hiss . If you are turning up the volume to a typical inside speech level, you wont really notice it but if there is nothing going on in the room, it is like the tinnitus in my head when I try to go to sleep at night.
When I first built my new computer a little over a year ago I had the same type of noise as you describe. I do have a SSD for my OS drive (80 GB Intel) but I never considered that as a factor. At that time I was still running a US-144 MKII TASCAM interface which only has unbalanced outs and using fairly long cables to my KRK RP5s. After switching to short cables (still unbalanced) the noise pretty much disappeared. Now I have a PRO 40 Focusrite with balanced cables and it’s dead silent.
Sooooo … how are your monitors connected? Does it change if you move the monitors or cables around?
this sound normally is produced by bad semi- conductors or bad capacitor voltage transformers on your mainboard.
As well it could occur from a cheap graphic card as well or bad semi- conductors on the graphic card.
The last suspect could be the main power supply in your computer.
I have never heard that an SSD could produce these signals your are describing here.
I had identical problems and I changed my mainboard twice before I got rid of this issue.
I want to thank you for this information. I have had so many issues with noise since I put my system together that it has greatly hindered my desire to even try to learn Cubase any more or try to do much mixing / composing on my own. I have heard of the power supply possibly causing it, but not bad capacitors and what have you on the motherboard. I’ve tried another lower Watt power supply to no avail. I’m using an Intel motherboard with on board video and audio, thinking that would be sufficient for my needs, but the noise issues made it impossible to try to do anything DAW-related with the system. I’m probably going to get another motherboard (not Intel) and a separate audio card at least, and maybe separate video also so that they are all distinctly separate from each other. I understand that may cause some latency issues, but I was trying a Beringer USB Audio interface and the latency was horrible anyway. Thanx again for advice on the issue.
Your post hit the nail on the head so to speak as the problem turned out to be a bad FURMAN power conditioner. I had noticed after you mentioned that a bad semi-conductor may be the source. There is a strip of LED’s on the front panel that “measure” the line input to the outlets in the rear. I had a hard time seeing this development as it is somewhat hidden under the rack mount under the desktop. Pulled everything from the strip and went directly to the wall
DONE !
Thanks for the thoughts
Neil…This had gotten to be SO noisy, that even conventional web browsing was annoying with the sound on…I do know what you mean