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My subwoofer makes weird noises, should I be afraid?

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 10:05 pm
by berryoxide
Hi!

I have very cheap Logitech 2.1 speakers for around a year and a half. Everything works perfect, the subwoofer doesn't make any weird noises, except at exactly 0:00 midnight. From morning till day and dawn and whatever there is absolutely NO noise. However, only at midnight it makes weird noises. Most appliances in our house are turned off by then, I'm basically the only one awake so my PC is the only active appliance in the whole house.

How could I explain this weird noise... Well... it's simply said as if someone's farting :shock: And I'm not joking. As if someone played a pretty low toned bass sound, it sounds like deep and long farting (not me :oops: )

Should I be afraid? And why exactly at midnight I don't know. So I'm regularly shutting the whole speaker system down right before I start my midnight coding session.

Thanks for any help!

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 10:07 pm
by blueznl
It's eating those beans at six o'clock sharp that does it... No odour that accompagnies that sound?

:-)

(Are you serious with your post? Bit hard to tell...)

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 10:23 pm
by Rook Zimbabwe
berry... just ignore it when it tells you to kill those people... it is just pissed off that they don't listen! :mrgreen:

You don't turn off the speaker system at night or when you are not using the computer? For a "budget" system I would do that just to save the power supply!

Maybe there is a secret hadron collider near your house and at midnight they are conducting EMP experiments!

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 10:48 pm
by berryoxide
If I go take a small break for 15 minutes or so like to have a snack I leave my computer as is. Should I be away longer, I shut down the monitor and the speakers and at the same time I make sure the PC gets suspended.

I listen to music a lot and mostly my subwoofer is doing its work for many hours straight a day. It might be tired or something and yes blue, I'm serious.

The only thing I can't explain is *why* exactly at midnight? I once made sure that background noise was at a minimum some time around noon. I had the PC normally on and the speakers as well, nothing was playing though and I was standing at least 15 minutes and din't hear anything. Later on the same day boom, again the weird noises came exactly at midnight.

I don't think here's any secret collider, let alone a large hadron one :(

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:25 pm
by Thalius
...maybe how about a black hole inside the sub-woofer ? They do have a hole do they (..and as i recall Logitec its black too
:shock: ) ? :lol:

Possible cause could be a dirty poti at the controller or the plug to the subwoofer not entirely in ( does it make this sound also without the pc connected to it ? ) > debugging 1'1 -> narrow down the cause !

Tho, maybe you may have accidently opened pandoras-box-of-beans here ! :P

Cheers,
Thalius

Re: My subwoofer makes weird noises, should I be afraid?

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:36 pm
by luis
Did you tried to disconnect the speakers from the pc, leaving them on ?

This should be a nice experiment to see if the sound is originated from your pc or from some kind of external source.

This is the first test you should do, IMO.

A question, did your speakers get the power from the same line as your pc (same power outlet from the wall) or not ?


EDIT: just saw Thalius already suggested the same test :oops:

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:39 pm
by Rook Zimbabwe
If the computer is ON maybe there is a hidden TASK running at midnight... Defrag or update or something??? :mrgreen:

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:11 am
by idle
it could possibly be the electric company sending a ripple to turn off your water heater. So yes it'd fart !

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 9:23 am
by berryoxide
As much as it seems to be funny, it really isn't :o

Anyway, I made a test last night. The speakers were disconnected from my sound card, but they were still powered on. Waiting for the big moment, the clock hit exactly 0:00. Nothing was audible for a while, but then the noises came again at around 0:04~0:05. This was the first time the noise came later than exactly 0:00. I do not know why this happened and I also do not know what is the source for the noise.

I inspected the whole house and nothing even my cell phone was turned off. Just where could this signal come that disturbs the subwoofer? Any ideas?

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:52 pm
by CherokeeStalker
berryoxide wrote:I inspected the whole house and nothing even my cell phone was turned off. Just where could this signal come that disturbs the subwoofer? Any ideas?
How close is the nearest neighbor ?

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:02 pm
by berryoxide
CherokeeStalker wrote:
berryoxide wrote:I inspected the whole house and nothing even my cell phone was turned off. Just where could this signal come that disturbs the subwoofer? Any ideas?
How close is the nearest neighbor ?
I'm living in a block of flats. My nearest neighbor is just behind a thick 50cm wall.

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:27 pm
by PB
> Waiting for the big moment, the clock hit exactly 0:00. Nothing was audible
> for a while, but then the noises came again at around 0:04~0:05. This was
> the first time the noise came later than exactly 0:00

Hahaha, you have a poltergeist in da house! :lol: It knows you're onto it so it
changed the time to scare the hell out of you. Better call an exorcist quickly!

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:38 pm
by Kaeru Gaman
some old electric switches can cause EM fields.

e.g. when someone switches the light in the bathroom off, my speakers crack and sometimes even my TV may snow for a thumbs width.
the switch for the bathroom light is 40 years old.

there maybe something in your block controlled by an old time switch, maybe the central heater or something like that.
maybe, when it switches from daypower to suspend at midnight, the old relais create an EM field that makes your subwoover fart.

PS:
or do you have night-storage heaters in that block?
starting them all over to storage sequence may cause EM fields different from
those from normal switches or relais wich you will hear in normal speakers...

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:17 pm
by Rescator
Around midnight sounds odd, if it's a natural phenomenon it usually varies a bit. The time of midnight seems odd.

I'm guessing some kind of power fluctuations? The electric company switching something from one grid to another?

If possible, drag the speakers to a neighbor to find out if it's just your circuits or location or not. If it happens there too, it's most likely the power grid.

Unless... you live under a UFO flight path. (Sorry! Couldn't resist :lol:)

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:22 pm
by thefool
how does it handle this link:

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii