Vostro Headphone Jack Noise - Possible Fix

Hey all,

After googling around I see that the terrible interference/noise on the headphone/line out jack of the Vostro (1520 in my case) is a common defect/fault in these cheap DELL machines. There seems to be a lot of threads and posts of people complaining about this issue and asking for potential fixes.

I think it's basically a ground loop problem.

On my unit, when the power is plugged in, and I have the headphone jack running out to my mixer (then to amp -> speakers etc) I get a terribly loud radio/interference/distortion sound, even when the volume is turned all the way down.

I just noticed that when I unplug the power cable, the audio signal is crystal clear. This means it's a ground loop issue.

You can 'lift' the ground on it, (ie snip off the ground pin, or plug it into an adapter which has no ground pin) but I'm not sure if its safe on this unit. Can anyone verify if it is? Is the model fully shielded etc, and 'safe' to use without a ground pin? I know that some DELL laptop models dont have a ground pin, so if they're interchangable, I will use one without a ground pin.