Alienware 17 headphone hiss

HI,

I got my AW 17 last week, and so far all good. One thing I've noticed that isn't a huge deal, but is still a bit of an annoyance:

I hear a constant low-grade hiss (like low white noise) through my headphones when they're plugged into the headphone jack. It increases a bit if the mic is also plugged in.

I noticed that my headphones don't slide into the jack super smoothly, and require more force than I would usually need to use, which was surprising (they're just normal earbud headphones - they work on everything).

Is there any way to eliminate this hiss?

 

The hiss is something I heard on any laptop. Something with the grounding of laptops I guess. Its not ideal I agree. FOr music production I use an external soundcard though which fully eliminates this.

I also noticed the plugs dont go in super smoothly. You hear some slight cracking too when you wiggle the plug. But this is something I come across with more computer audio input/output jacks.

 

Interesting. For me, this is the first time I've heard the hiss... on my Alienware m17x R3 from 2011 it was dead quiet... no hiss or any other sounds.

 

it has a metal frame for grounding/shielding i suspect. It could be done better on the current AW series.

 

Same here with two M15X laptops and an M11X. Dead quiet with three different pairs of headphones. Have you tried playing around with the sound card software. Maybe there are some enhancements you can try disabling, or perhaps there's a noise reduction feature.

 

Get a DAC for cleaner sound.

 

It even is there when you mute your soundcard. The chassis of the M15X was magnesium/aluminum thus acting as a faraday cage and blockign noise. The current models have a carbon fibre composite outer shell and lack proper shielding I guess around the soundcard.It is a very low volume hiss though.