Vostro 1500's ridiculously noisy line in

I've known about the headphone noise with the Vostro, but just today I tried using the mic jack to record. What I got was an unbearable amount of noise, about 3x as loud as the noise on the headphones. Here's what I recorded in adobe audition.

I then tried using the line in monitor, which I could only do in Vista by messing with the registry. The noise that I got coming through then was about 5x as loud. It was overpowering everything.

I make recordings all the time, nothing fancy - usually just playing along to things. I also use Skype, so for me the line in is very important.

Is this fixable?????

 

Ahh, finally somebody has recorded the famous Dell 1500 morse code noise. Thats hideous for sure. From what others say, I would guess your only option is to buy a creative express SC or ship return the vostro. After listening to that noise, I am convinced the SC has some major design flaws and probably won't be fixed until a new model comes out. Thats pathetic. I know laptops don't always have the best sound but thats insane.

 

Sounds like some kind of interference maybe from the CPU or other components. I've experienced this on an HP as well as Dell machine and it's horrible if your trying to record anything.

I concur with the above post the only way really to get rid of it would be to use an external solution or return the notebook.

 

Dell Product Group has found that this is due to a hardware design flaw, involving the processor C3 power states. They do not have a work around for it since it is a design flaw with the layout of the motherboard, so a motherboard replacement will not resolve it.

This affects the Vostro 1500 and the Inspiron 1520.

 

Hi, I own a brand new Vostro 1500 and found this solution:

In recording device/microphine-line input/properties/levels I lowered the microphone boost completely to zero as well as the actual recording level, also completely to zero. To my astonishment now my microphone (connected to a Behringer Eurorack UB502) comes in at line level, and the signal/noise ratio is bearable for home recording.

The background sound in my headphones persists however, unless I remove my AC-adapter. (setting my power scheme to high performance helped a bit).

 

if that was the case then everyone would be having the problem, but clearly not every single person who owns those laptops have that problem. so something has to fix it...

 

Some people can't hear it. I thought it was to do with age but a friend of mine also doesn't hear the noise when I can clearly.

Still haven't found out why this happens almost indefinitely in Windows but I have never had a problem when using Ubuntu.

 

It is the same problem as on older Dells, like the d610: crappy insulation on the motherboard. On the d610, the northbridge inducted current on the motherboard where the audio out was. I suppose the problem is very similar in the 1520. That's why there are notebooks with better audio where the insulation is better and there are worse.

Mine has this problem, but only at almost max volume, if I lower the volume to about 3/4 it is gone.

 

Well if there are worse then mine is definitely in the worse of the batches.