Asus Essence STX HDD Crosstalk

Many factor here, cheapo PSU can cause this problem and also RCA cables without good shielding as well.

It could be a ground loop issue. Is the little dot plugged into the same surge protector as your computer? Try plugging them into different outlets, like the little dot into your A/V receiver outlet or something like that.

 

(edit: when I was using my computer along with a Little Dot III it induced a ground loop hum, there are a number of products which can fix that)

Edited by anetode - 6/9/11 at 6:33pm

It's probley ground noise, get some shielded rca cables and a ground loop isolator the ground loop isolator will stop the ground noise.

Ground loop isolators don't change the sound, there a very simple transformer and just seperate the grounds, by seperating a computer ground from your amp or whatever you will remove most if not all of the computer noise.

Can the Asus card you are using do "bitperfect" or "bitmatched" playback?

 

I use an Auzentech Prelude card and it too gets very noticeable hiss/interference on any of it's day to day usage settings ... 

 

But if I enable it's "bitmatched" setting (kills volume controls on all soft interfaces and sends steady line signal out via optical or coax) all noise and hiss disappears completely ... it's still not as technically clean and transparent as my external, dedicated CD transport (generic sony carousel) but it's still damn close.

 

Good luck ...

 

.j

I have the same with my STX line out > Matrix M-stage although its quiet at normal listening volumes. If turn up the amp I can hear a staticy whine noise when I move the mouse.

 

It must be something in the card picking up EMI.   Ive tried moving the card to another slot and still have the same issue.  There probably isnt much I can do although I never had the issue with my old DX but that only had HP out.

I figure why changing the EPU engine off and disabling Cool'N'Quiet helped are because of how they regulate the system. EPU works with the phase power, exactly how I'm not too sure, but I suspect through changing the MOSFET switching frequency. Cool'N'Quiet changes CPU frequencies and voltage. Combine that and you are putting up a wide range of different loads on the system.

You memory change didn't make sense though unless you're running an Athlon II X2, which I think is the only chips that don't do DDR3-1333 natively, but only 1066. The X3 and X4 are based on the Phenom II cores (Deneb) and will have 1333 native. Though that still is a change in frequencies, so I guess it's possible.

If the power plug you've got the STX hooked up to is on the same chain as the hard drives, provided you have another FDD power plug you can use, perhaps try moving the to another power plug? Or move the HDDs off that chain. They all connect to the same spot on the PSU's PCB, but it might help a little. Otherwise, unplug the SDD and HDD on the SATA6 cables and swap them over to your shielded SATA3 ones, leaving those two drives disconnected from the computer entirely for this test. Lastly, toss the STX in the last PCIe slot on your board, away from graphics cards and the CPU.

For a total long shot, which is a bit of work since you have to unpin the molex connectors... You could twist each ground around the 5V and 12V to help cut out any stray EM :\ *shrug*

It's not the computer, it's the amp. look up hum x or the isolators

I know this is an older thread but I wanted to share my experience.  Did you ever find a way to get rid of the digital switching/ticking noise?

 

I have this as a setup

 

 

Asus E35M1-M PRO

Asus Xonar Essence ST (pci)

Seasonic fanless X-400 PSU

siliverstone GD02-MT case

 

I have the same exact problem and I have not been able to fix it.  I have swapped every single part in this setup and the only way I could get it to be noiseless was to remove everything from the case and even then I had to make sure everything was connected just right or I would get noise again.  I even RMAed the motherboard with no help.  I even went to the point of buying a different motherboard (ASUS again, could this be the problem) and still had the same noise.  I do not get the noise when any of these parts are in my other rig.  I am at a Fing losss.  My last 2 guesses are that it's the case or ASUS.  This is the most frustrating problem I have ever encountered in a computer.

Do you also have the issue only with an external amplifier, but not the sound card's headphone output ?
 

What I'd do, if you think it's the case causing some sort of grounding noise, is isolate just the HDD from it. Either remove it from the HDD slot and let it sit on a piece of cardboard inside the case somewhere (as long as the HDD isn't touching metal), OR suspend it from the bottom of the cage with something (twist ties or zip ties).

Also, it could be the type of system you've chosen, not so much as the brand. The E350 (or E450) utilize the A50 FCH (Fusion Controller Hub) and they do not have native support for legacy PCI slots, so any motherboards with a PCI slot or two will be using a bridge chip. The thing to do would be to test it out in another platform (Socket AM3+ or older, or Socket FM1 for AMD; Socket 1156 or older for Intel) and see if that persists when a chipset that natively supports PCI is used. Since as you likely know, any time you have to pass a signal through another circuit, things can pick up interference. I know it's still a digital signal at that point, but I think even they are susceptible to such things.

Hope that helps some