Windows 7: Sound card causing static noise on microphone

Hi,

I recently bought new PC and got this Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium sound card with it. Problem with it is that when I try to speak anything there is a quite loud static noise on the background.

My headset is working fine, there are no problems recording with my old PC and if I plug my headset via USB it works fine.

I'm using latest drivers from Creative. Some people suggest trying Daniel_K drivers but I'm not quite sure if this is driver related issue.

Do you have the Integrated Audio (on the motherboard) disabled in the BIOS? If its still enabled it can cause conflicts with the SoundBlaster. Whether this will cause the noise problem?? but its something to check.

Noise is a major complaint with Win 7 systems. There is no "one fix" for the problems.

If you are using the front panel headphone jack, it could be the routing of the cable to the sound card. Try the rear mic jack on the SoundBlaster card (with and without the front panel HDAudio connection to the sound card) and see if that makes any difference.

Drivers are another issue, but I don't think the Daniel K drivers address any noise problems. Video card/drivers are another area that can cause noise. Wi-Fi controllers and connections are another.

BTW, I just finished a build and tried to use a Corsair H80 cooler but the fans are too loud for my recording studio (the PC build was primarily for a new recording studio PC). I'm now using the stock Intel cooler that came with my i7 3770 CPU and have a "quiet" cooler on order.

Haven't disabled integrated audio yet, will try that first.

I have connected my headset directly to sound card so that shouldn't be the problem (front panel doesn't even seem to work, should I unplug it?)

Yeah, fans are a bit loud on Corsair H-coolers :P That doesn't matter too much since my MMX 300 headset reduces outside noise a lot.

Do you have the "HD Audio" connector from the front panel connected to the SoundBlaster sound card? or is it connected to the motherboard? If its connected to the motherboard its not going to work with the SoundBlaster, it needs connected directly to the sound card.

I think I connected it to motherboard, need to check that. I don't need front panel anyways.

Disabled motherboard audio but it seems that the noise is still there.

Do you hear the noise on playback too or is it just recording?

For testing, disable the SoundBlaster, enable your Integrated Audio and try that, to see if its the SoundBlaster or something else in the PC that is causing it. May just be a defective sound card.

Did some testing and finally realized how dumb I was...

So, problem was that mic didn't work properly when plugged to "pink" slot and it worked fine on a USB slot. Also, I wanted to have audio plug on my sound card to get benefits from it.

Well, there is quite easy solution to that: plug audio to sound card and mic to USB converter that came with headset.

Thanks anyways fireberd

At least the problem is resolved. Thanks for the feedback on what you did to fix it.