Tried your 1520's headphone jack?

[EnderSaves]

Have you tried your 1520's headphone jack? Mine seems to be transmitting a lot of hard drive/internal electronic noises when I'm not playing music. I'm curious if its just mine or are other people picking up on this. (It's not the drivers, I've updated them, this is a hardware thing.)

[Mat Dope]

is it noticable when music or anything is playing?

[toned42]

did you get the Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition?

[dustice]

It's dependent upon the headphones for me. When I use the Creative headphones dell gave me, it's a nightmare - constant beeping and static. But when I used my Steelsound headset I could barely notice it.

Perhaps it's something to do with magnetic interference/shielding?

I didn't get the software edition, btw.

[EnderSaves]

I have the Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition, so I guess it's not an issue of a broken card or one version of sound option over the other.

It seems to be more of a consistent issue of poor design rather than one fault issue. It will be interesting to see if we get more responses in the poll and what that might imply.

Yeah, I definitely notice it more in the included Creative earbuds; I think its because those earbuds are so tiny and focused on treble and high pitched sounds that it is more annoying in them. I tried with two other very different headphones and I still hear it but less so. I imagine the only way to eliminate it would be wireless bluetooth headphones like on the accessories page.

I mainly hear it when I'm not playing any music or sounds.

[phobos512]

Ok well I don't have 1520, I've got the 1420, but this drove me to try my headphone ports out also since I'm planning to use this when I go on trips and what not.

I have a pair of Shure E2Cs and I use the size small foam plugs if you're familiar with them. I have the standard HD audio, not the Creative Soundblaster HD software audio.

I do not hear anything from the computer, like noise from the hard drive or DVD drive - I am listening to iTunes right now as my computer is installing WoW from CDs.

I have an occasional skip but that is no different than my desktop since I installed Vista. They definitely have work to do with the audio stack in Vista still.

With the volume muted there is a very slight but noticeable hiss when I go from headphones unplugged to headphones plugged in. But nothing at all bothersome.

[dicecca112]

no noise or distortion here, I have the normal base audio as well

[dustice]

dicecca112, can you post your specs? I want to see whats different before reporting this to Dell.

[bizekiel]

hmm kinda worried about this right now...I intended on listening to a lot of music through those headphones =/

[dustice]

Just talked to a Dell Representative and described the problem - he told me its probably a motherboard issue and wanted to send a tech over to replace the motherboard... I'm going to get a second opinion first though - he didn't seem very confident and couldn't even tell me why he thought the motherboard was the problem.

However, this may explain why some people don't have the issue, perhaps Dell caught the problem with the mobos and fixed those which haven't yet left assembly?