DCAudioDIY.com

I do have one so I might try it.

ray

Best postphoned for a day or jumped on before you change your mind? Hard to say what is the wise choice here......

For the board I built, replaced the 10amp diodes with low Vf style switch mode supply diodes. Less voltage drop so a lower voltage transformer will work.

I've used for or five different laptops in my audio system over the past few years and I don't remember having a problem like that. I suspect there's something amiss with the laptop. It could be the charger, I suppose. You could try a different generic charger and return it if it doesn't make a difference.

At Computer Audiophile there's a long thread under "Software" about "optimizing" Windows 10. There's an older one for Windows 8 but it may be hard to find. There's also a fairly pricey tool called Audiophile Optimizer. I frankly don't recommend these scripts because they can turn off stuff you need for convenient listening. I also think they muck up the sound, but maybe it's just my system. If you google "optimize Windows for pro audio" you'll find a lot of basic recommendations for things you can turn off to reduce background activity and system interrupts. That's as far as I'd go.

After being away for a while, I got a new power brick and that has done the trick. The noise is gone.

One thing I tried was to install Fidelizer on the laptop. It turns off unneeded processes in the laptop but it did not solve the noise problem but the sound seemed to change enough that familiar recordings sounded a bit different, possibly better in most cases.

http://www.fidelizer-audio.com/

I haven't done an a/b comparison but am inclined to keep using it. I am using the basic free version.

ray

Glad you got the noise issue solved.

Fidelizer is fairly harmless, IMO. Maybe makes things a little cleaner. Audiophile Optimizer is the one to beware of. It's very well researched and constructed, and a lot of people swear by it, but once you apply it, it's main effects are irreversible, and I really don't like what it does to the sound. I think Win10 in it's native state is pretty good.

I would agree with the 'cleaner' attribute. I also noticed a bit more impact.

ray

Ray, if you're still interested, I would steer you toward the Windows 10 Optimization thread at Computer Audiophile, under the Software heading. I tried some of the suggestions there and found they had a very beneficial effect on Windows 10 Home edition, producing a clearer and sweeter sound, without any hardening of the tone or analytical effects. On page 5 there's a shorter script that retains LAN operation, if need be. You simply copy the script, open PowerShell (Admin) and right click to paste and start the script.

It is NOT reversible so be sure to create a restore point if you want to go back to your original configuration.

Also mentioned in that thread is a script called getblackbird which removes all the Microsoft spyware on your computer. I found this added additional sonic benefits. The current version, however, does knock out LAN service. The trick is to unzip the download, drag the folder inside to your C drive, rename it "blackbird" and run it from there. Then open a command terminal and type "cd C:/blackird, which navigates to theat folder. Then type "blackbird -l" (lower-case letter L). This will restore the LAN. If it says it cannot locate blackbird you have be sure you "cd" to the proper folder. Blackbird *is* reversible if you look at the directions. There's a new version 1.0 due out any day which will enable more options when running the script.

Hope this helps!

Thanks. I will look into it.

ray

This script works with Vista -> 10 so there may be many who could benefit from it... http://getblackbird.net/

Roscoe

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