One sound card interfers with the other?

[redpenguin2]

I have a computer that is used for a lot of audio recording.

Currently it has 4 sound cards.

2 internal (PCI while the other 2 are USB.

It's running XP 32bit.

The one card appears to be a Creative AudioPCI ES1370 while the newer claims to be Creative AudioPCI ES1371/ES1373.

The older card card seems to be getting hum/buzz on it's Line In even when nothing is attached it it at all.

The only thing that makes it go away is unhooking the Line In on the PCI card.

Yet the PCI card works totally normal and has no issues with hum/buzz, it sounds perfect.

Could it be a shielding problem?

I wanted to ask here before I went through all the drama of reconfiguring hardware/software only to find out I had no need to.

 

[gnomio]

First question.

Why do you use 2 soundcards? Why not remove the 1?

 

[redpenguin2]

First question.

Why do you use 2 soundcards? Why not remove the 1?

Well I use the computer to record two radios and XP doesn't seem to allow for recording them with one single soundcard.

 

[redpenguin2]

The problem has been solved.

An acquaintance said it sounded like the 3.5 male to male wire had a bad ground and was causing a ground loop.

So after switching one of the wires, the problem was still there, but the minute I switched the second one, the problem was totally gone.

 

[halcyon]

The problem has been solved.

An acquaintance said it sounded like the 3.5 male to male wire had a bad ground and was causing a ground loop.

So after switching one of the wires, the problem was still there, but the minute I switched the second one, the problem was totally gone.

Yeah...I was gonna say to do that.

 

[gnomio]

Well I use the computer to record two radios and XP doesn't seem to allow for recording them with one single soundcard.

Oh ok. So you had basically a sync problem

 

[redpenguin2]

Best answer selected by RedPenguin2.