Yet Another Dell Laptop Audio Grounding Problem

Dell laptops are pretty well known for having terrible audio interfaces, mostly due to some sort of grounding issue.  At CityTech, with a state contract discount, Dell is unfortunately all we can buy.

I found this problem once again a couple months ago in testing some transmission of material, shot a video, and am justing getting time to post it now:

Comments

[dalek9]

I actually built a switch that disconnects the ground wire into the powerlead of the adapter of my HP laptop. To me it looks like the problem is the switching power supply putting a lot of noise on the power source which influences the other equipment connected to it. I don't think it has to do so much with the design of the audio circuit in the laptop since I have the same problem when using an external Focusrite Saffire connected via firewire to the laptop: if the ground of the power adapter is connected a lot of noise comes out. Unplug the power adapter from the laptop or disconnect ground and the noise is gone.