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Ground Loop? (Ground Loop Isolators Have No Effect)
I have a laptop in my trunk which I'm using as an MP3 player. Up until
recently I used a cassette adaptor to pipe the sound into my 2000 Passat's factory head unit. I decided to upgrade the sound quality a bit, and bought a PIE VW-AUX (a device which converts the unused CD Changer connector in my trunk into an auxiliary input) adaptor and now have the audio from the laptop running through it to the head unit. Everything works like a charm as long as the laptop is running off its own internal battery. If I select CD1 on the head unit, I can hear nice clean(ish) audio from the laptop. When I have the laptop connected to the power inverter (plugged into the cigarette lighter socket in the trunk), though, I get this really loud buzzing/humming sound coming through the speakers (lound enough to almost drown out the music completely). It doesn't matter whether the laptop is on or not - as long as its plugged into the car battery through the inverter, I get a loud humming sound when the CD changer is selected on the head unit. About 5% of the time, the humming sound might go away for a little while, but always comes back again. I did some research, and it sounds like I have what's called a "ground loop" problem. However, I've tried two different ground loop isolators (one was made by a company called Stingray, and the other was the PIE EIS-ILNO, which is supposed to be both a ground loop isolator and noise filter) and neither one has had any effect. I've tried a different power inverter, but the humming sound is still there. If I'm in the garage and plug the laptop to house AC current the humming is gone (although this isn't a viable solution for the obvious reason ;-) Is this a ground loop problem, and if so why aren't the ground loop isolators making any difference? If not, what is it and how do I fix it? Is it "safe" to leave things in this situation? At the moment, I have the inverter on to charge the laptop battery only when I'm NOT listening to music through it and switch the inverter off when I'm listening to music. However, the radio is on when the laptop is charging so whatever is causing the humming is still coming in through the CD input even though I'm listening to the radio. Is this harmful? Thanks! |
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