Hopper creating constant buzz?

[RickMo]

Fellow Dishers: There's a constant buzz in my audio system (120 hz???) that's driving me crazy. I believe the cause is my Hopper. Regardless of the input device (TV audio, Roku, BluRay, etc.) the buzz can be heard. If I unplug the Hopper from my AVR, the buzz is gone. Even if I touch the HDMI ground portion of the connector to the AVR, the buzz is present. I've tried running a wire from the AVR ground to the Hopper chassis, I "ungrounded" the AC plug on the Hopper as well as the AVR, I plugged the Hopper into a different AC outlet, I plugged the Hopper from the UPS into a wall outlet, reset the Hopper, and furthermore... the buzz is still there!

Any suggestions?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Is the Hopper getting warm?

Sounds like a power supply issue. If it is getting warm call dish and let them know you worried about the power supply causing a fire. Let them come swap it out.

 

[RickMo]

Thank you, Scott, for the input. The Hopper is midly warm, doesn't seem to be hot enough to be of concern. One thing I'd like add, the buzzing sound is intermittent, and is of varying volume, though the pitch is the same. Would this still be indicative of a power supply problem? Thanks again.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Is the buzz coming from the Hopper or your TV? If its the Hopper get it replaced now before your stuck not being able to watch TV.

 

[RickMo]

Oops, I should have noted that earlier. The buzz is coming from all the speakers (AVR, 5.2.2). I believe it's of constant volume regardless of the source volume.

 

[Bobby]

your Oops, I should have noted that earlier. The buzz is coming from all the speakers (AVR, 5.2.2). I believe it's of constant volume regardless of the source volume.

Do you by any chance have another input on your AVR that you might plug your Hopper into? You might try that as well as perhaps replacing the HDMI cable going from the Hopper to the AVR.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

That does not sound like the power supply.

Have you tried pluggin directly into the TV and seeing if you got the buzz?

Or trying a different HDMI cable.

A few years ago I had an AVR that did a buzz whenever there was a lot of the color white on the screen. Does your buzz change depending whats on the screen?

 

[tjboston5676]

Couple other things to try, is a new hdmi cable and can also try disconnecting the coax from the hopper. If it goes away with coax disconnected then you may have a bad or unapproved ground on the dish outside. A proper ground should be tied into the houses electric panel ground. If it has a separate ground rod that's not right. It may not be grounded at all which most systems aren't. But if that's the case it usually doesn't cause any issues.

 

[Jim5506]

Sounds like a ground loop to me.

 

[RickMo]

Thank you for all the info. I'm gonna try disconnecting the coax cable...I haven't tried that.

The ideas have jogged my memory. I have tried different HDMI cables going from the Hopper to the AVR, and from the AVR to the TV. I also tried different inputs at the AVR. Additionally, I connected the Hopper directly to the TV and used eARC. And I also hooked up an HDMI switcher between the Hopper and AVR. All to no avail.

Thanks again for all the ideas.

 

[RickMo]

So, of course, I turned on the Hopper and today the buzz is gone. I'm planning to disconnect the coax and see if that fixes the problem.

But, if the problem is a ground loop, wouldn't the problem be persistent and daily? IIRC, the problem seems to be cyclical. That is, for a week, there's no buzz, then it appears for a few days, then disappears.

I'll keep this thread updated. Thanks again, all.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Working in radio I have seen ground loops come and go.

One time we had one that would come and go and it would drive us NUTS. We couldn't find it then one day one of the other guys unplugged his phone charger and I happened to have headphones on at the time and hear the buzz go away. I had him plug it back in and it came back. Turns out it was his cheap $5 wall mart wll wart phone charger causing the issue.

Sometimes it can be something as dumb as that.

 

[tjboston5676]

So, of course, I turned on the Hopper and today the buzz is gone. I'm planning to disconnect the coax and see if that fixes the problem.

But, if the problem is a ground loop, wouldn't the problem be persistent and daily? IIRC, the problem seems to be cyclical. That is, for a week, there's no buzz, then it appears for a few days, then disappears.

I'll keep this thread updated. Thanks again, all.

If there's electrical or grounding issues it can come and go. I've seen some pretty weird stuff. Ive had one where everyone the ac kicked on the receiver lost signal and as soon as compressor kicked off signal came back. Lifting the ground resolved. I had one where the dish was grounded to the ac condensing unit, and I guess the house wasn't grounded properly, because an outlet tester showed no ground but when you plugged in the receiver, it did show a ground. Which means the dish was becoming the house ground lol. I've never really had a 120hz hum from a receiver but plenty of weird electrical related issues over the years. Usually audio hum from electrical is 60hz though. But 120 is a multiple of 60 so it wouldn't surprise me if it's electrical related. See if you can catch the next time it happens if it does and check if any appliances just kicked in. Or anything in the house was plugged in.

 

[TheKrell]

One time we had one that would come and go and it would drive us NUTS. We couldn't find it then one day one of the other guys unplugged his phone charger and I happened to have headphones on at the time and hear the buzz go away. I had him plug it back in and it came back. Turns out it was his cheap $5 wall mart wll wart phone charger causing the issue.

I had one of those cigarette lighter-to-USB jacks (for charging phones) that put diagonal lines on my backup camera image! I couldn't believe my eyes because I thought the signal from the backup camera was digital. My installer coiled the extra cable under that cigarette lighter socket, forming a perfect antenna.

 

[RickMo]

I noticed a quiet buzz coming from the speakers, so I pulled the coax connection from the Hopper and the buzz was gone. (I had a problem restoring the Hopper picture. I had to reboot several times due to the blue screen of death but I got it going again.) The buzz was still present after resetting, but it was quieter than before. Outside at the junction box, I noticed a green, 14 ga, wire attached to one of the DIsh signal splitters. I don't know where the grounding wire is coming from though.

 

[navychop]

Did disconnecting that wire fix the hum problem?

 

[RickMo]

I'm gonna try un-grounding the splitter (good idea, navychop) but right now there's no hum.

 

[RickMo]

On a whim, I removed the grounding wire from the splitter. The buzz was noticeably louder. I put the wire back and buzz returned, but was very soft.

 

[tjboston5676]

Where is the other end of ground wire attached? And there should be a second black wire attached as well that comes from the cable going to the dish, with it also attached to the mount for the dish. Could you take a few pictures?

 

[RickMo]

Couple of pictures attached. The first picture shows the ground cable attached to thew splitter. It disappears into the wall, and probably snakes under the house. On the 2nd picture, the large cable to the bottom left comes from the dish itself. I don't see any "second black wire" attached to the incoming cable nor do I see any type of grounding cable at the satellite dish. Thanks for your input.