The hum from hell.

[fayanora]

I have a problem. I use a wired USB mouse because none of my wireless mice will work anymore, except the old white Dell mouse that I use for my laptop, and switching it between the two computers is a fucking pain in the arse. As if that weren't bad enough, the wired mouse I use causes the speakers to produce this annoying fucking hum. I can't turn

Comments

[acelightning]

Wrap aluminum foil around the whole length of the speaker wires (or as much as you can); connect it to "ground" if possible. Ask kengr to help if you don't know what I'm talking about.

[kengr]

It's a laptop. Internal speakers. My guess is that the shielding (or lack thereof) on the USB mouse is picking up 60-cycle. I've suggested looping it thru a ferrite donut. If we can find one. Radio Schlock doesn't seem to have those anymore, just some snap together ferrite "chokes" that may not have a big enough hole to run the looped cable thru...

[fayanora]

No, it isn't. The problem is with my desktop PC, you silly thing.

[acelightning]

the reason i didn't suggest shielding the mouse wire is because moving the mouse around will soon break the aluminum foil. perhaps the kind of cylindrical choke they put on monitor cables (and sometimes even power supplies) would work, but i think those are tuned for RF, not for 60 Hz. maybe even just re-routing the speaker wires would help - try to get them at 90° to the mouse wire if possible. get a piece of perforated aluminum (the kind of stuff they use for radiator enclosures) at Home Depot, attach a ground wire with an alligator clip and ground it to whatever's convenient, and position it between the mouse and the speaker cables. i'm sure you can think of lots of other possible ways to shield one from the other.

[darkoshi]

It might be simplest to get a new mouse. The Best Buy website has a few wired and wireless ones for about $10 with free shipping.