Recently, I bought some nice in-ear headphones: the Klipsch Custom-2 In-Ear Noise Isolating Earphone. They do a great job of eliminating outside noise because they fit in my ears like earplugs. Here’s the downside to that: I discovered that my main computer, a Dell Latitude D820 (yeah, I’m using a 4-year-old computer, what of it?!), has a low, constant hiss whenever the sound isn’t muted.

When I plug the headphones into my iPhone, there’s no background noise–just perfect silence.

So, I went searching for a solution to the problem. Turns out, it’s not a software update or a configuration problem. I just have a cheap sound card. All sound cards introduce some level of noise (though my iPhone doesn’t seem to) and cheaper sound cards introduce more noise than better-quality sound cards.  Being a laptop, my computer has the sound card built into the motherboard, which makes it prone to this type of background noise.

If this were a desktop, I could simply add a better-quality sound card and plug my headphones or speakers into it. With a laptop/notebook/mobile computer, I need to add an external sound card or USB headphones (as described later). Check the reviews–some are better quality than others.

This problem also extended to recording. I regularly record voice-overs for instructional videos, and I had a seemingly incurable problem with background noise. When I bought a digital microphone (which uses a USB connection rather than the mic-in port), the background noise disappeared. Because I wasn’t using the analog microphone port on my laptop anymore, it wasn’t subject to the motherboard-induced background noise. The headset I bought also had headphones, and those headphones were immune to the background noise, too.

Moral of the story: if you hear noise when you plug a mic, headphones, or speakers into your computer, use a USB connection instead of the built-in analog connection.

I tested a Wacom tablet on my computer a few months back, which prompted Windows Vista to automatically install the Tablet PC components. I got rid of the Wacom tablet after discovering that I’m better at using a mouse then a pen (a fact I should have realized after seeing my handwriting).

The Tablet PC Input Panel didn’t go away, though. It’s the panel that slides out from the left side of the screen to allow you to use handwriting to enter text.

To disable it, follow these steps:

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Question:

 I have been having problems using multiple monitors recently.  I hook
up to a projector as my second monitor.  It used to work just fine,
but suddenly not.  Now, when I connect my laptop, the monitor on my
laptop shows a blank desktop (as I would expect on monitor 2).  No
toolbars, no icons, nothing.  It is basically a paperweight.  The
second screen says “Computer 3″ in the upper right-hand corner
and “No signal.”  There apparently is no computer 2.  

I have tried to change the display settings on my computer.  It shows
monitor 1 as a generic PnP monitor and shows 2 as default monitor on
mobile intel …  It seems to me that the PnP would be the secondary
device that I plug in and not the primary.  I’m very confused.  I
don’t know if I should disable the driver and if so for which one?

I have a Gateway.  Can you help me?

Answer:

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Question:

Hello Tony.

I came across your site looking for an answer to a question I have and you seem to be the man to ask. I am running Vista Ultimate 32-bit on my machine. All things being equal, when I run only 2GB of RAM I have a Windows Experience Base score of 5.0. Adding 2 more gigs of identical Ram dropped my WEI to 4.5. It seems adding the extra 2GB of RAM made my memory operations per second drop a half point. I read your article on Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows (http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/) and the follow-ups but it doesn’t quite answer my question which is this; how come adding more RAM slows my PC rather than speed it up? Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,

Jonathan H.

Answer:

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Question:

I have docking station for my new Dell Latitude and I plugged in one monitor via VGA and the other DVI.  However, the VGA monitor remains blank, and I don’t see a third monitor in display settings.  Do I need to do something on my PC to make this additional monitor work?

Thanks!

Answer:

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Question:

Hi

    I have just bought a laptop with Vista Home Premium installed.I asked my ISP Orang if they were happy with this and their Broadband Wireless package,they asked if it was 32megs.I couldn,t tell them,is it anf if it is maybe I am OK fot the net.Their full softwear comes int effect in June,I imagine that is for Vistas above 32megs

                                 Thanks

                                            Tom

Answer:

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Last week I ranted about the “Ready for Vista” sign over my new HP all-in-one printer/fax/scanner/copier. HP just released the software for it (both 32-bit and 64-bit), and all seems well. Better late then never. Note: as of 7/23/09, you can find updated drivers here.