Living with alternator whine for almost a year.

[riotburn 10+ year member]

Im sick of it. I spent a whole week tearing my car apart, made my own RCA's with the shield grounded at one end, have an apline 9887 and rockford 4 channel hooked up with power ran down one side and rca's down the other and 4 gauge wire ran from the battery to power the amp. For most of the year I really didn't try to solve it but I've gotten fed up with this crap because i hav to have the gains low on the amp so the whine isn't unbearable. For a while I thought it was because of the amp, not really remembering right if I tested or not. So this past weekend I went and pulled the RCA's out of the amp and the sound was gone. Which means the problem lies with the HU.

Ok, I know I used the loop connection that comes from the alpine and secured it some bolt that was going into the body of the car. I also had to change my battery this week because it went bad and bought a Bosch replacement with which the noise has subsided some but is still present.

I saw the pioneer fix regarding the blown pico fuse but wanted to know if I can apply the same to my HU (wrapping a wire around RCA's and grounding to a screw on the HU chassis). Also was thinking of a power noise suppressor to the HU which I don't see how it could affect the performance since it only messes with the power feed and not the signal. And then any other ideas on to fix this? Could I determine a bad ground using my MM?

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[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

i had a bad experience with a few pioneer HUs and now i ground all my RCAs to prevent noise. it has worked fine so far. i'd recommend just doing that and trying it before you buy anything else.

 

[Pborcich 10+ year member]

ground loop isolator?

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

ground loop isolator?

is a band aid fix...

 

[brodeisel 10+ year member]

I just did this with my pioneer amp and a rockford 4channel amp and it worked try it. I ment to say i grounded the rcas and it has no more wine from the car i know that horrible noise but i only dealt with it for like 3 days. I still have a little whine but no alternator wine. ui cant here the wine when i but the volume on 1 so it is barely there.

 

[nateberrier 10+ year member]

Sometimes its the amp and there is nothing you can do about it. Most of the time its a discrepancy in the grounds. I would sand all the connections well and make sure they mesh well. Also make sure the deck is grounded directly to the chassis and not through the harness, that can cause issues, like I said though sometimes its just the amp, my old mobile es made no noise and my audiopoop and rockford make a little whistle (not ground noise but yknow)

 

[riotburn 10+ year member]

Yea I'm close to buying a ground loop isolator but I don't want to lose SQ since I did upgrade the system for SQ. What about noise surpressor?

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

Sometimes its the amp and there is nothing you can do about it. Most of the time its a discrepancy in the grounds. I would sand all the connections well and make sure they mesh well. Also make sure the deck is grounded directly to the chassis and not through the harness, that can cause issues, like I said though sometimes its just the amp, my old mobile es made no noise and my audiopoop and rockford make a little whistle (not ground noise but yknow)

if it's the amp, its usually a popped capacitor in the amp. sadly it's a PITA trouble shoot. OP needs to look at the board on the amp and check to see if any capacitors are bad.

 

[riotburn 10+ year member]

Sometimes its the amp and there is nothing you can do about it. Most of the time its a discrepancy in the grounds. I would sand all the connections well and make sure they mesh well. Also make sure the deck is grounded directly to the chassis and not through the harness, that can cause issues, like I said though sometimes its just the amp, my old mobile es made no noise and my audiopoop and rockford make a little whistle (not ground noise but yknow)

I did sand them down well, and didn't use the harness (didn't use a harness at all).

I just did this with my pioneer amp and a rockford 4channel amp and it worked try it.

Which are you referring too? Isolator or wrapping the RCA's?

 

---------- Post added at 04:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:03 PM ----------

 

if it's the amp, its usually a popped capacitor in the amp. sadly it's a PITA trouble shoot. OP needs to look at the board on the amp and check to see if any capacitors are bad.

I don't think its the amp because I disconnected the RCA's from the amp and the whine was gone.

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

I don't think its the amp because I disconnected the RCA's from the amp and the whine was gone.

so you removed the amp from the equation and your whine was gone, you still think it's not the amp? did you try another amp?

 

[riotburn 10+ year member]

so you removed the amp from the equation and your whine was gone, you still think it's not the amp? did you try another amp?

No, meaning I took the head unit out of the equation.

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

No, meaning I took the head unit out of the equation.

did you try a different head unit?

 

[riotburn 10+ year member]

did you try a different head unit?

No, since I hacked up the wiring and didn't use a harness its not really an option since I can't plug and play. I know at least it wasn't there with the stock receiver before I upgraded.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

why not just wrap them and try it? it's easy to try and it may work.

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

No, since I hacked up the wiring and didn't use a harness its not really an option since I can't plug and play. I know at least it wasn't there with the stock receiver before I upgraded.

ohh, maybe you can get ahold of a HU that is the same brand so you can use that harness. what vehicle is this?