[orion6192]



Hello all -


I'm slightly confused as to what to do here. The more I read the more frustrated I get because it seems like I could have all the issues of either a bad cable, ground loop issues, etc.


Here's my story - it started not too long ago in a small town in upstate NY. I decided to upgrade my home receiver (replaced an older pioneer to step up to HDMI) and bought an Onkyo TX-SR705. Love it - no issues with it for over two years. I hooked this up at the time to a DirecTV HD-DVR via HDMI. I have a 12 sub that sits at the back up my living room at the end of 35' to 50' of RCA cable (there is a coupler in the middle to join the two cable together and shrink-wrapped) - may not be shielded though - only about 1/8 in diameter. NO HUM, great picture; happy customer.


Last week I switched to Time Warner Cable. Here it comes wait for it. HUM in the SUB! The new cable box is a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8240HDC hooked up via HDMI. Everything goes via HDMI into the Onkyo TX-SR705 and then one HDMI to the 50 Panasonic Plasma. Good picture - no issues - just HUM - SD and HD channels.


So this is what changed in my set-up: (I have attached a layout if it helps!)


Originally we had DirecTV cable coming into the opposite end of the house and straight to the living room. Only one receiver.


Now we have the cable coming in underground with the electric and phone cable (existing cable - good signal according to installed) and comes in the house by the electric meter. All cable runs are from the TV back to the main cable box outside the house. He ground it to the metal frame on that end of the house (yes it is a modular home). The cable is run along the same path as the sub RCA cable parallel to the Onkyo receiver as the sub is towards that end of the house. So we have more runs of cable than we had before and the cable is running along with the sub cable.


Side note: I did switch to my Sony Blu-Ray (550 model) also HDMI and I have the same hum! Never had a hum before there either! Does this point to the sub cable or something else?


Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks all -


Scott

 

[orion6192]

Hey - what do you know... I fixed it! I tried another wall socket with the sub - nothing. Unplugged the cable from the back of the cable box and the hum instantly went away. Huh... I read about someone routing the cable through a panamax surge protector. I had one I used with the DirecTV setup (Panamax surge protector is a DBS 3+ Powermax). I put the cable in the in - the additional cable in the out and bang - no more hum! I put it in the addn'l tv inputs instead of the antenna or satellite inputs. Panamax said to use the addn't tv ports for cable tv.


Quick and easy. I did however order a new sub cable but now don't need it. $17.00 from Monoprice -but hey - it was worth the $17 to fix this problem (if I didn't order it I would have needed it!) so I'll call it a wash and free cable to boot.

 

[jpmst3]



Congrats! If only they were all that simple!