[carol m]

Aaaaah!! My brain is hurting. I’ve just been on another browse through all your Techy lessons and followed all the links for Firewire, M-Audio, etc and all the others you mention…amps, pre-amps, soundcards, mixers……..I have PM’d you with some more questions about that so I don’t bore the other members too much. Hope you don’t mind - just ignore my PM if its all ‘too much’ and you need a break.

About your last post, you say,

"and there should be no sound going through your sound card when Windows isn't running. You can test this by talking into the mic until windows kicks in".

I'm not sure how that would test if it is the soundcard at fault, because the interference starts before I log in (to Windows) to open Windows (before you get that Windows 'opening' music), so there is no way I can see or hear anything coming from a mic input until I open Audacity (or similar) which I can't do until Windows (and desk top etc) are 'open' to link to Audacity.

I mention this just to make sure we are both talking about the same things, as I can clearly hear when it kicks in -