noise in my car and can't diagnose

tried it..it did nothing

i FINALLY isolated the noise. i stole my brothers high grade AV RCAs for his TV and hooked the head unit up to it. NO NOISE. now could someone help me with what the best course of action here is? I don't understand, these are suppose to be high quality double shielded stinger RCAs. should I get new ones or get a filter of some sort. is it possible that somehow when I was installing the RCAs it got shorted somewhere? thanks for your help guys

Try isolating the shield at one or other end. Rather than experimenting with pricy RCA's I have a short male/female RCA with the shield cut. I connect the in-car RCA's through this at one or the other end. If that resolves the issue then cut the shield at the appropriate end of your in-car RCA's.

BTW, congrats on the excellent troubleshooting skills - muting plugs, external MP3 player - you'd make David Navone proud! (I think I just gave away my age  )

"BTW, congrats on the excellent troubleshooting skills - muting plugs, external MP3 player - you'd make David Navone proud! (I think I just gave away my age  )"

hey thanks, it took a lot of time and patience, or lack thereof, to find the problem. i learned a lot though. for instance how many freaking possible things could be wrong here. lol.

sorry for such a stupid question but how do i cut the shield?

ok so i removed the shield and tried this on my old cables, first on the left and then right of my amp-end and then left and right of my HU-end. there was noise each time. does it matter if i only made this shield isolator for one channel?

afterwards i got worried and plugged the other RCAs in and no noise again. i know somethings messed up with these Stinger RCAs. I guess my only option is to take them out and check for a short somewhere. thanks

If the whining noise matches rpm but it is not a ticking noise matching the rpm then more than likely it's the alternator. An alternator generates a/c voltage which passes through diodes to convert it to DC. If one or more diodes fail then a/c gets though which you hear as a whine. All vehicle electronics work on DC so a/c can be inducive to damage. Good thing is that the electronic modules themselves have their own dc/dc converters which help prevent damage.

Temp sensors are resistors and wouldn't suffer damage from tired rectifiers in the alternator. The problem your facing is a mechanical one which goes beyond the scope of this forum.

A simple answer to your query: no