This Noise Is Driving Me Crazy!!

Hello,
I drive a Grand Cherokee with the Infinity system. I have this real annoying popping noise in my system. It sometimes happens when my fan motor kicks on and sometimes it just seems to happen. I've checked all of my connections, and they appear to be fine. I don't know if the fan motor is causing this or perhaps the infinity speakers or amp that came from the factory. Any suggestions to help me elimate this annoying noise would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

tell us more about what you have so we can try to help you

I am not an installer, I am a technician. I think I have a good idea of what's going on here.

Ideally, no device in the car should be able to cause noise in any other device---at least, not through the 12-volt system (and that is what's happening to you).

If every device has a perfect connection to both 12 volts and ground, then you should be immune to noise, but it's not a perfect world. When there is a slight resistance in a connection, the resistance allows the device's connection to 12 volts to vary, and if the variance is high enough, you get audible noise.

I would suggest checking your connections and make sure they are as perfect as possible. Even your vehicle's battery connections might cause noise---you don't get a good, clean power source without good connections to the 12 volt system. Bear in mind that fuse blocks or any other connector might be a problem.

Sometimes fuses themselves develop resistance and cause problems. I have seen more than one instance where a fuse checked good (zero ohms) with a multimeter, yet under load---high current draw---it dropped enough voltage to cause the device to not work properly. High-power (because of the high current demand) devices are more succeptible to this phenomenon.

If this approach doesn't solve the problem, you can try using a filter capacitor where your sound system taps into the 12 volt system. Use a fairly large cap. Just guessing, I would go with at least 1 microfarad, but 10 mike might work better. Be sure the cap has a voltage rating well above twelve volts! I would look for something like 4.7 microfarad, 25 VDC. If there are several connections to the 12 volt system, try this where the devices with the most gain first.

If there is better advice available, then by all means follow it. My thoughts are based on theory, not actual experience with car audio systems.
Good luck!


-tm-

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Don't wanna hear your "boom-boom," just wanna hear my "weeee-yaaah-deedle-dee."

Make sure all your power and ground cables are a good deal away from your signal cables, its more than enough but i usually seperate the power and signal cables by at least 12 inches. you also want that ground pretty short.

jadamson76 wrote:

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Hello,
I drive a Grand Cherokee with the Infinity system. I have this real annoying popping noise in my system. It sometimes happens when my fan motor kicks on and sometimes it just seems to happen. I've checked all of my connections, and they appear to be fine. I don't know if the fan motor is causing this or perhaps the infinity speakers or amp that came from the factory. Any suggestions to help me elimate this annoying noise would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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This is a factory system?  Take it to a dealer for repair, especially if it's still under warranty.

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