alternator whine
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=78324
Printed Date: April 27, 2024 at 10:18 AM
Topic: alternator whine
Posted By: sab0276
Subject: alternator whine
Date Posted: May 26, 2006 at 10:24 AM
I have a 2002 GMC Yukon. It has pretty bad alternator whine.
Here is the details of the wiring:
I ran the 4awg power wire down the drivers side door sill to the rear doors. I then have a distribution block to run 8awg to the 2 amps.
The amps are mounted under the middle seats. The speaker wire for the left speakers also goes down the drivers side door sill but is about 1.5" away from the power wire. The speaker wires do cross over the power wire, but does so at a 90* angle.
The RCA wires and remote are ran underneath the center console. There is wiring for the factory rear stereo and 12v port in the center console tunnel as well.
Also the speakers pop when ever I turn the system on or off.
Any ideas?
I'll try to take pics and post them later this weekend.
-Scott
p.s. Is it ok for RCA cables and speaker wire to run along next to each other?
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2002 GMC Yukon SLT non-Bose
Pioneer AVIC N3
Replies:
Posted By: benneeb0y
Date Posted: May 26, 2006 at 2:49 PM
im bit of a novice when i comes to car stereos but i always run power and remote down the side of the car with the battery on it and the rca and speaker wires down the opposite. i guess best case you would want to seperate rca and speakers but i have never had any whine. and im guessing you mean whine as in you hear it thru the speakers? you could try insulating with wire loom at the point they cross. also there could be wiring for the cars electronices by your speaker wires like in the console or somewhere along the your run.
Posted By: forbidden
Date Posted: May 26, 2006 at 3:29 PM
More info is required. We need a breakdown of what equipment is installed and where it is installed.
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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.
Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: May 26, 2006 at 3:30 PM
RCA and speaker wires together is ok. The RCA's with power cable is a problem causing situation. Running amplified speaker wire next to power cables is generally ok too. Unfortunately you have a vehicle that is notorious for egine noise. The alternators in many GM vehicles are prone to being noisy. Secondly there are very few solid grounds in that vehicle. You should start by metering all of your grounds, making sure they match and have the least amount of resistance possible, I hope you have read the grounding sticky above. -------------
Posted By: crcustoms45
Date Posted: May 29, 2006 at 5:08 PM
alternator wine is the hell of the car stereo world. i need info on specific components of every piece of the system.
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Chris
CRCustoms
Posted By: sab0276
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 10:09 AM
I ripped out the power wire and RCA's to test them separately to try to find the source of the problem.
I ran the power wire outside of the car over the top and in through the sunroof. I also had some 20' RCA's and I ran them from the head unit, outside the front door, and then back inside the rear door to the amps. The alternator whine was still there. So I put everything back in place.
Then I hooked up the original RCA's and amp's to a home CD player and it played perfectly, even with the car running.
I then disconnected all of the RCA's from the head unit and pulled the power wire fuse in the engine bay so that there couldn't be any feedback from wiring and hooked up a Bose Wave Radio that accepts RCA-In's and I could still hear the alternator whine through the head unit.
I ended up upgrading the Big 3 which reduced it significantly and also ran more ground wires on the head unit which also helped some.
The whine is still there but almost unnoticeable. With the volume all the way down, you have to put your head to the speaker to hear it at idle, or you have to rev the engine up in order to hear it now while seated. Te only time I can hear it while driving is with the volume low, windows up, and while accellerating or at above 3000RPM.
I am pretty satisfied with it, and will just live with it as is, unless there are some more easy things I can do to try to make it even better.
Thank you guys for your help!
-Scott
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2002 GMC Yukon SLT non-Bose
Pioneer AVIC N3
Posted By: sab0276
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 10:28 AM
crcustoms45 wrote:
alternator wine is the hell of the car stereo world. i need info on specific components of every piece of the system.
Components:
Pioneer AVIC N3 Navigation head unit with voice command
Visonica 13" drop down screen
RF 160.4 4-way amp for the door speakers
RF 100.2 2-way amp for the Subs
Pioneer TS-A1781R 6.75" door speakers (front and rear)
Pioneer TS-A878 3.5" rear speakers (powered by the HU)
Infinity REF850W 8" Sub
RF HX2 12" DVC Subs
The 12" subs are powered by the left channel of the 100.2 amp and the 8" sub is powered by the right channel of the 100.2 amp.
-Scott
------------- 2002 GMC Yukon SLT non-Bose
Pioneer AVIC N3
Posted By: DYohn
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 10:30 AM
You can try running a dedicated ground wire from the HU all the way to the case of the alternator, but it sounds like your vehicle simply has a noisy alternator. There's not much else you can do on a vehicle with a noisy alternator except replace the alternator. Or, if you're using a Pioneer head unit, try a different brand head unit. ------------- Support the12volt.com
Posted By: Drewt
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 6:53 PM
also - it's ok to run speaker and power wires beside each other. It's probally better to run speaker and power together than speaker and RCA.
Posted By: sparkie
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 8:35 PM
Your truck will require that you clean up the ground cable from the battery to the front bumper. Above and to the driver's side of the front tow hook, you will find a 10 mm bolt that holds one or two cables. The large one is for the battery to chassis ground. Clean all the corrossion off the cable and bolt and bumper to help get rid of the alt noise. Make sure that both of your battery cables are clean and tight to the battery. Make sure you ground your amps to one spot and scrape the metal to insure a good ground. Don't use any existing bolts especially ones for the seats. Use your own bolt into a thick area of the body. A good location is the pillar post between the front and rear doors as it is fairly thick metal.
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sparky
Posted By: ushank
Date Posted: May 30, 2006 at 10:14 PM
Double ground your battery andd try installing a noise filter on your Pioneer AVIC, and that should solve the rest of the noise. I cant' tell you which brand filter to use because I haven't used many only (1) in a rare last resort deal. Any brand should work. Remember you get want you pay for as for as filters go. Check bad spark plug wires, ignition system all together, and water level in battery.
Posted By: keoghzayd
Date Posted: May 31, 2006 at 11:55 AM
been having same problem if you have fixed it or gotten any good info on how to fix it let me know, my biggest problem is it was working for a month or so and then started making noise did your's do it right away?? Mine also only produces noise when engine is running it will work fine and no noise when car is in anyother position that allows radio to work, mine is a 98 jeep grand cherokee limited.
Posted By: aceracer24
Date Posted: June 19, 2006 at 6:54 PM
I have just run into this problem today. Running an MTX 8502 amp, Memphis PR500.1, Pioneer 780MP deck. The front speakers are MTX TXC 6.1's with X-overs. This is of course in my 68 bug.
Originally i had the MTX amp under the passanger side seat and never had any problems with Alt whine. The memphis amp was up under the front lid. Now I have both amps up front under the lid in a custom amp rack. There is 1/0 gauge wire running from under the passanger side rear seat as before up to a distro block spliting into 2x 4awg wire and going to each amp. As for the grounds I have one 2awg wire going to a distro block then spliting into 2x4awg going to each amp.
The only real differance from before is the MTX amp is now under the front lid and I had to run the RCA's to it. The RCA's are pretty well seperated from the power wires as they wrap up near teh windshield and then down the side then into the box at the front. The speaker wires are seperated by at least 2-3 inches from the power wire as well. I did the best I could to seperate them but that was as good as I could get.
My memphis amp always gave a bit of a buzz to the subs and I tried isolating it but it still buzzes so I am going to assume it's teh amp. The fronts never made a peep before until now. WHen both amps are on the buzz and ALT whine is very noticable but if the memphis amp is off I still hear the noise from the front speakers but not so much.
Could the grounds be to long and or is it bad to use a ditro block for grounds? Would running speaker wires across ground wire cause ALT whine?
I tore the thing apart once already to try and make sure the speaker wires and RCA's were as far from power wire as I could but nothing i have done seems to make much differance. I have done the Big 3 already which worked great previously but now i am at a loss. Help?
 ------------- 1968 VW Beetle
Pioneed DEH-780MP, 2 10' Memphis PR104D, Memphis PR500.1, TXC 6.1, MTX Thunder 8502
Posted By: electrostatic
Date Posted: June 19, 2006 at 7:24 PM
aceracer24
how did you determine ground locations? have you read the grounding stickies? did you ohm your grounds, or even better measure voltage drop? where is that 2 awg ground wire with distro-block coming from? battery? chassis?
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Prove your connections, use a meter!
I promise, I'll behave!
Posted By: aceracer24
Date Posted: June 19, 2006 at 8:34 PM
Thanks for replying, the 2awg is coming off a bolt that I had originally used for the memphis sub amp. The bolt is used to hold a thick clip to the body which holds the gas tank down. I sanded the clip with sand paper and sanded the area that the clip and bolt go to.
I have read the ground stickies and no I have not checked for voltage drops or OHMs. I don't have any device right now to measure anything.
I just came back from isolating the MTX amp. That is the one powering my X-over and TXC 6.1's. Obviously that is the one you can hear the whine on. I grounded it from the original ground and attached a second body ground to it. I ran a seperate amp turn on power wire from the deck OVER the body and to the amp AND ran seperate RCA's AROUND the body and away from the amp turn on power wire. THis is the best way I can see to isolate the amp. ANyway it still wines no change at all. /shrug I am at a loss, the onlything i can think of is the power wires themselves but how could they be the cause of the wine?
Could my alarm have anything to do with the wine? I had the alarm hooked up previously and no wine but I'm just tossing idea's out there.....
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1968 VW Beetle
Pioneed DEH-780MP, 2 10' Memphis PR104D, Memphis PR500.1, TXC 6.1, MTX Thunder 8502
Posted By: electrostatic
Date Posted: June 19, 2006 at 9:07 PM
you need a meter to prove you have good connections, and low resistance grounds! your guessing. looks like your putting time and money in your vehicle. do it right and get yourself a meter or borrow one from a friend.
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Prove your connections, use a meter!
I promise, I'll behave!
Posted By: aceracer24
Date Posted: June 19, 2006 at 10:42 PM
Your probably right but if i had 2 grounds from 2 differant locations shouldn't that be more then enough grounding? Also, originally the ground worked for the sub amp..same spot...shouldn't it still work now?
How much does length of the ground effect it? If it's to long would that cause ALT whine?
I will probably get a meter of some sort so don't think I am dismissing your advise. It's to late now to get one so I am just trying to come up with other possible idea's why it's whining now but didn't before. The MTX amp was grounded to the seat belt bolt when it was under the seat. I could try grounding it there again to test if that gets rid of the noise but it's a long way from the amp which is also why I ask if length will cause this. I could even try and run a ground from teh battery if this would help but as before, length is an issue.
EDIT:Something else I neglected to mention that might help with solving this, there is noise even with the engine off..constant noise and it's modified 2 fold when I have the memphis amp connected up. ALso, I ran a smaller 8 gauge cable (all I had that was long enough) from teh MTX amp all the way to the battery and attached to teh neg terminal, no change :(
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1968 VW Beetle
Pioneed DEH-780MP, 2 10' Memphis PR104D, Memphis PR500.1, TXC 6.1, MTX Thunder 8502
Posted By: aceracer24
Date Posted: June 20, 2006 at 12:42 AM
going on a hunch...my MTX amp came with some RCA plugs that are suppose to connect to speaker out on the deck instead of the RCA's. Then I can use the high power option. Anyway, I connected them to the amp and NO NOISE! In my excitement I disconnected them (ran em over the car) so I could get to bed and forgot to test for ALT noise. I'm going to assume for now though that there won't be any since i have no crazy noise with the engine off. I tried another set of RCA's already and I had previously had the RCA's hooked up when the amp was under the seat so why now the noise and not before? SInce it seems to be the RCA outs from teh deck causing me the noise....and I already have the RCA's run for the amp, is there anyway to fix this problem so I can use the RCA's I had installed previously? I really don't want to pull the rack out again unless I absolutly have to. ------------- 1968 VW Beetle
Pioneed DEH-780MP, 2 10' Memphis PR104D, Memphis PR500.1, TXC 6.1, MTX Thunder 8502
Posted By: aceracer24
Date Posted: June 20, 2006 at 3:38 PM
Well she is all hooked up and no noise including ALT whine. Still confused as to what the problem was. I did however ground the RCA's as I seen suggested someplace and although it helped alot, you could still hear whine and noise /shrug. Could be my imagination but I think i hear what sounds like crackling every now and then through the speakers. Sorta like a short but I can never pin point it. I'm thinking it might be my mind still expecting something wrong to happen but I don't know. ------------- 1968 VW Beetle
Pioneed DEH-780MP, 2 10' Memphis PR104D, Memphis PR500.1, TXC 6.1, MTX Thunder 8502
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