High-Pitched Noise Over Speakers When Moving Mouse

Posted on by

I had a problem and found the solution, so I’m posting incase anyone Googles and come across this. 😉

Ever since I formatted my computer, I’d hear a constant high-pitched sound coming out of my headphones (very faint) and it’d change in pitch every time I moved my mouse. Turns out muting my line-in in my sound control panel fixed it. Some type of interference I guess.

Hope this helps anyone having the same problem.

88 thoughts on “High-Pitched Noise Over Speakers When Moving Mouse”

  3. I had the same issue, different cause and fix. I have a USB splitter (takes 4 USB inputs and supplies them to one USB port on the PC) I had both my speakers and mouse plugged in through this device, and the mouse was creating feedback to the speakers. Simply swapped another device with the mouse and gave the mouse it’s own port on the PC. Hope this helps someone.

    • Thank you! I have had that issue for almost a year now and it was driving me mad! I, too, have a USB splitter and swapping the ports worked for me as well. No more incessant high-pitched squealing when I move the mouse around now.

    • Thank you very much! I had the same setup and moving the mouse to its own port on the PC solved the problem!

  4. I continue to have a possibly MORE complicated problem, gone on intermittently for at least a year – LED lightbulb (lamp rehabbed somewhat itself, and minimal tightening or loosening will OCCASIONALLY alleviate it) at least 8 feet from the PC (refurbished Dell OptiPlex 790) and air ionizer next to it on my nightstand, seem to be what’s primarily causing a rapid clicking sound / feedback in my desktop speaker as well as infuriating (interference?) issues with the mouse & keyboard functionality (tried switching both from one of the few USB ports to another, updated and / or checked for driver updates on them all – didn’t help 🙁

  5. My system is this: from my PC -> USB connected to a small Pre-Amp on my table. Output from Pre-Amp goes to my Self-Powered Speakers that is plugged to the same power outlet as PC. I had an annoying interference sound whenever I would move mouse or any SSD or CPU activity (aka while typing on keyboard or starting any program) interference radio signals and feed them to my speakers. Noise ranging from high pitch scratchy sounds to a high to medium pitch buzzing or clicking. I’ve read on the web many people have similar issues and trying to solve it with PC power management and other tweaking PC settings with only partial success. My solution was to connect speakers to a pre-amp box with a balanced audio cable. My powered speakers have both quarter inch jack and and XLR audio connector. Power from speakers connects to the same plugs as my PC. If you connect speaker to Pre-Amp with unbalanced cable (as 1/4″ MONO connector) – you get buzzing computer interference noise with your regular audio output from Pre-Amp. Connecting these speakers with BALANCED cable (from Pre-Amp Stereo 1/4″ jack to XLR on speaker) – immediately fixed the issue. The actual problem is the Ground Loop that is created between self-powered monitors (speakers) and PC + radio noisy nature of PC electronics. All though originally I had professional MONO Line connections from Pre-Amp channels to each speaker – cable picked up radio interference from PC and my speakers reproduced these noise quiet well. So solution for PC and sef powered speakers – make sure audio input is connected with BALANCED cables to each speaker. XLR-ended cable is made to be balanced from the get go. Also STEREO 1/4″ jack for each line will work as BALANCED connection as well.

  6. I have usb powered speakers and had the ‘static, scratchy, interference’. This was present when the desktop had nothing open on it but much worse when I had a browser window open, for some reason especially on Amazon or Ebay (?!) and even more so when I used the mouse scroll wheel. After reading this page I tried muting the ‘Line in’, didn’t work so I moved the USB speaker cable to another USB port that was not on the same pair of ports as the mouse. That did work, scratchy sound gone. At it’s worst, it would get quite loud when moving the mouse over an Amazon or ebay page. Thanks for the ideas on what to try guys, much appreciated.

Comments are closed.