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Sudden whine in stereo

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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 08:06 AM
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Default Sudden whine in stereo

I have a set up that has been in place for about 5 years now with no issues. In the last few days I have started hearing a faint whine in the music from about 2000-3000 RPM. It is still quite faint but I think it is getting slowly worse.

Is my only choice to replace the whole alternator or can the diode pack be replaced separately? Is it something else altogether?
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 09:06 AM
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Originally Posted by BJM
I have a set up that has been in place for about 5 years now with no issues. In the last few days I have started hearing a faint whine in the music from about 2000-3000 RPM. It is still quite faint but I think it is getting slowly worse.

Is my only choice to replace the whole alternator or can the diode pack be replaced separately? Is it something else altogether?
it may be something as simple as a bad ground,or bad plug wires.is the alternator charging correctly? or the head unit is getting old
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 09:40 AM
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Bad grounds cause this..
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 01:59 PM
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Agreed about the ground. I had my amps grounded in the same spot (seatbelt bolt) in the rear for a long time and suddenly developed noise one day for no apparent reason. To make a long story short, the solution turned out to be to change to another grounding point and the noise was gone...I guess it developed some sort of ground loop, but once I changed to a different ground point, all was well!
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 04:37 PM
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Excuse my ignorance, but what grounds are we talking about-from the sound system? I've got this problem as well...
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 07:22 PM
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I suppose it could be a ground, although the amps all ground up at the battery. The car is running fine. I noticed tonight I have the famous headlight brightness variations. My car never really had that before. I cannot remember what the cause of that was.
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Old Oct 20, 2010 | 09:26 PM
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I have that whine at all RPMs. The whine gets louder as engine RPMs increase, and it even does it with the radio off. It's coming from the rear right speaker. Figure it's a ground but haven't looked. My headlights also dim.
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Old Oct 21, 2010 | 04:42 PM
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Originally Posted by myk
Excuse my ignorance, but what grounds are we talking about-from the sound system? I've got this problem as well...
I'm talking about the amp grounds. Typically, you want to ground all amps to the same spot on the chassis to keep from inducing noise. You also want to run your RCA's down one side of the car and then power /ground wires down the opposite side of the car to prevent noise from entering the system.
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Old Oct 22, 2010 | 12:55 AM
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i have fixed the problem and it has came back a few times already. Even got rid of my older stereo which was very good, got a new one then sometime down the road, same problem. Recently i went to frys and they sell a ground/rca's box to connect to your amp and it has worked great till today, now its making noise again but if I turn off and on the radio i can get it to stop making noise then it comes back again some time later or another day.

i remember there was a thread were someone said the fix was to solder some part that you can get to by removing the glove box. But i don't recall the thread, i thought i had saved it. This person had the same problem and he said this fixed it for him as some of the solder came off some of the componet which made his radio act weird, the thread had pictures and all.
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Old Oct 22, 2010 | 04:01 AM
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Same thing I said in 98boxers thread. Its likely the RCA's. Just add a shield ground to them.
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