So I installed an xbox in my car loaded with xbmc and such so that I could basically have a cool media center. I finally got it all put together today and I've got lots of noise. The fist thing I noticed was that my video had some noise to it, other than that all of my car speakers have a whine, and I turn on my amp, my sub has like a pulsing noise to it. I've got a 400w inverter mounted under the drivers seat for just the xbox, and the xbox is in the trunk, somewhat close to the amp, but moving it away, I still seemed to have the noise. My xbox power and rca are ran up through the middle, and my power is run down the driver side, and amp rca on the passenger. The video improves a bit, and audio a bit without the amp on but still, how can I get around all the interference?

Is it really necesarry to add a xbox to your car?

Is it necessary to add anything to a car? no but do people do it anyway? yes


Rayne sounds like what is happening is your ground paths are crossing causing interference. Try moving the location of the ground wire of the power inverter again.

Ah thanks..I'll give it a shot. I as of now I have several different grounds..The amp grounded in the trunk, the cd player grounded, and an override switch grounded to my shifter...So I guess it could be too close to any of those huh?

Its not really the proximity of the ground its the path it takes back to the negative terminal of you battery. You said you have an inverter. Make sure that its not close to any cables(rcas, video cables) except for its own wires.

Ok moved the ground around and I still have the issue...Its really strange. The inverter is almost completely isolated..It is under my drivers seat...and the only nearby wires are the power and ground that actually run to the inverter. It is a pulsing sound...and it only happens when I connect the video (yellow) if I just have red and white hooked up it sounds great and the sub hits hard, but as soon as I plug in the video I get a constant pulsing noise...and the screen gets noise too, just like a heartbeat sound almost, vvvt vvvt vvvt, crazy.

Heres a quick video of the problem :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNAweYplWdY

ok you want to make one common ground, i know it sounds crazy but ok go to circuit city and ask for how ever many feet of 4 gauge ground wire, and run it from the battery, and the drill a hole somewhere in your frame, kinda where you can run all the grounds for all of your electronics, and bolt them down to that ground so that it can all take the path of the wire you just installed and if that wire for some reason does fail, it can take the path of the body to.

A common ground is not always a good idea. it can cause more resistance to each electronic being grounded. Thnk of it as a bunch of tiny electrons trying to squeeze through a small area.
The battery is already attached to the body of the car, uder the hood. Running a new ground wire specifically for electronics is(most of the time) a waste of time. It doesn't benefit enough for it to make a difference.

As to your question Rayne with the video cable causing noise, I'm not quite sure what is going on. Maybe you can try this. It will take a little work but will help rule out certain electronics as the problem. Park close to your house. Run an extension cord to your car and hook up the xbox with this. see if it still makes the noise. If it does then the problem is not the inverter. If the noise goes away then the inverter is to blame.

Ok I ran an extension cord outside and tested it...same issue. I went back over my power and ground for my amp, and redid them. I got a little better sound out of them, but no luck as far as the xbox. I think there is something wrong with my deck..I did get it to play the xbox and the sub without buzzing, for a bit, and thought that I had it fixed, but I put it all back together and it started doing it again.

wait is the noise always happening? or just when the video cable of the xbox is hooked up?

I only have noise when I hook up video..otherwise it is flawless. It is also flawless if I don't use my amp at all...but what good is a media center without subs?

try moving the xbox and amp and video wire away from eachother as much as possible