Sub works normally when AC is on. Help!

This is the second day that I've had a problem with my sub. My sub makes a low humming noise when it's turned on. I turn off the radio and it's still there. When I opened my door to get out and inspect it, it stopped. When I closed the door it started again. I decided to drive with it for a while and I noticed that when I raised my windows(I had them down) it stops. Also, when I turn on the AC, it stops it and the sub works normally. But when I have the AC on and I lower the window, I hear it again. Yesterday, I heard it as soon as I started my car to leave school and I unplugged the sub. When I got home and I connected the sub, no problem. Today on my way to school the sub was fine, but coming back from from school it started again. Now, I don't know what it is. Can someone help me or direct me to the right direction?
 
Always check your ground connection first,bad grounds are the root of 90% of noise problems. Also,a couple questions-1)does the sub hum while the car is running and stop when it's not or does it do it all the time? 2)are you using the factory deck or an aftermarket one?
 
Red2000GT said:
Always check your ground connection first,bad grounds are the root of 90% of noise problems. Also,a couple questions-1)does the sub hum while the car is running and stop when it's not or does it do it all the time? 2)are you using the factory deck or an aftermarket one?

1) I can't tell. It only happened to me twice. I did notice that the humming does stop when I turn the car off, but it continues to hum if I turn the radio off.

2) It's the factory deck.
 
OK,if the noise goes away when the engine's not running then you have what's called "induced noise". It mean that you are picking up the noise somewhere in the power wire or in the rca's. Since you are using the factory deck,where do you have the line-level adaptor located? If it's up front with the deck,are your rca's and power wire seperated from each other? They should be kept 6 inches apart minimum at all times. If the adaptor is in the back,how short are the rca's? If they are too long and you have them coiled up they will pick up noise as well.
Also,where did you get your remote turn-on signal from? Most people get it from an accessory power source in the fuse box and noise can be brought in through that wire as well(although it's unusual).
 
How and where is your amp mounted and is it screwed in?

sounds like Red2000GT is dead on, go out and buy a Ground loop Isolator to see if it helps or not if nothing fixes your prob. but let me know how your amp is mounted that might be the problem
 
Red2000GT said:
OK,if the noise goes away when the engine's not running then you have what's called "induced noise". It mean that you are picking up the noise somewhere in the power wire or in the rca's. Since you are using the factory deck,where do you have the line-level adaptor located? If it's up front with the deck,are your rca's and power wire seperated from each other? They should be kept 6 inches apart minimum at all times. If the adaptor is in the back,how short are the rca's? If they are too long and you have them coiled up they will pick up noise as well.
Also,where did you get your remote turn-on signal from? Most people get it from an accessory power source in the fuse box and noise can be brought in through that wire as well(although it's unusual).

Since you are using the factory deck,where do you have the line-level adaptor located?

What's the line-level adaptor?


Also,where did you get your remote turn-on signal from? Most people get it from an accessory power source in the fuse box and noise can be brought in through that wire as well(although it's unusual).

I'm not sure where I got mine from. I know I cutted into two wrong ones(which kept on draining my battery). The one I cutted might have been the fuse box, I'm not sure.

As I was driving today, I noticed that the sometimes it would sound as if the sub was off, and then it was back on. After coming back from school, everything was fine, and I didn't have a problem.
 
strokedandblown said:
How and where is your amp mounted and is it screwed in?

sounds like Red2000GT is dead on, go out and buy a Ground loop Isolator to see if it helps or not if nothing fixes your prob. but let me know how your amp is mounted that might be the problem

http://photobucket.com/albums/b294/zincyellowstang/Sound%20System/?sc=1

Look at my photobucket. I just took a picture of my system in my trunk(I was going to take some better one but my digital camera died).
 
you should get an aftermarket deck and wire it up right, it will sound 100000% better and probably kill these problems instantly.

check your ground, if it's long enough run it from your amp to the trunk latch hook bolt thing (are those little green and white wires in the picture for power?? if so they are waaaaaaaaay too small). make sure your wires are separate, power on the battery side, (drivers side?) rcas on the opposite.

if you are using a line level converter make sure you put it in the back, if youre not using one and just hacked some wires together, i think you will get noise. my friend hax'd his like that before he got his new deck, it was awful.

how are you turning the amp on and off?

btw nice stuff.
 
mrpeaches said:
you should get an aftermarket deck and wire it up right, it will sound 100000% better and probably kill these problems instantly.

I'm afraid of getting it stolen and it would have too many features for me. I'm a simple person(I mean mentally :D )

mrpeaches said:
check your ground, if it's long enough run it from your amp to the trunk latch hook bolt thing (are those little green and white wires in the picture for power?? if so they are waaaaaaaaay too small). make sure your wires are separate, power on the battery side, (drivers side?) rcas on the opposite.

I can tell you that my ground(black one hard to see in pic) and my power wire(the green one and white one) arn't long enough. I guess I have a summer project where I have to replace all the wiring :(

mrpeaches said:
if you are using a line level converter make sure you put it in the back, if youre not using one and just hacked some wires together, i think you will get noise. my friend hax'd his like that before he got his new deck, it was awful.

Sorry I don't know what that means.

mrpeaches said:
how are you turning the amp on and off?

I'm using a remote. That was the reason why I would drain my battery because I didn't have one :doh:

mrpeaches said:
btw nice stuff.

Thanks. The sub was suppost to face towards the trunk, but the first time I built the box it was too big. The second I recutted it, I made sure that I would fit in the trunk and it did. So I putted the vinyl on it and mounted the amp and it then it didn't fit for some reason. So I mounted it how it is now. I'm going to try to mount it proparly when I redo the wiring.
 
VPStang said:
try to unplug your rca's from the amp....now try to make all these noises happen again...

if they stop ---it's the rca's and/or converter....

Wierd thing is that I haven't experienced that again. Only those two times. Now, I have to unplug one of the RCA's(it doesn't matter which one it is or in which spot it goes to) for it to sound like how it did before. If I plug the two back it in, the bass isn't as loud and the over all volume gets quieter. I'm thinking it might be my ground to my headunit(it's the stock mustang unit) or maybe some of my wiring somewhere got cut?

I think it could be one of those two things that I actually did to my system before all of this happened. It was fine for over a month, but two weeks ago I cleaned the interior of my car and I pushed in some of the wiring that was sticking out from the side of the trim(I'm thinking that maybe the trim cutted into the wire) and then I repositioned the trim around the radio since it didn't fit properly. I think that maybe the ground for my radio/remote might be loose since I wasn't so sure about it.

Edit: Sorry for making three separate posts, but I thought that making it into one large post that no one would read it.<!-- / message --><!-- sig --><!-- / message --><!-- sig -->