On my recent Linux Asus laptop I have some problems with noise. One solution which always work is to play from batterys but I think that killed one performance at Piksel where Asus seems to decide to lower the USB voltage during a set and renderd my P5 Glove suddenly useless. Its differs from location to location and I passed some gigs plugged :) while I remember a gig in Berlin where the hum was an anoying high pitched tone which was transmitted over the buildin soundcard real loud but also over a RME PCMCIA Multiface. Today I had some time to research and rememberd that the RME and my mixing desk has balanced plugs which I never used that way, I have to confess. I was always happy with unbalanced cables and think I have never problems with an old Powerbook TI with which I did lot of recording (thats not praising Apple equipment, a Quicksilver G4 Tower gives a hell of noise out of the builtin soundcard, you can heare every byte which is shifted around). Anyway I found only 1 'balanced' cable in my arsenal which I seldom use ('stubid stereo cable, what can I use it for') and voila, humming reduced to 98% I would say. There is still a tiny silent high pitch sound, I have to crank up all possible volumefaders to even notice, a good way to ruin speakers and ears btw., by accidently triggering a sound :). I compared it with noise from other, none digital equipment and its in a good league so I am happy for now, except that I now want stupid-stereo-cables-no-one-can-use, to go balanced, but unfortunally my bankaccount is not balanced either so it has to wait. Cheers, Malte -- Malte Steiner media art + development -www.block4.com-