i have aftermarket hid's they work great......my only issue is when i turn them on i hear a faint buzzing sound from the middle speaker on top of the dash........ any one know what might cause this???

thanx all

1). Where did you get power and ground for your HID kit? You could be introducing noise to the power line and/or ground, and if that is the power or ground area for the car's amplifier it can easily introduce noise to the speakers.

2). Where are the ballasts located? If they are close to the amplifier they can be bombarding it with EMI (electromagnetic interferance) which would introduce noise to the sound system.

3). Are any of the power or ground wires for the ballasts running next to other wires or the amplifier? When current flows through a wire, that wire is surrounded by magnatism. That magnatism can then be picked up by other wires and turned back into voltage. This again is EMI and it's the basic principle on which all transformers work. So if your power wire is next to an audio system signal wire, it would be very likely that the noise would be heard in the system.

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the ballast and all wires are within the light housing nothing is exposed to the outside its a plug and play kit........... and the noise only happened when i turn the lights on. would it helped if i changed the geadlight fuse??

Changing the fuse would not help. Gator says it is EMI issues and I agree with him.

No, changing the fuse will do nothing. If it's a plug and play kit, then the ballasts are getting their power and ground from the original headlight wires.

Noise is always a pain in the butt to track down and eliminate. Believe me, I spent many years installing car audio equipment, and it was usually alternator noise that I was chasing.

Under these circumstances, I would guess that this noise is getting into the amplifier via the power and/or ground path. Your plug and play kit uses the same power and ground as the factory lights, so this suggests that the ballasts are very noisy and are introducing an A/C offset to the power line.

You can eliminate that by running a new power wire directly to the battery. However, if you do this, then the lights will be on all the time. So you would need to add a relay to the line, triggered by the headlight wire to allow them to turn on and off with the light switch. This would reduce the A/C offset that's making its way to the other electronics. Unfortunately however, if you did this you would trip a 'bad bulb' error from the LCM because the relay would be recognized as a blown bulb. You can then fabricate a circuit that would correct the load, but that's a pain in the neck and I wouldn't do so unless you know this is going to solve your problem.

Test 1: Use a temporary jumper wire to provide power to the lights from the positive battery post. Then while they are on, listen to the radio. Is the noise gone? If so, then the theory I shared in the last two paragraphs has been proved correct and then we can talk more about that relay/correction circuit. If the noise is still there, then it's likely coming in from a ground loop.

Test 2: Use a temporary jumper wire to provide Ground to the lights from the battery negative post. This will eliminate any possible ground loops. Test the stereo with the lights on. Is the noise gone? If not, then the noise is being electromagnetically transmitted and will be very hard to eliminate. You would need to shield the ballasts with a magnetically inert material.

If this is all above your head, I would take the car to a qualified electrical specialist and suggest these tests.

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I am not an electronics installer, nor do I play one on TV

However, you could also try putting filter capacitors between the power and ground wires of your headlights. If the EMI is being transmitted over the wires, the caps should dampen it -- Gator Bite's tests should answer the question about how the EMI is being transmitted.. A good car stereo installation shop should be able to help you with the caps.

wow that was a great write up.......and very much over my head, could it be that the ballast and wires are in a very cramped space within the headlgiht housing?? it is a very faint noise and for the trouble to find it i think i can live with it ..... thanks for all the help gator........

Where do you have the lights grounded? or do your lights not have a ground and just adapt into the current light plug? I grounded my HID kit in the front boot chassis ground and had no EMI issues. - Suneet

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it connects to the stock headlight assembly, i dont think its something thats easily fixable so i am just going to have to live with it, you cant even hear it unless you are stopped and actually trying to hear it........ or it could be that i am just trying to convince myself its not that bad