Mbox 3 Mini Issue

[RealGameEnt]

Hello, Avid Pro Audio Community

My name is Korry Shepard. I am a film student at Full Sail University (Digital Cinematography, BS) and an ex student in the Recording Arts course at the same school. I've expanded my skills behind the boards with my skills behind the camera.

As you may know already, Full Sail provides equipment to students based on course. I've been lucky to receive hardware through tuition that I would absolutely have not been able to afford on my own. I am eternally grateful, but regardless of how I got the stuff, things made by humans aren't perfect.

EQUIPMENT SYNOPSIS

I have a Macbook Pro, 15" (late 2011).
I am running Mac OS X 10.8.3 (12D78), 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 processor.
Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB.
Hard Disk - TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF Media 750GB SATA

My interface between my MXL 4000 mic and the Macbook is the pesky Avid Mbox mini, 3rd gen. I am using a brand new 3 foot Monster Advanced high speed USB cable; with gold male/female ins/outs, a low noise 2 conductor shielded mic cable and a brand new 85W Magsafe charger. I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD280's with a balanced gold plated adapter.

I have other external equipment, such as external drives, MIDI controllers, USB drives & a Thunderbolt to VGA adapter, but I won't list them because throughout the beginning of the problem & my trouble shooting processes nothing has been connected to the Macbook but the charger, Mbox 3 mini, USB cord and the mic.

THE PROBLEM

The issue I am having is a hard one to figure out... or worst case scenario IMPOSSIBLE to fix. In February, I recorded a song using the exact set up I described above. Being busy with school and life in general, I haven't had much time to record anything or anybody. I recorded the song and had ZERO problems. The next time I decided to record another song, which was about mid April, this pesky noise annoyingly surfaced out of my Mbox... or so I hope that's it.

I never heard this interface make this type of noise before, nor have I heard anything like it in my career coming from an Avid product. It's not loud, but the fact that it's there is enough to get on my nerves . It's a low db, high pitched sine wave tone, in the B octave... about 493.88 Hz exactly.

This is an 8 second sample of the tone, with my voice saying "yeah" recorded at 0db on PT 10 and the channel 1 gain nob on the Mbox mini set a little more than a quarter turn counterclockwise from zero db. It is quiet, with no plugins or external equipment in between the signal.

There is also low frequency interference coming from somewhere... it sits behind the tone, mixed in with sounds of the Macbook operating... the type of whinnying, screeching, bubbling/popping sounds you would hear coming from a stock sound card on a PC when you do anything but let it sit!

LOGISTICS OF THE PROBLEM

Being a Full Sail student, you might be thinking I should know how to fix this problem. But I don't. I switched out of Recording Arts before I took any classes dealing with stuff like this. That said, I am a pretty good troubleshooter, in fact I often get calls to fix other people's problems but as the irony of life is... I can never fix MY OWN problems!

I scrolled through this forum before registering and others and found people were having simular trouble with the Mbox mini in general. Worried, I tried switching USB cables. No luck, same tone and the Monster cables I bought just enhanced the problems. They say use a powered hub. I have a 4 port Belkin hub with a port for an AC adapter, but no adapter came with it when I bought it a year ago. So I bought a 10 port USB hub with a larger AC adapter port... no luck. In fact, the Mbox went haywire on me, flickering lights and popping audio. Very ugly.

I have two mic cables, a main and a reserve. Switched both around and I was getting the same results... nothing. I suspected something may be wrong with my mic so I plugged my studio mic, the MXL 4000, into the 2 XRL ports on my Sony NEX FS100 camera, which has dynamic and +48v capacity. The mic was a clear as a spring Sunday morning in the foothills of Colorado, even clearer than it was on Pro Tools!!!! No tone, no noise whatsoever. I knew then it wasn't the mic nor the cords.

I also updated the drivers. I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled every driver released for this Mbox 3 mini. Still the same noise.

A friend of mine in Recording Arts suggested it may be because my outlets are not grounded. Odd, because I've been using the same outlets the whole time. I am using a power strip, but I don't even have the Macbook plugged into it. It's on an extension cord coming from a whole other outlet.

Had the bright idea that it may be the extension cord. I've plugged the Macbook into ever socket in the house, dragging this Mbox mini and mic with me and I still get the same results... nothing. I even went into the utility room where the circuit breaker is and used the washer/dryer outlets. Still tone/noise/popping/crap.

My original Magsafe charger was on it's last leg, so I figured if I bought a brand new one from Apple it might help if it's creating a grounding issue. So I forked out the $90 to buy a brand spanking new Magsafe charger. Guess what the results were? Nothing. I've even bought those two pronged grounding adapters. Nope.

So, if it's not the mic, nor the mic cords... if it's not the USB cables... or the extension cords... if it's not the outlets... nor the charger... if it's not the grounding adapters... nor the 5 drivers i downloaded from Avid... only two things are left... the Macbook itself and the Mbox itself.

I've also read on this forum and others that the USB ports aren't powerful enough to handle the Mbox. But what about the whole year of use I got out of it before this? USB power is impossible for the average Joe to test, or at the least for ME to test. Clear as a bell, no issues with power. I was getting annoying white noise popping up every now and then, but it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was a sign of things to come huh?

THEE RANT
Apple says talk to Avid! They can help! Bull. I'm not paying Avid any money to ask a few questions. Their system of customer service is worse than being bothered by telemarketers everyday, at least that's free. I feel sorry for the dupes who do fork out the cash for troubleshooting help. Not a knock to those who work here, but I really do think that is dumb. What if the hospital charged you for... well... lol that's dumb as well. That's a whole other story but you can understand my frustration. I've already paid for all types of crap to troubleshoot this myself. I'm not paying anymore money. I'm close to just selling this and going with another brand.

If you could save me the trouble and figure this out, or get me closer to figuring this out, I would appreciate it.

Best Regards,
Mr. Korry Shepard

[RealGameEnt]

How do you open this thing? Seriously I can't even find out how to do this online...