Snap Crackle Pop, and no its not my cereal

[eedmond]

My Specs:
Asus A7N8XPCB2.0 Bios C1007
GF4TI4800-VTD (MSI)
Soundblaster Audigy SB0090
Maxtor SATA-150 HD (160GB)
Promise FastTrack S150 TX2Plus
1GB of RAM (2 512mb PC3200 Crucial)
Windows XP SP1

My problem is that I get alot of snap crackle and pop's with my soundcard. I have had this card since it first came out and it has been on 3 motherboards and all of them have had this problem. It got worse when I bought my SATA HD and pci card and started playing Horizons. Creative's knowledge database says it could be a PCI bandwidth issue but I have talked to some local friends who are techs at shops and they just laughed at that explanation. They think it is a bad card. I do not know enough of the inner workings to know if it is or not.

I thought the problem was soundcard driver related but I had the latest drivers and even tried a 3rd party driver (which did not work at all). But I since have pulled my Audigy out and am currently running with my onboard audio from my MB. It is FAR better with the noise then the Audigy was but it too still pop's at times (About 75% less then my audigy).

I had this problem with my previous soundcard as well a SBLive 5.1 Platinum card. It too made alot of noise. I am getting to the point of swearing off all SB cards. I have been looking at the Terratec Aureon series of cards.

Any ideas of how to fix my SB or should I bail and go to Terratec or another brand that you suggest?

Thanks,
Eric

[Mayet]

have you checked whether it is the speakers or any electromagnetic or radio interference nearby that could cause the crackling......you could try another set of speakers and check around for a source nearby that could cause this

Has the onboard sound been disabled correctly?


if you get the same problem with the onboard then it may not be the card with the issue..

[eedmond]

have you checked whether it is the speakers or any electromagnetic or radio interference nearby that could cause the crackling......you could try another set of speakers and check around for a source nearby that could cause this

Has the onboard sound been disabled correctly?


if you get the same problem with the onboard then it may not be the card with the issue..

I thought it might be the speakers they are Sony SRS-D300 speakers that I bought from about 10 years ago. I am right now listening to Daniel Rodriguez in the latest Realplayer which I just upgraded to yesterday. I am not getting a single pop or crackle so far. I will try to find some headphones or something to try out. Will post what happens.

As for the Radio Interference nearby we have a cell phone tower about 100 yards down the road other than that I wouldn't know how to go about finding out. The cellphone tower is fairly new though I think this problem predates the tower.

As for the onboard sound there is only 1 option in the bios that has to do with onboard sound and it says either Auto or disabled. It was disabled until recently when I pulled my Audigy.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Ok.I just tried some Sony SRS-5 CD-Walkman speakers and I got them to crackle plugged into my Subwoofer's Headphone jack. The cord was not long enough to reach the back of my machine so I scrounged around and found a pair of Sony MDR-CD60 Headphones and tried those in my subwoofer's headphone jack and got them to crackle then I unplugged my speakers and plugged the headphones into the speaker jack in the back of my computer and got them to crackle too. But it took quite a bit for me to do it. I am running Horizons in windowed mode and had to minimize and then maximize Horizons for the sound to crackle or go into a really busy area with alot of players on screen. If I had my audigy in I would have just had to have stood still for a min before they would crackle.

Any thoughts?
-Eric

[Mayet]

Ok what was the common denominator in all that changing ? was it the subwoofer?

and the cell tower may have bearing on the issue

[eedmond]

I unplugged my speakers and plugged the headphones into the speaker jack in the back of my computer and got them to crackle too.

Nope the Subwoofer is not a common denominator.

Celltower interference is unknown. I just know that it does not interfere with any other electronics within our household including TV's, speaker systems, cellphones, wireless phones, modems, and a 2nd computer.

-Eric

[confus-ed]

Ahhhh ! ... an 'I hate soundblasters' thread ... count me in :thumbs: ..:D

First thing ... we keep on 'wittering' about leads & connectors & speakers ... well standard audio cables are a bit like a big ariel, if there is any exterior interferance & they aren't well shielded they very kindly amplify it & project it out the speakers, good 'firm clean' contacts are a 'must' too.

The way to decide whether the card is at fault or the machine is either seperate the pc & cables from any possible interfereance (not really that practical) or why don't you use fibre optic cabling ? No interferance at all there from outside (alternatively 'well shielded cabling' if your speakers aren't digital).

Now as for whats going on in the pc ... its to do with pci bus signalling & how Soundblasters do it & priorities of request handling. There's also a whole hardware vs software decoding thing going too ...

Your onboard sound is almost certainly completely software based, that's where the cpu does pretty much all the work & the card itself has no memory or Codecs built in ... Your Audigy though is hardware based & has codec chips to do the decoding & a memory buffer to 'save up jobs' for the cpu as & when required.

Now if the 'geniuses' at soundblaster wrote drivers that complied with pci 2.1 specification as well as 'adjusting their cards' so they actually did comply instead of 'nearly' (they comply to some other related standard apparently) then when they flushed buffers everything would get done right, but because they 'tinkered' with the priorities for sound processing everything gets out of whack & you get PCI latency issues & snap crackle pop ! :rolleyes: This is worse/better dependant on the motherboard bios, some are 'good' many though ... urrgh !

I don't know what to say now, this could well be interferance, or it could well be that you've 'fluked' a sucession of motherboards that don't like soundblasters!

If this is a VIA chipset board then there's a PCI latency patch by 'George' aka the 'soundblaster patch' over on www.ViaArena.com

[hudsonsmith]

On another path, do you have fluorescent or halogen light fixtures? Dimmers? Any other electrical appliances with a transformer?

[eedmond]

My bedroom light is a fluorescent bulb. One of those mini twisted things that plugs into a normal light fixture. I also have a 2nd computer in another room.

-Eric

[Diver01]

I dont know if this is whats happening to your PC, but I had simmilar issues with my Sound Card and inerference. What I found out was the soundcard was picking up interference from the Graphics card. I relocated the sound card to the bottom PCI slot and the interference dissapeared. I dont know if this would help you or not, just thought I would share... :)

[eedmond]

I dont know if this is whats happening to your PC, but I had simmilar issues with my Sound Card and inerference. What I found out was the soundcard was picking up interference from the Graphics card. I relocated the sound card to the bottom PCI slot and the interference dissapeared. I dont know if this would help you or not, just thought I would share... :)

I tried that. The sound card was originally in the 3rd PCI slot down from the AGP but then I moved it to the bottom one and I still had the problem.

-Eric

[tommo666]

I got pops and crackles on my sb live 1024 player. I did the lot. Drivers, installed the os over the top. Checked with creative support, who were most helpful seeing as it was an OEM card. Finally did the simple thing, checked the background processes and found it was SETI, that damm prg was throwing noise onto the pci bus. Uninstalled it and the pops got unistalled as well. I occationally get pops now but only in times of heavy CPU load.

Moral of this tale, before diving in feet first, check the easy stuff. But we're human and it's crawl under the desk, fight off years of dust. Prise the case open. Cut your hands on the sharp edges, swear, bang your head on the desk etc :-)))

[eedmond]

I got pops and crackles on my sb live 1024 player. I did the lot. Drivers, installed the os over the top. Checked with creative support, who were most helpful seeing as it was an OEM card. Finally did the simple thing, checked the background processes and found it was SETI, that damm prg was throwing noise onto the pci bus. Uninstalled it and the pops got unistalled as well. I occationally get pops now but only in times of heavy CPU load.


I do have a program called United Devices running in the background working on Cancer research. I will try turning it off when playing and see if the problem goes away. You can look at it here http://www.grid.org/home.htm

On another note I bought a Audigy 2 and installed it. It is 10X better than my Audigy 1 but I still get a few pops here and there, seems to do it usually under load. Gonna try turning of UD and see what happens. Would never have thought of a program like SETI or UD causing sound issues.

-Eric

[Archer]

Does it crackle when you are in safe mode?

Do you have anything electrical nearby?

[hudsonsmith]

My bedroom light is a fluorescent bulb. One of those mini twisted things that plugs into a normal light fixture. I also have a 2nd computer in another room.

-Eric
Does it pop if the light is off? 2nd computer shouln't matter - you're concerned about electrical equipment with transformers. I would experiment with turning off other equipment on the same circuit.

[eedmond]

Does it crackle when you are in safe mode?

Do you have anything electrical nearby?

Unknown if it pops in safe mode. I can only get it to pop while playing Horizons so far and I don't think it will run in safe mode.

Does it pop if the light is off? 2nd computer shouln't matter - you're concerned about electrical equipment with transformers. I would experiment with turning off other equipment on the same circuit.

I will try turning off my light and see if it pops. I don't know if these have transformers but on my desk I have my 21" monitor with my Tower right next to it. Next to my tower is my subwoofer (Sony SRS-D300) next to that is my HP Deskjet 932C and next to it is my APC Back-UPS XS 1000 battery back up. Next to that is my Alarm Clock and the other only other thing in my room that draws electricity is my Lightbulb which I stated earlier as a Fluorescent.

I know Battery back ups are not supposed to be near computer towers. The manual says about 2-3 feet away. Mine is approx. 3-4feet away. I am not sure if all my cords will reach it if I move it farther but I could attempt that.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Just tried it with my lights off. It just so happend to have the worst poping and crackling fit when I started the game since I got my Audigy 2. It was near as bad as when I had my Audigy 1 in it.

-Eric

[confus-ed]

The more you say the less I think its outside interferance ...

[eedmond]

Any ideas what it could be? Possible the PCI bandwidth issue that Creative says is a possibility? I do not know the PCI bandwidth information and what a SATA PCI card can eat of it. I have been listening hard to my HD when it happens and it seems to me that it is always at a time when the HD is being accessed. Perhaps I should mess around with the PCI Latency timings in my bios from the standard 32 to something else? This is all uncharted territory for me. Any suggestions would be helpful.

-Eric

[confus-ed]

Any ideas what it could be? Possible the PCI bandwidth issue that Creative says is a possibility? ...

Absolutley ! I said so earlier ;) .. if its VIA chipset try the latency patch I suggested earlier, if its 'a.n.other' chipset 'tinkering' with latency values if you have 'em in bios (many don't) might help, but its gonna be 'trial & error' & might result in a few 'no boot' situations or 'other strange behaviour' - last resort for that methinks ...

You may like to try disconnecting your machine from the outside world, disabling AV & firewall s/w (which are both 'bad' for 'unexpected bursts of cpu activity') & any other TSRs (terminate & Stay Resident) showing in your 'crash box' (when you press ctrl&alt&del). Once that list is 'minimised' try & see if you still get 'snap, crackle & pop' ... this'll give an idea of whether it is latency or just a 'badly setup' beast or 'greedy' s/w ... we can do some 'priority twiddles' maybe to stop any 'hungry' processes munching all the cpu time.

Ooooo ! ... another thing - is all the soundblaster 'bloatware' installed ? That has one hell of an impact !

[slgrieb]

Forget the VIA patch. The N in A7N8X stands for NForce 2. Eedmond, did you try pulling the Audigy and using the onboard sound? If you don't hear the noise with the Realtek on-board sound, I think I'd have to say bad sound card.

[imagoon]

I'm with confused here. I had a live and an audigy. They both had issues with pops clicks etc esp with anything that used the PCI bus hard, like the HDD's. This is a well known issue with sb lives and audigys. I finally got the Hercules Game theatre XP 5.1 and never had an issues after that. BTW there are some drivers that attempt to fix it but the SB cards are just not 100% compatible with the PCI standards. The tweaks they used did cause issues with some boards but others you cant get rid of the noise.

~Chris

Ahhhh ! ... an 'I hate soundblasters' thread ... count me in :thumbs: ..:D

First thing ... we keep on 'wittering' about leads & connectors & speakers ... well standard audio cables are a bit like a big ariel, if there is any exterior interferance & they aren't well shielded they very kindly amplify it & project it out the speakers, good 'firm clean' contacts are a 'must' too.

The way to decide whether the card is at fault or the machine is either seperate the pc & cables from any possible interfereance (not really that practical) or why don't you use fibre optic cabling ? No interferance at all there from outside (alternatively 'well shielded cabling' if your speakers aren't digital).

Now as for whats going on in the pc ... its to do with pci bus signalling & how Soundblasters do it & priorities of request handling. There's also a whole hardware vs software decoding thing going too ...

Your onboard sound is almost certainly completely software based, that's where the cpu does pretty much all the work & the card itself has no memory or Codecs built in ... Your Audigy though is hardware based & has codec chips to do the decoding & a memory buffer to 'save up jobs' for the cpu as & when required.

Now if the 'geniuses' at soundblaster wrote drivers that complied with pci 2.1 specification as well as 'adjusting their cards' so they actually did comply instead of 'nearly' (they comply to some other related standard apparently) then when they flushed buffers everything would get done right, but because they 'tinkered' with the priorities for sound processing everything gets out of whack & you get PCI latency issues & snap crackle pop ! :rolleyes: This is worse/better dependant on the motherboard bios, some are 'good' many though ... urrgh !

I don't know what to say now, this could well be interferance, or it could well be that you've 'fluked' a sucession of motherboards that don't like soundblasters!

If this is a VIA chipset board then there's a PCI latency patch by 'George' aka the 'soundblaster patch' over on www.ViaArena.com

[eedmond]

Forget the VIA patch. The N in A7N8X stands for NForce 2. Eedmond, did you try pulling the Audigy and using the onboard sound? If you don't hear the noise with the Realtek on-board sound, I think I'd have to say bad sound card.

Yes I tried the onboard sound and it still cracked and popped but about 10% of the time what the SB Audigy 1 did. The Audigy 2 is about 40% of what the Audigy 1 did.

I will try disableing all running process in the background. Will let you know by monday.

Thanks,
Eric

[eedmond]

Problem Resolved but not fixed. I yanked out my Audigy 2 and returned it to the Computer Shop that I bought it from. He sold me a Audigy 2 NX (external USB 2.0) and said if I have problems with this that I can return it too. I just got it installed and tried it out in the game. The only time the sound messes up is when the game is not in the foreground. I pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL to see what my CPU was doing. Internet Explorer was eating up about 25-30% of my CPU and the game was getting the rest (IE is the game's launcher unfortunatly). I decided to do a test and set the priority of the game to realtime and the problem with the sounds went away. Of course that caused nothing else to work so I had to reboot but now it is just a CPU issue when the game is in the background. So far I am pleased with it but I have a heavy night of gaming and we shall see how it holds up tonight and tomorrow.

-Eric

[slgrieb]

Uh, eedmond, what processor are you running? Or did you already post it. Just curious. I seem to be having multiple senior moments today.

[eedmond]

Uh, eedmond, what processor are you running? Or did you already post it. Just curious. I seem to be having multiple senior moments today.

Guess I didn't. I am running AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0G) cpu.

-Eric

[slgrieb]

Thanks! Most of the issues with noise in SoundBlaster cards revolve around insufficient CPU speed or limited memory. Your problem still puzzles me, since your system is well above the recommended system. 'Course, I have had some games where the actual hardware requirements greatly exceeded the stated requirements. Like Neverwinter Nights.

[eedmond]

Thanks! Most of the issues with noise in SoundBlaster cards revolve around insufficient CPU speed or limited memory. Your problem still puzzles me, since your system is well above the recommended system. 'Course, I have had some games where the actual hardware requirements greatly exceeded the stated requirements. Like Neverwinter Nights.

I am begining to think that it is a game issue. Because my Audigy 2 NX is popping as well. Not nearly as bad as the internal versions but once every 10minutes or so. I will install some of my other games like Half-Life, Morrowind and Ghost Recon and see if I can get them to do it too.

-Eric

[eedmond]

The more I played the worse the popping got plus I use a mic for playing and my friends say I am breaking up really bad with the NX. They had no problems hearing me with the internal versions. I just tried to get the sound card to mess up in Ghost Recon but was unsuccessful. Unfortunatly I do not have any new games, I don't play em much. Gonna uninstall Horizons and reinstall and see if that fixes anything then gonna plug in the internal Audigy 2 again as well. If all else fails I will reformat my HD and try from scratch. Perhaps there is something messing it up somewhere.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Sheesh I am begining to actually look like my avatar. I pulled the NX out it got worse and worse over the evening to the point it was as bad as the internal Audigy 2 and my friends couldn't hear me on the mic. So I put the Audigy 2 Internal back in and the mic problem went away. Still pops and crackles but I am guessing it HAS to be a game issue. None of my friends are having problems though but I will submit to their Tech support for help.

I wish I had a newer system intense game to test it out. Ghost Recon is kinda old and so is Morrowind and all my other games that I have that I can try.

Forgot to mention that I uninstalled Horizons and reinstalled. Went into MSConfig and disabled all startup items and launched the game and then uninstalled the NX and reinstalled the internal and tried it with and without startup items in MSConfig. No difference still cracks and pops.

-Eric

[confus-ed]

Ooooo ! ... another thing - is all the soundblaster 'bloatware' installed ? That has one hell of an impact !

You never answered ... you can't 'zap' most of this out of task manager, you have to stop the 'services' ... how good xp runs is very often about services !

[Platypus]

it got worse and worse over the evening

This can be a pointer to a memory leak, at least for part of the problem. See if this patch applies to your installation:

http://www.mmoghell.com/news/1/23.html?PHPSESSID=5070cc532fdf8d5a1544e56d38e01b32

Likewise, make sure all other updatable things are up-to-date, like the drivers for the controller card.

[eedmond]

You never answered ... you can't 'zap' most of this out of task manager, you have to stop the 'services' ... how good xp runs is very often about services !
When I installed the internal card I only installed the drivers. The NX I Installed just the drivers and it's Equalizer, volume controle, speaker setup type stuff. I never install their programs.

-Eric

[eedmond]

This can be a pointer to a memory leak, at least for part of the problem. See if this patch applies to your installation:

http://www.mmoghell.com/news/1/23.html?PHPSESSID=5070cc532fdf8d5a1544e56d38e01b32

Likewise, make sure all other updatable things are up-to-date, like the drivers for the controller card.

Being a MMORPG if you even attempt to log in it patches to the latest version.

-Eric

[imagoon]

I still recommend the Hercules Game theater XP. That was the fix from my creative sb issues. I did do live --> audigy --> Game theater XP <-- Fix!

I have asus A7N8X rev 2 with a Athlon XP Barton 2500.

~Chris

[NooNoo]

just a thought are the l1 l2 caches turned on in bios?

Also despite the "yes it does" "no it doesn't" argument
What is your SecondLevelDataCache set to in the registry?

[eedmond]

just a thought are the l1 l2 caches turned on in bios?

Also despite the "yes it does" "no it doesn't" argument
What is your SecondLevelDataCache set to in the registry?

Both Cache's are on.

The SecondLevelDataCache is 0X000000 (0)

-Eric

[eedmond]

I already returned the Audigy NX and am thinking about going ahead and returning the Audigy 2 internal and buying a Terratec Aureon Sky 5.1 reviewed here by Tom's Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/video/200308211/index.html Has anybody had any experience with these cards? The Sky 5.1 was just a tad slower than the Audigy 2.

The Hercules card mentioned before is Soundblaster Live 5.1 level. I want a newer card than that.

Any other suggestions on other brands that are equal to Audigy 2?

-Eric

[imagoon]

The Hercules card mentioned before is Soundblaster Live 5.1 level. I want a newer card than that.

Any other suggestions on other brands that are equal to Audigy 2?

-Eric

?? What? That hercules card is rated better than the audigy 2. Even has a better SNL.

~Chris

[confus-ed]

?? What? That hercules card is rated better than the audigy 2. Even has a better SNL.

~Chris

There's a few Hercules xxx sound cards I bet he's confus-ed ! :)

I'd say they are about 'equal performance wise' (with sound as opposed to in windows :D) ...
Hercules Game Theater XP soundcard review (http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/gametheaterxp/index.shtml)
Conversely, if you’re considering the SoundBlaster Live!/Audigy Soundcards given the extra connectivity provided by the Live!/Audigy Drive then you’ll find the Game Theater provides similar In/Outputs, albeit at a much lower cost. Other than that the Game Theater XP has excellent Audio Output modes over most other Soundcards & a nice clean sound quality for both 3D & 2D audio sources. It still remains to be seen whether or not the SoundBlaster Audigy range will provide a more attractive purchase though

Anyway whatever I think about soundblasters :D ... something isn't right here, audigy 2's don't really suffer from all this (PCI latency issues), wasn't it a '1' when we started ?

I never noticed the 'change' :rolleyes: ... my advice would be different now ! but this is already a saga ! ... now it just looks like a 'dirty' windows install ...

[gutted]

Just as a matter of interest, did you try installing your suspect card into one of your friends' PCs? That way you can test whether it is a card/game problem. If the problem goes away then you know for sure that the card is ok and that maybe it is a game setting - either that or there is a dodgy setting somewhere in the OS. At least you could then rule out faulty cards or game incompatibility or whatever.

You also mentioned that the crackling only seems to happen when the HDD is being accessed. If you're sure about this, then perhaps it's a problem with either the IDE/SCSI cables or maybe even a problem with the HDD iteslf? (I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I guess it must be at least possible for HDD to cause interference...)

Dan.

[eedmond]

?? What? That hercules card is rated better than the audigy 2. Even has a better SNL.

~Chris

Tom's Hardware review in 2001 of the card. Comparing it against a SBLive.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/20010925/audiocards-01.html

Unless it was several years ahead of it's time or the Audigy and Audigy 2 are really just minor upgrades.

Just as a matter of interest, did you try installing your suspect card into one of your friends' PCs? That way you can test whether it is a card/game problem.

Actually I have no friends within 100 miles of me to test it out. Just my mom's computer which is too old to attempt it in.

As for the HD it is brand new less then 3 months old. I would hope it isn't failing already. Same with all the cables.

I am right now reformatting the HD and reinstalling windows to see if that solves the issue and to fix my Disabled PS/2 Ports (stupid Microsoft Mouse).

Will let you know what happens. If after a clean install the Audigy 2 still does it I am returning it and getting the Terratec Card. If the Terratec Card does it as well then that only leaves one solution it is a game issue.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Bah, I just reinstalled and this is what I did Exactly:
Reinstalled Windows XP (clean formatted HD)
Installed Norton Systemwork 2004 (I know, I know but if this causes the mess up then I would rather have bad sound. Only running AV and PWM.)
Installed DX9.0b
Installed Horizons

Launched Horizons and put it into windowed mode and snap, crackle, pop. In the process now of reinstalling all my software and settings from File and Settings Transfer Wizard.

Going to buy the Terratec card and pray that it works. If not then I know it has to be a game issue.

Recap:
Audigy 1 had problems.
Audigy 2 had problems.
Onboard Sound had problems.
Audigy 2 NX (external) had problems.

-Eric

[eedmond]

?? What? That hercules card is rated better than the audigy 2. Even has a better SNL.

~Chris

Please post a review that compares it to the Audigy 2. All I have seen are reviews from 2001 when they compared them to the Live.

-Eric

[imagoon]

Unless it was several years ahead of it's time or the Audigy and Audigy 2 are really just minor upgrades.



They are actually. The EMU101K is the same chip on all 3. The code from the the audigy can be loaded on to the live card and the card then appears as audigy. Also the pin outs for the live drive and audigy drive is identical. I have a sblive, optical card from hoontek installed on the audigy with no mods. So I really must ask you what are the real diffrences from the live, audigy and audigy 2? The firmware on the card. They added a few signal filters on the card to but logic wise nothing. It is annoying me because I can find the page where they showed this. They removed a small 16(?) pin eeprom from the card (upper left I think) and loaded audigy code into it. Reinstalled. They did it with several diffrent versions. Things of note: All of the "new" sampling rates on the audigy where enabled, ie 24khz, 44.1 khz, 96khz etc that was not available on the live worked fine. All of the new voices worked fine, all the enviroment effects worked, the point was the entire card was 100% logically an audigy. So compare the card to the live. The audigy is the same card. Look at the part number on the main CPU (EMU101K) and note they are the same.....

Also to top it all off, linux uses the exact same driver to drive the cards.

This showes all the creative type cards from the value to platnum live as identical:

http://www.ilikediy.com/product/soundcard/sound1.htm


~Chris

[eedmond]

They are actually. The EMU101K is the same chip on all 3. The code from the the audigy can be loaded on to the live card and the card then appears as audigy. Also the pin outs for the live drive and audigy drive is identical. I have a sblive, optical card from hoontek installed on the audigy with no mods. So I really must ask you what are the real diffrences from the live, audigy and audigy 2? The firmware on the card. They added a few signal filters on the card to but logic wise nothing. It is annoying me because I can find the page where they showed this. They removed a small 16(?) pin eeprom from the card (upper left I think) and loaded audigy code into it. Reinstalled. They did it with several diffrent versions. Things of note: All of the "new" sampling rates on the audigy where enabled, ie 24khz, 44.1 khz, 96khz etc that was not available on the live worked fine. All of the new voices worked fine, all the enviroment effects worked, the point was the entire card was 100% logically an audigy. So compare the card to the live. The audigy is the same card. Look at the part number on the main CPU (EMU101K) and note they are the same.....

Also to top it all off, linux uses the exact same driver to drive the cards.

This showes all the creative type cards from the value to platnum live as identical:

http://www.ilikediy.com/product/soundcard/sound1.htm


~Chris

Thank you for explaining this to me. Unfortunatly the website you linked is in chinese so I was unable to read enought of it to make any sense of it. My knowledge of soundcard technology is very limited.

I actually was just looking at this article at Tom's Hardware http://www6.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html that compares my onboard sound to a Audigy 2. Apparently my onboard sound is better than an Audigy 2. <laugh> I know if you go to Asus's website it says my board should be the Realtek ALC650 but it isn't. The sound drivers on their download page do not work for my sound. I have to download the motherboard unified driver from Nvidia and install it's sound drivers to get it to work. I have submitted a question to Asus about this. I also checked my MB to verify that I do not have the ALC650 chip. I could not locate it. Only the Nvidia chips. I think before I buy the Terratec card ($130) I am going to investigate sound cards alot more. In the meantime the Onboard Sound produced the least amount of noise in my game so it will do for now.

Thanks,
Eric

P.S. If you have another soundcard that you really like please post it's reviews for me to look at.

[Locutus]

Another possibility...

I haven't heard anyone mention this, but I had a similar problem a few years ago with my SBlive platinum card. I was playing Quake 3 and i would get strange sounding distortions whenever I would pick up armor. As some might remember the armor sound was rather complicated for it's day. Anyway, it happened consistantly and I never had any trouble when using my old SB16. I found that when i upgraded from my generic 300watt psu to an enermax 430 the distortion stopped.

So if you are using a generic or small power supply I would recommend trying a better one. See if that helps at all.


Tyler

[eedmond]

Another possibility...

I haven't heard anyone mention this, but I had a similar problem a few years ago with my SBlive platinum card. I was playing Quake 3 and i would get strange sounding distortions whenever I would pick up armor. As some might remember the armor sound was rather complicated for it's day. Anyway, it happened consistantly and I never had any trouble when using my old SB16. I found that when i upgraded from my generic 300watt psu to an enermax 430 the distortion stopped.

So if you are using a generic or small power supply I would recommend trying a better one. See if that helps at all.


Tyler

I would have to discount that possibility for two reasons:

First:
My computer has a Raidmax 350W PS(Not sure if this is good or not) in it and am running:
1 AGP 8X GF4TI4800
1 Promise SATA card
1 Soundcard (Audigy/Audigy2/whatever)
1 160GB HD
1 Zip Drive
1 Floppy Drive
1 DVD/CD-RW combo drive
1 side case fan
1 CPU Volcano 11 Fan

I can also add a second 160GB IDE 133 HD and it has no ill efects. Which is really not much. I have seen 350's run 3 or 4 more HD's and a few extra cd burners too.

Second:
The Sound Blaster Audigy NX that I tried was external and plugged into a wall outlet and it had the same issues.

-Eric

[tsunami451]

This happened to me and my friend. My card was popping all of the time. I'm running xp pro with a AIW9700pro. The ATI card came with a diagnostic program to check my systems status for recording video. After I installed my Audigy( when the popping started) the ati diagnostic told me that I did not have any mmx support anymore. The creative diagnostic told me everything was fine. I had to uninstall both sets of software leaving only my video drivers. I then proceeded to install just the drivers for the Audigy. I made sure I had the most current drivers. I then installed the software to my vid card and ran the diagnostics. It worked. I had my mmx support back. The popping was gone. I hope this helps.

Later
Tsunami451

[xycury]

just thought i would give my 2 cents....

have you made sure the Mobo is ground properly or not grounded....

A7N8X has issues with this and should or should not use the Paper wafers that usually come with new computer cases as part of the "Package"

And to make a point about an off topic....

The analog sound output is crap.... what is happening is the Digital to Analog coversion. If you used a Digital converter, maybe included in a Dobly speaker set, you will notice Audigy 2 quality with the Coaxil Digital output...SAVING roughly 80-120 Dollars!!!! So don't under estimate the quality of the nforce chipset. At least version 2.

oh by the way the Sound chip is call SoundStorm. By far the best chip around in my opinion, till Audigy 3 comes in with a DIFFERENT CHIP.

Also using the digital portion gives back all the resources any pci card would take up and any pci latency would be practically null if you're not hogging the CPU entirely by encoding video.

I'm not a complete expert, but i've been reading alot about it, since i have the same board! and have had some of your problems.

If you search AMDFORUMS . COM you will find an ASUS section about everything you ever wanted to know. I'm sure if you search there again, you'll find SB stuff too...

hope that helps a little

[eedmond]

just thought i would give my 2 cents....

have you made sure the Mobo is ground properly or not grounded....

A7N8X has issues with this and should or should not use the Paper wafers that usually come with new computer cases as part of the "Package"

And to make a point about an off topic....

The analog sound output is crap.... what is happening is the Digital to Analog coversion. If you used a Digital converter, maybe included in a Dobly speaker set, you will notice Audigy 2 quality with the Coaxil Digital output...SAVING roughly 80-120 Dollars!!!! So don't under estimate the quality of the nforce chipset. At least version 2.

oh by the way the Sound chip is call SoundStorm. By far the best chip around in my opinion, till Audigy 3 comes in with a DIFFERENT CHIP.

Also using the digital portion gives back all the resources any pci card would take up and any pci latency would be practically null if you're not hogging the CPU entirely by encoding video.

I'm not a complete expert, but i've been reading alot about it, since i have the same board! and have had some of your problems.

If you search AMDFORUMS . COM you will find an ASUS section about everything you ever wanted to know. I'm sure if you search there again, you'll find SB stuff too...

hope that helps a little

Well when i installed the MB I did use the little red round gaskets on all the screws on the board.

The analog sound output is crap.... what is happening is the Digital to Analog coversion. If you used a Digital converter, maybe included in a Dobly speaker set, you will notice Audigy 2 quality with the Coaxil Digital output...SAVING roughly 80-120 Dollars!!!! So don't under estimate the quality of the nforce chipset. At least version 2.


I don't understand this. Please clarify. Are you speaking about my onboard sound? I do not have a Coaxial Digital Output on my motherboards onboard sound. Just analog. Or are you saying that I should buy digital speakers to plug into my audigy 2? That would cost me an extra 80-120 not save me.

In general I don't understand your post.

-Eric

[xycury]

Part 1- So you've used the space washers, see if removing them helps. I've heard from other forums that Asus says to put them on or off to solve that problem.

Part 2-
Ah bummer... you probably dont' have the digital out portion because of the non deluxe....

What i have from Asus is A7N8X- Deluxe.... The only difference is that some of the back panel you won't get ( Like the Digital stuff) but otherwise no differnce.

From what i was talking before.....
Soooo to add that digital portion you need to find a SPDIF Connector header that will lead from your mobo to the backside pci connector, and hook up something digital, that will eliminate all noise that would assiociate from the PCI or Analog. This is in your manual... and of course optional so you probably don't have it.

Asus sells this as an optional piece. should be around 15 to 20 dollars. but only to match up against a digital decoder or with digital decoder speaker set.

i know this isn't much help.... but you've done soo much now, you should test it with digital outs. But only if you have a digital decoder, say on a home theater system or with a speaker set.

Of course you could test this on a Audigy 2 card that has digital out. But you state you don't have any speakers that have a digital decoder. If you've returned all the Audigy cards and went out and bought a decoder or speaker set, it would be the same price spent for that Sound Card... maybe by 20 or 30 more....

I had the same problems..... hiss and crackle but now have the a Creative Digital 5500 and it solved everything. Plus it's a good investment to have a digital decoder.

I know you've been working on this and going down different paths, but this one worked for me. True i had to pay some money for it, but it was worth it not to ever have any hiss or pops, and also the finer sound quality coming from everything audio out from my PC.

I wish you good luck in finding other resources and answers!

-Jake :)

[eedmond]

From all the tech's I have talked to in town said that a Digital Speaker system would not help me because the fault is in the soundcard and not interference in the cord of the analog speakers.

On just a whim I decide to put my Original Audigy 1 back in. But this time I did not upgrade the drivers. I just let Windows XP find it and use it's drivers. The snap crackle pop is 98% gone. The ONLY time it happens now is when the game needs my whole cpu but some cpu usage is being diverted to the desktop for when I am doing things there. I wish it didn't do that but I am not sure how to fix that. I think the creative issue is all drivers problems. I wish somebody local would carry something other than Creative soundcards other than the generic cheapo $10 ones.

Thanks,
Eric

[gutted]

Eric,

I think what the other guy is saying is that the problem is not actually related to interference from wires or cabling, but *IS* a soundcard problem - a soundcard problem which relates to the DAC (digital/audio conversion). Although I don't know much about this sort of stuff, I'd guess it would be done by software (i.e. drivers).

So what xycury is saying is that

(a) your local experts are right - it IS a soundcard problem (not interference);
(b) it is related to DAC, and so this is why different drivers give different results; and
(c) if it were possible to use hardware DAC (in a speaker set of home theatre for example) the problem may be completely resolved because it would no longer rely on software DAC which uses system resources (which could be why the distortion is worse when the system is busier).

As a theory I reckon it's a good one, but it means extra spending to test it out :( and it's only a theory - so extra spending might turn out to be in vain after all :( But as xycury says, hardware DAC is probably a good investment anyway...

HTH!
Dan.

[eedmond]

Ok, I don't mind going to digital, I still have my Audigy 1 which I just plugged back in. But I have not seen a single set of Digital 2.1 speakers yet. Can you take the 5.1's and dumb them down to 2.1 by not plugging in the extra speakers? I don't have place to put anything more than a 2.1 system.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Another possibility...

I haven't heard anyone mention this, but I had a similar problem a few years ago with my SBlive platinum card. I was playing Quake 3 and i would get strange sounding distortions whenever I would pick up armor. As some might remember the armor sound was rather complicated for it's day. Anyway, it happened consistantly and I never had any trouble when using my old SB16. I found that when i upgraded from my generic 300watt psu to an enermax 430 the distortion stopped.

So if you are using a generic or small power supply I would recommend trying a better one. See if that helps at all.


Tyler

I am wondering if you are correct. Tonight my cat had a problem and woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep so I went to play horizons but turned off the speakers. I was hearing this weird tiny snap sound, sounded like when you first turn on a Fluorescent bulb and they are snapping and crackling as they warm up. Sounded just like that but very hard to hear. I started to listen around and the sound is coming from the back of my computer. I just opened my case and listened and over the noise of my HD I could hear it coming from the top back end of my case. This sound is not one I have ever heard come from a computer before so I don't think it is a fan. Will go down to my local PC shop and buy a 400w. Need to upgrade anyway.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Almost forgot, I also narrowed down the snap-crackle-pops on my sound card to so far one specific type of sound file. MP3's. I was listening to Realplayer playing some MP3's when it did it. I downloaded Winamp and played some MP3's and it did it as well. Every time it would pop in game it was the music and NEVER the sound effects. I was downloading their new patch and noticed that they use MP3's as their music. Are MP3's controlled by a soundcard differently than say a Wav? Horizons uses wav's as it's sound effects. I have never had the windows sound effects do the popping that I can remember. It has always been playing music from MP3's in every instance of the noise that I can remember but I don't have any other file types RA's or Media Player or Ogg's or any other sound files to listen to. I will download some MOD's and play those.

-Eric

[confus-ed]

an mp3 is of course compressed so needs un-compressing before it can be played, which is more work for the cpu or hardware codec on any s/c...

[eedmond]

Just running Realplayer and IE surfing the web. I just did a check with this window open and Realplayer. The two together use 0% CPU usage until Realplayer loads a new song then it sky rockets to 100% CPU usage all in Realplayer. That seems a tad much for decompressing a MP3 to me. Just installed and tried it with Winamp 5.01. It uses 0% CPU usage during playback and loading maxed out at 5% CPU usage. Will have to listen to MP3's more often in Winamp 5.01 to see if it will do the noise. I had it do it in Winamp 3 I believe it was last time I used Winamp.

Forgot to mention that when the sound does crackle it doesn't necessarily do it at the begining of a song. Is it possible during the loading it could cause the crackle half way through or at the end of the song? Most of the time that I can remember the noise happens at least 1/3 into the song or later. I can go back into the song and rewind it and listen again and it is fine. Does the MP3 get loaded into a buffer then is rebuffered when you rewind the song?

-Eric

[confus-ed]

I'd chance a guess that not all the file is getting loaded at the start, when you replay it, its all already in memory ...

[gutted]

Eric,

MP3s are probably decoded on the fly. The heavy CPU useage is most likely not the decoding process, but the player "preparing" to do whatever it does. I reckon you're right about the buffer thing - the MP3 will probably be stored in a temporary cache or something so there is less processing when you play it again.

Did you have any luck with the PSU?

Dan.

[eedmond]

Only 7:45am here so be a bit before the stores open for the PSU. On the MP3 front I remembered a hardware setting in Realplayer and checked it out, it was set to Best Quality under Playback Settings, I lowered this to Lowest CPU Usage now when it loads a MP3 it maxes out at about 35% CPU usage. This might fix the problem in Realplayer but I know of no command like this in Horizons. Will test it out heavily today in Real and Horizons. Will also buy the new PSU and try it out later today and let you know.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Bought a Thermaltake 480W W0013RU W/O PFC Power supply. The clicking noise from the PS is gone but the sound still crackles while playing music. If you ever buy one of these Powersupplies have alot of cord ties available I have never seen SO many power cables. Filled my case full.

-Eric

[eedmond]

Sigh, I am not sure what is going on now. When I downgraded my video card drivers and rebooted the BIOS beeped and said it couldn't find a keyboard. I just rebooted and it worked fine. I think I am gonna toss this board and gonna buy a Abit NF7-S board. Would buy the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe but I am not sure with reading all of those sound issues with the Deluxe board.

The Abit board will allow me to lose my Promise PCI card and my Audigy.

Anybody have experience with this Abit board?

-Eric

[eedmond]

Well before I go and buy a new MB I did some investigating on Asus's website. Found under their FAQ that installing the nVidia Unifide driver on the A7N8X could cause problems due to their tweaks they did to the nVidia chipset. So I have since uninstalled the nVidia drivers and am running the Asus ones now. Unfortunatly the game servers are down for a patch so will have to wait a bit to see if this causes any differences in either the sound or video issues I have been having.
http://www.asus.com/support/faq/qanda.aspx?KB_ID=83982

-Eric

[eedmond]

nothing is changed with the correct Asus drivers.

-Eric