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

[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