KT7-Raid and sound issues

[imagoon]

I have an ABIT KT7 RAID and have had sound problems with it for about a year now. It has been buggin me and it has been a continuing game with it. I have used: SoundBlaster Live and Audigy, and now a Hercules Game Theater XP 6.1. The sound always stutters and pops whenever I do anything besides just sit and listen. Drives me nuts during MP3 play back.

Specs:
GeForce 3 64MB
800Mhz AMD Athlon
512 meg ram
Win XP Pro
2 Raids One 60 (2x30 gig) One 120 (2x60 gig)
a few usb devices
CDROM, CDRW, DVDROM, Zip Drive.

Any ideas?

[Garak]

locate and install the via 4in1 drivers from viahardware.com


G/

[NooNoo]

www.viaarena.com have this to say about the sound issue:

Category:
Audio/Sound

Question:
I am having trouble with a system using a VIA chipset including a 686b southbridge and a Creative Sound Blaster Live card.

Answer:
When the 686b southbridge was first released, motherboard manufacturers and VIA discovered a problem when trying to transfer files between the primary and the secondary IDE channels on motherboards using ultra-DMA, when a Sound Blaster Live was plugged in and drivers activated. This issue was caused because too much noise is transferred across the PCI bus by the Sound Blaster Live driver set. In an attempt to fix this issue, some motherboard manufacturers modified their BIOS. In some instances, these modifications to the BIOS caused a data corruption error even when not using a Sound Blaster Live. VIA released a patch which resolves this issue, which is incoroporated in the 4in1 drivers from the 4.31 version onwards. Motherboard manufacturers were advised to change the modifications made to thier BIOS to elimate the data corruption issue. If you are experiencing data corruption or lock up when transferring files between two IDE drives: 1) Make sure you have the latest BIOS from your motherboard manufacturer. 2) Make sure you have the latest 4in1 drivers 3) Make sure when you set up your system that you install the 4in1 drivers both before and after you install the SBL to make sure that the drivers see your SBL and install the correct patch. The patch will only install if the SBL is installed.

Current versions is
4.42a available here

[Garak]

Originally posted by NooNoo
www.viaarena.com have this to say about the sound issue:




Current versions is
4.42a available here

ooops..... i knew it was something to do with the 4in1's

[imagoon]

The thing is that I have already installed the via 4 in 1's v4.42 and it stil does it. Also the system is a 686a which is in theory not affected....(guess I'm just lucky) I have moved this thing from slot to slot, reinstalled windows twice in the last week. All i know is the stuttering is appearing in more and more places, like the mouse now. It's PS/2 and it stutters with the sound sometimes. Data xfer on the Hdd has also stalled a few times. I'm starting to wonder if the Motherboard itself is dying.

~Chris

[NooNoo]

What are you using for mp3 playback, have you tried a different player?

[imagoon]

I have used Winamp 2, 3 and kazaa.

[Garak]

I'm currently running an QDI Kinetiz 7B with latest BIOS flash and VIA 4in1 4.42 Windows 98, latest SB Live! drivers, latest Dets for my NVidia, and my sound has settled down

Firstly, remove all the sound drivers, uninstall the 4in1's remove the inf file for the soundcard, reboot, skip driver install, install the 4in1, reboot, install the latest soundcard drivers, reboot, install latest dx reboot and it should in theory work (it did for me) unless you have unboard sound enabled in the BIOS.

Good Luck.

just incase you havent got it already - latest BIOS flash
http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/bios/kt7.htm

and from abit

For Creative SBLive 5.1 sound card users, you may try these options while experience sound quality issue.
PCI master read caching, default setting=Disabled
PCI master time-out, Default setting=1

http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/bios/kt7.htm

hope this helps in some way.

[imagoon]

Thanks for the help. Mine settled down now (for now). I installed a "hacked" bios the included the HiPoint 2.1XXX bios for the raid card and the matching driver. Now everything is ok.... I don't quite get it but hey if it works... Abit still ships HPT 1.11 bioses in thier distro. I got the BIOS from the KT7 FAQ on viahardware.com.

~Chris