K7N420 Pro. Nforce Digital audio Funny

G

Guest

Guest
Hi,
I was very interested in the Tomshardware review of the K7N420 Pro. In the end I decided to try one of the boards out. Must say I like it but I found something very odd about the Nvidia digital sound drivers in Win 2K. When I checked out the system usage after installing the board I noticed that there were many more interrupts/Sec than I expected and that 5-7% of the CPU was ALWAYS in use. After careful experiment I found that it was the Nvidia Digital audio driver. This driver seems to be generating about 140 interrupts/Sec and using 5% CPU even when not in use. Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone know why this may be. I really don't want to lose this amount of perfomance on a function that I am not using.

Manxcat
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I think that even the analog starts out digital, then goes though a DAC to get analog, so no digital=no sound. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm right, your saying you don't want sound?

What's the frequency, Kenneth?
 
G

Guest

Guest
I will have to admit that I didn't have speakers connected, it is rather an unusual system I was setting up. I only turned off the Dolby part of the audio drivers, but you may be right that this could disable all audio. I will test this.
My concern was that I am looking at NForce for my games machines but I think 5% CPU power is a high price to pay even when playing no sounds at all. I am wondering whether this is why NForce cannot keep up with KT266A in tests.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Cannot keep up? You had better look at the test, those boards are betting half the field of KT266A boards and loosing to the other half. Anyway, you could disable the entire audio system by disabling the driver. Since other cards use as much power as nVidia's integrated audio, maybe they should be comparing it to a KT266A board with an Audigy installed to drag it down? After all, your right in the assertion that a comparison between the nForce with audio enabled and a KT266A without audio is not really fair

What's the frequency, Kenneth?