GA-EP45-U3DR onboard sound drop outs etc...

[qhorque]

All,

Brand new GA-EP45-U3DR with Intel Q9550, 4GB Corsair Dominator RAM, Sapphire Radeon 4870 1GB, 2 Seagate Barracuda 750GB SATA II drives, and XP Pro using the on board Realtek sound.

This is a problem I had with my Asus P4PE and on board sound prompting me to use a discrete sound card. It's happening with this new machine and this new hardware is no slouch by any means (nor was the P4PE and the 2.53GHz P4).

Everything is working fine. All drivers are installed properly (all updated) and no errors to report in any XP subsystem (logs, Event Viewer, etc.).

The other night I was transferring a file from a DVD to an external media player and I could hear definite noise coming out of the speakers. It went away when the data was transferred (a 6GB avi).

I then transferred it again and attempted to play an mp3 from the hard drive. The sound definitely had issues with noise and dropouts.

I performed the transfer between the two internal hard drives and the same thing happened.

Two different subsystems (USB to CD on the USB/IDE pathways on one and the SATA RAID connector to the sound card on the other pathway) as well as a QUAD core processor and the machine couldn't seem to cope.

This is what prompted me to move to a sound card in the P4PE which I am replacing. Clearly I must have expectations that are too high insofar as on board sound is concerned!

Am I missing something here or is this par for the course? Can this relatively hot hardware not handle a file transfer and mp3 playback or is on board sound just that bad?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Robert

 

[caniba]

I have vista 64 and the onboard sound is great.

In the past with older systems I have seen sound hang causing strange sounds and it was do to bad ram. but the sound would work normal than hang and let off some wierd noise until i resarted the system.

It also could be some wierd conflict inside xp. but i am not too sure about that.

 

[Noya]

Are you using the same case (audio headers) / speakers / headphones from the old P4 build?

It's highly unlikely it's the board as onboard sound doesn't faulter very often in my experience.

I was experiencing a hiss with my new build (Q8200/UD3P) with headphones...it was simply the cheap audio header on my Rosewill case. I plug my phones in the rear audio port on the motherboard OR in my speakers desktop volume controller and the audio is great. I would also hear a hiss when playing back MP3's and transferring files, even on separate hard drives (I have 3 HD's)...again, the cheap case header appears to be the cause.

 

[IH8U]

If you are having an issue, try downloading the sound drivers from Realtec/Azalia (whichever you have, sometimes the bundled ones are flaky).

 

[qhorque]

Thanks for the replies.

No, I am using a completely new case, power supply, etc. I'm using all the motherboard stand-offs possible and the back plate is tight and properly located. I *am* using the same speakers but have also tried my old pair from the parts bin and the same sound issues occur.

No odd noises come from the speakers when the machine is at idle. Only when transferring data.

As for possible bad RAM, I have run memtest and other utilities against it and it all checks good.

I can definitely try downloading drivers directly from Realtek to test.

I have also made images of the hard drive as I have installed software and can revert back to the earliest image (just XP and hardware drivers) to see if the issue exists at the base level without any other software installed (I doubt there's a conflict though admit there could be).

I can also try a different DVD drive though that's more work than I'd like to do. I can also always drop in the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card to see if that solves the issue. It's not a problem as that's what I did on the last machine but I'd like to use the on board sound since it's included and is supposed to be good. Otherwise, why buy a motherboard with it?

Thanks again!