On-Board Sound (Azalia / Realtek issue)

[gamer30]

Hey guys,

I'm using a Gigabyte GA-P45T-ES3G Motherboard. I'm running Win7 Pro x64, E8400, G.Skill RAM, and on-board sound.

Now this is my problem, my PC will occasionally lock up. It doesn't always happen, and usually happens after booting up or returning from sleep. If it's running fine and I leave it on, I get no problems. However when it does lockup, usually the last note that was playing is sustained. The PC doesn't reboot, and I don't get a BSOD. I'm positive this is audio related. I've currently disabled the audio from the BIOS by disabling the Azalia codec. I have no sound, but viola, the PC runs perfectly now. I've even overclocked it for the first time, and it's running without a hitch with sound disabled.

I've tried using the default audio drivers, the audio drivers from the website, and even the latest Realtek drivers from Realtek's website. I get the same results each time. I have a microphone, webcam, and speakers plugged in.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I'm beginning to think I should just buy a sound card, and hope that will solve the issues. I've read that the sound quality is better, especially with noise because of the shielding compared with on-board sound. I'd want something inexpensive, I only need it for music, gaming, and voice chat occasionally. My speakers are Logitech and 2.1 only.

What do you guys think? Can I solve this issue, or should I spring for a (relatively) cheap sound card? Will that solve my problems? I'm looking forward to your advice.

(see here for my motherboard)
http://ca.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3857#ov

 

[BerylLee]

how long after running your system you saw the problem?
maybe you can look for some bios update, and uninstall audio driver in standard procedure and reinstall driver from your driver dvd or gigabyte web resource.
some latest driver may not be suitable with older audio chip.

 

[gamer30]

how long after running your system you saw the problem?
maybe you can look for some bios update, and uninstall audio driver in standard procedure and reinstall driver from your driver dvd or gigabyte web resource.
some latest driver may not be suitable with older audio chip.

I'd say the problem started a few weeks after the new setup. The gigabyte board is new. I think the bios is up to date, though I'll give it another try. I'll also follow your suggestion of using the older audio drivers.

The board uses Realtek ALC892 codec.

EDIT:

I just removed the audio drivers, and downloaded and installed the last audio driver from gigabyte's site for this motherboard. As soon as I restarted I was met with a BSOD. Manually restarted, so far so good though. Any more suggestions folks?

 

[BerylLee]

what does the bsod say?
is it every time in the same place bsod?
every time the same error code in bsod?

 

[gamer30]

what does the bsod say?
is it every time in the same place bsod?
every time the same error code in bsod?

I don't always get a BSOD, sometimes it just freezes. Occurred three times just today, and a few of those while trying to restart from the first time. Then I ran a startup repair and it said the problem is a faulty registry. I'm going to try to reinstall/repair win7, then format and fresh install if necessary.

I fear the issue may be self-inflicted as I use ccleaner and occasionally sweep the registry of errors and outdated info: those who use ccleaner's reg cleaning know what I mean. I always make a backup of the registry before doing so and can go back to before the first time I used it.

Thanks to everyone for info and advice.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I know this thread is old, but it's only been on very rare occasion that I've seen ccleaner mess up a registry, 99% of the time, no issues for me at least.