SB live, popping and crakling

monkeyspank · Nov 25, 2001

I put a computer together for my friend and he gets popping and crackling noises over the speakers.
it is:
1.4 athlon
ECS k7s5a
sb live 1024
cheap psu
win 98se

i know it is not the drivers. it is also not the speakers.

has anyone else had this problem with this soundcard? is there an easy remedy other than replacing the sb live?

AMD_Man · Nov 25, 2001

I had that problem. What I did was exchange my SB Live 5.1 for a Santa Cruz and everything went away. The Live! pops and cracks all over the place!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

upec · Nov 26, 2001

I have similiar problem. I am using a Abit BX6 rev2. SB live is the worst sound card ever made.

monkeyspank · Nov 26, 2001

Yeah, i thought that might be the case. I feel guilty cos i told him i would make him a nice pc, which it is otherwise. I need to replace it with something cheap as it is coming out of my pocket. The problem i had when building it was that he wanted to cut costs everywhere. I have got an old soundblaster 16 pci somewhere which will be good enough for his needs. Are there similar problems with this card.
BTW, i have a Sblive 5.1 in my system and it works perfectly. I even have installed playcentre without a hitch. (needed for centre speaker on my DTT2200 speakers)

Novakain · Nov 26, 2001

Have you tried running the card in your PC? Maybe the card is faulty?

Also, what version of Windows 98 are you running? did you install any service packs?

monkeyspank · Nov 26, 2001

i will try it in my pc. good idea man. i bought it of yahoo auctions which was a dumb thing to do. cant return it..
it is exactly the same version of windows as i am using, and mine doesnt do it.

upec · Nov 26, 2001

You might want to try the older driver. I did not have the crack sound before I upgrade the driver.

monkeyspank · Nov 26, 2001

can you remember which driver version you were using before the crackling started? and where i could get it? i could try kazaa or windrivers.

AMD_Man · Nov 26, 2001

monkeyspank, it's a limitation with the SB Live itself. THe SoundBlaster Live is a PCI bus hog that constantly sends data across the PCI bus. THe problem with that is, with high CPU utilization or high PCI bus utilization, the SB Live will start to crack. The problem gets worse with the more PCI cards you add.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

Guest · Nov 26, 2001

THANK GOD I FOUND THIS POST!!!

Man!! i'm having the exact same problem as you!!
i have the ECS K7S5A board with SB Live! Value, and it's giving me popping and crackling sound as well! (I am using win2k)

Please tell me what I can do...
I just bought the Altec Lansing ATP3 & SB Live! Value 3 days ago, and I haven't' gotten a good night sleep since then!

Guest · Nov 26, 2001

AMD_Man, I have a PCI voodoo4, maybe that's conflicting with SB Live!? (they share the same IRQ, 11)

Just to let you guys know, my roommate is using the SB Live! Value as well, he has an Abit motherboard & Asus AGP Geforece2 vid card.

I exchanged my soundcard with his, and my system is still giving me the popping & crackling sound, and his system sounds perfect.

My other friend has a dell system with Rage 128 Pro sharing IRQ 9 with his SoundMax soundcard, and his system sounds fine too!

upec · Nov 26, 2001

Does Audigy have the same problem?

monkeyspank · Nov 26, 2001

Roasted Pea -- Looks like you and me have gotta get new soundcards mate.

thanks AMD man, i thought this was the case but didnt want to splash out on a new one unnecessarily.

AMD_Man · Nov 26, 2001

AMD_Man, I have a PCI voodoo4, maybe that's conflicting with SB Live!? (they share the same IRQ, 11)

Yes, that's a huge problem. Both the Voodoo4 adn the SB Live are PCI bandwidth hogs. THey're fighting for the limited bandwidth of the PCI bus, in simple terms. This can cause popping and cracking. It can also significantly slow down your Voodoo4 in games. I have a Voodoo4 PCI in my one of my PCs too but that PC has integrated sound so I don't have that problem.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

arsend · Nov 26, 2001

You must have the Soundcard in the 3rd PCI slot and it must have it's own IRQ. In Your BIOS, go to advanced Peripherals and select IRQ reserved for Display device. You may have to eliminate other PCI slot devices from your card so Windows resets the IRQ's. Also, if you are not using any of the serial or USB ports, disabling them will free up more IRQ's. Soundbalster Live's are very selfish and will not be happy if they have to share their IRQ's

If you still get popping and crackles, let us know, but this has been found to fix 75% of the SB Live problems I have run into.

If it works for you then don't fix it.

hammerhead · Nov 26, 2001

I used to be a fan of SBLive cards, they didn't have much competition in the price bracket when released. Got three running in systems at the moment.

That was until I bought an Aopen AK33 mobo and Duron 750(@825) cpu. I've tried everything including arsend's advice above, and a BIOS release from Aopen that purported to fix the problem. The cracking & popping won't go away.

Apparently VIA mobo's suffer more than others. It's a real pisser, especially when you are responsible for someone else's machine.

upec · Nov 26, 2001

My sblive have it's own IRQ (IRQ5) but it still makes popping and crakling sound.

upec · Nov 27, 2001

I tried the SBLive on Abit BX6R2. The motherboard uses BX chipset. My SBLive have problem with it too.

Fredi · Nov 27, 2001

Hi!

Play around with the BIOS settings for the PCI bus, stuff like PCI buffers, Concurrency, Latency etc. Disable/Enable one at a time to see if any of it changes anything.

Fredi
Tom's Hardware Guide

upec · Nov 27, 2001

I checked out creative's website. It does have a document on how to solve the problem.

Here is the link.
http://www.americas.creative.com/support/kbase/pfriendly.asp?Centric=108&ID=404

AMD_Man · Nov 27, 2001

Fredi!! Change the sig of the week please!!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

hammerhead · Nov 27, 2001

Ditto AMD_Man!

The bloody thing's been there for months.

Guest · Nov 27, 2001

Hi guys,

To see if it was a PCI bandwidth problem, I took out my PCI voodoo4 and inserted my roommate's AGP card (Asus V7100 Geforce2 MX) Everything worked great! No more popping & crackling sound! I'm very happy now

I'm going to go get myself an AGP card tomorrow (AMD_Man, u should know the store, Canada Computers!), Hercules 4500 Prophet w/ Kyro II!!

Thanks everyone for the input!

AMD_Man · Nov 27, 2001

Great!!! Glad to help!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

Crashman · Nov 27, 2001

Get the Aureal Vortex2 SQ2500 SuperQuad from <A HREF="http://www.compgeeks.com" target="_new">http://www.compgeeks.com</A>. Only $14 and it's one of the best soundcards of all time.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

SB live, popping and crakling

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