Pops & Drops on CDs

[kep55]

I just recently started having problems with either my PCs two CD drives or the sound card. One is a Lite-on CD-R that came with the system the other is a Philips CD/RW. I'm using a Sound Blaster Live Digital Value card. It doesn't matter if I play a homebrew Cd or a store bought, I get pops and drops. The pops and drops don't appear in my portable, boombox or home stereo CD players. What gives?

I know enuff to be dangerous. :tongue:

 

[upec]

Get another sound card.

 

[Guest]

you could try upgrading to the latest motherboard drivers and BIOS and soundcard drivers.

It seems the lives are notorious for these little issues. Mine finally works for most stuff, but it was a long hard road getting there (mostly waiting like 4 eternities for decent drivers).

 

[Crashman]

This is one of those "defects which officially don't exist" quite common with Creative cards. If you'll plug your headphones into the front jack of the CD player, you might find there are no noises!

If there still were noises, it would probably be from feedback and still caused by the card, unhooking the CD Audio cable would make the CD-ROM front jack sound clean as described above.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[shanevincent]

I have had this problem with several creative sound cards (including the Audigy), I also have sound problems (though much, much less) with my Santa Cruz from Turtle beach. I believe that there is some pci bus contention with the hard drives, network card et al.

 

[Crashman]

My experience says:
1. This issue is most common with PCI soundcards
2. Creative is the only company I know of that still exist who hasn't addressed it.
3. The problem is worst in combination with VIA chipsets
4. The average person is stupid enough to put a Live on a VIA because they think it will make them "1337".

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[knight0]

"4. The average person is stupid enough to put a Live on a VIA because they think it will make them "1337"."

I'm offended by that statement. True, it was a stupid move I would definitely not have made had I known the hell I would have to endure this past year. Thinking it was the smart thing to do, I upgraded to the Audigy 2. Guess what? That's right, the problems with the Live! (crackling) have intensified! I don't know why I still buy Creative. Maybe I should dump the Audigy 2 as well.

 

[AEboy128]

I say drop the Audigy 2 and pick up a TB Santa Cruz. Great sound card, great drivers and awesome sound.

I miss my ATI Radeon 64mb ViVo SE :frown:

 

[Crashman]

Well, I think Creative uses the "bandwagon" approach. "Buy Creative, everyone else does". Same reason every 1932 Ford hot rod I see has a small block Chevy engine. Same reason people are building Athlon 2400 systems even though the P4 2.4 is cheaper and Socket 462 is 9/10 to dead.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[knight0]

Well, Creative does have a strong brand name, although increasingly I'm seeing more negative comments directed towards them. Plus, most people just don't have the time to do the research. I will admit that I know close to nothing about specs for sound cards. So the brand name is all you fall back on. Now that I've experienced Creative first hand however, not sure I'll be buying any more Creative.

By the way, perhaps you can help me solve my problem. I'm positive it's entirely caused by the incompatability between the Audigy 2 and the VIA chipset, but for some reason, I get crackling most when I listen to CD's with Windows Media Player. I get no crackling with Winamp or Creative MediaSource. Even weirder, the crackling is most apparent when I use my CD-ROM drive, not when I use my DVD-ROM drive. Why is this? Mp3's and games are fine with next to no crackling, but audio CD's on WMP is ridiculous.

 

[Crashman]

Crackling on one connection and not the other can be caused by electrical noise, such as interference in the cable or cross talk between the connections on the card itself. You could try eliminating cross talk on the card by muting the other inputs, etc., until you figure out which one is causing it. I found on one of mine that one input would always crackle regardless, while the other rarely crackled, so I think it's a design flaw.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[knight0]

But would that explain why only Windows Media Player is causing problems? I get no crackling when using Winamp, Creative Mediasource, or Real Player. Only when I use Windows Media Player do the crackling begin. And it's not just crackling, the CD track plays a little bit slower too.

I tried muting different sources like you said, but had no luck. I did notice that when playing a CD with Windows Media Player, Creative Mediasource, and Real Player that the source is considered a "Wave/MP3". This is not the case when I play the CD with Winamp, where the source is "CD Audio". Why is that?

EDIT: By the way, I did not experience the crackling with Windows Media Player (listening to audio CD's) when I had my SB Live! 5.1 installed.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by knight0 on 11/05/02 03:00 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Ah, that could be an issue between the Creative driver and the VIA latency bug.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[knight0]

Ha, I reinstalled Windows Media Player, and the crackling is gone! I swear, Creative is trying to drive me nuts.

There is still one thing nagging me, and that's my inability to get rid of the "Sound Blaster Live! Web 2K/XP" entity in the Add or Remove Programs menu. Clicking remove will cause the uninstall to run, but after reboot, it's still there. Any tips?

 

[Crashman]

Crap, this stuff happens. When I had mine, I would try everything, eventually something would work. But I was on a BX chipset, so all my problems were with the card/drivers. I kept loosing channels and so forth. And I can't even remember all the crap I tried. But basically, I DID fix it, it DID break several times more, eventually I got tired of messing with it and went back to my ever so awesome Aureal SQ2500.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[knight0]

I understand completely Crash. There was a time where my computer was crashing constantly. 1 out of 3 times I would get a blue screen upon bootup.

I'm still certain that that damned SB Live! 5.1 killed my brand new harddrive I got a year ago. So many hard reboots and staring at that Windows scandisk screen can't be good for your harddrive, and is definitely not good for your health. I lost count how many times I've reinstalled Windows and lost much needed sleep.

My current challenge: to get the Audigy 2 to record in 24-bit/96 kHz. Damn format does not show up! And that "Sound Blaster Live! Web 2K/XP" entity is still eluding me.