Sound Problem ?

[Tonkyboy]

My PC has recently developed a problem with sound. I have a self built system, K6-2 @ 500MHz (I know its old, but I cant afford to build a new one yet), 192 Mb SDRAM, Geforce2mx400 64 Mb, ALS4000 sound card. The 2mx was installed only a week ago, upgraded from ATI Rage 128. The first problem noted was in Media Player, when putting the visualizations in full screen mode(in Ambience vis) the music actually slows down. Its like a casette being played slightly slower than it should be. Go back to the window, and the music returns to normal speed. Use the Plenoptic vis, and the problem does not occur. I was prepared to leave this, but then... Playing Commandos-Behind Enemy Lines, the sound effects had what can only be described as a warbling effect, and the the sound crashed to an interference sound like you get on a radio not tuned in, and the the same on a demo version of Harry Potter, and also now this warbling sound has appeared on Serious Sam, but not nearly as bad as on the others. I am going to try a new sound card in about two weeks in case that is the problem. But this has all started since the 2mx was installed. I have the latest detonators from Nvidia, and directX8.1b. I would really appreciate some ideas. Also I have recently adjusted some BIOS settings, such as stepped up the memory to Turbo mode and enabled the external cache and more. The K6-2 is not and has never been overclocked. I am thinking to try a hardware accelerated sound card, maybe a Sounblaster Live 5.1 ? What do you think ?

 

[svol]

Strange... it looks like your new card is somehow taking up more CPU time and thus slowing the sound down.
I have an GeForce2 MX and the ALS4000 inside a Pentium 3 OC'ed too 933 MHz and no problems.
Try the latest drivers which you can find here:
<A HREF="http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloads1-3.aspx?series=32&Software=True" target="_new">http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloads1-3.aspx?series=32&Software=True</A>

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion .

 

[Tonkyboy]

I already got the latest drivers from Realtek yesterday. No difference at all !! Do you think the K6-2 is too much of a wimp to run the 2mx efficiently? I may be able to lay my hands on a k6-3 @ 450 MHz. But not for a month or two. One strange thing is this... The ATI Rage 128 (16Mb) would run the Ambience vis perfectly, with no sound slow down, but did not have the graphics processing power to show the plenoptics in full screen. The 2mx runs the plenoptics in full screen, no problems with sound, yet cannot do the Ambience vis ? Strange...

 

[svol]

Go to dxdiag and go to the sound tab and try if decreasing the soundcard hardware accelaration helps.

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion .

 

[Tonkyboy]

Tried DX Diag. No luck there. It actually tells me that my sound card does not support hardware buffering. But I've rtied it at different acceleration levels anyway, but that didn't work. I had a quick look in the BIOS again. One of the things I changed was either the AGP Master WS Read and AGP Master WS Write. Both are now enabled but previously one was enabled, and one was not. Would that make any difference ?

 

[svol]

Could be... according to my mobo manual those settings give a 1 sec waiting state while reading or writing to the AGP bus. I recommend disabling them for performance, but you can try which settings work best for you.

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion .

 

[Tonkyboy]

I've finally cured the problem, though I must admit I cheated. I took the 2mx back to the shop, and exchanged it for a Radeon 7500 64mbDDR, and guess what ?? It's fantastic! Iam getting average frame rates of 35 fps from Unreal Tournament in 32bit colour with high quality settings at 800x600 res. And Star Wars Pod Racer is sooooo smooth at 1024 x 768, with everything turned on. But I can't get the benchmarking on Serious Sam to work !! Still, I'm happy with Graphics quality now. Thanks for your efforts.
Ty.

 

[svol]

Good to hear you got a good working system again.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.