Are you a tech god?

[General_Jah]

Riddle me this o king of techies.

I am currently having a very annoying problem with my pcs sound. A few days ago, out of the blue, the sound coming from both my sb live! and my onboard has this crackling noise like you would get on an old tape deck if you turn the volume real high before it starts playing. The degree of the sound is in direct relation to the volume level through windows.

My system specs:
Win XP Pro
SB Live!
Asus A7V333-X
Klipsch 4.1
AIWA Headphones

I've tried different headphones and speakers to see if that is the issue and it hasn't affected the outcome. I've uninstalled my sb live card from my computer and used the onboard sound. Still the same issue. I have no clue as to what could be causing this or how to trouble shoot it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

-James

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by General_Jah on 01/17/04 03:17 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[BunnyStroker]

Hmmm....

It's been a year or two since I actually used the SbLive!, but I do remember they had an issue with crackling under Win XP. You say it still happens with onboard audio though....

Open up the sound control panel and turn the line in volume all the way down. This can pick up interference and cause crackling.

Next option, if your CD/DVD-ROM has an audio connection to your soundcard <b>or</b> modem, disconnect it. This is also known to cause interference. This will not affect your ability to play audio CDs so long as you enable digital audio from your control panel.

Report back!

<b>1.4 Ghz AMD T-Bird underclocked to 1 Ghz...just to be safe!</b>

 

[kinney]

I think that is a VIA based motherboard, which I am not a fan of personally. But try pulling out all your PCI devices and seeing if the onboard continues to do it.
Just a hunch, and certainly worth a try before getting a new motherboard.

Sounds like it could be some kind of interference like the other guy said.
VIA boards in the past have had problems with too much PCI bus activity resulting in crackling in Sound Blasters. This has pretty much been narrowed down to being the Sound Blasters fault technically.
The PCI bus is simply and old design and the SBs push it to its limits.

I could never get any of my sound blasters to operate properly on multiple VIA chipsets and even my Nforces.
I would ditch the sound blaster regardless of what is causing your problem and get the onboard to operate properly.
If you cannot get that to work, consider a motherboard upgrade as silly as that sounds... for your sound.

----
Yeah, thats right. I support the NV/AMD/IBM axis of evil.

 

[Codesmith]

It could be software, but very likely its EMIe

I am not even supposed to let a single speaker pass over the top of my Digital 7.1 Reciever. So just imagine what that unwholesome pile of motors, high speed buses and high frequency circuits inside your PC is doing to your poor sound card!

Most likely something inside your PC started producing a lot more EMI that it is supposed to. It would be really nice if it was something simple to replace like a fan or an ethernet card.

You could try removing absolutely everyhing that you can while still being able to boot and play a sound file. Try swaping out the things you can remove with spares. Maybe disconnect a few non essentail fans while playing music.

Of course the real solution (or the real expensive solution) for anyone who purchased Klipshe 4.1 Speakers is to use your sound card digital output to connect to an external decoder/reciever.

Both my PCs are digitally connected to my Pioneer VSX D912K and since the sound cards are just pushing bits arround the sound is perfect!