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Topic: A strange issue (Read 4061 times) previous topic - next topic
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A strange issue

I experience pops/crackles when simultaneously browsing in IE or Firefox (latest versions) and listening to music (I use foobar2000 but it also happens on itunes, wmp, and winamp).  This never happened in xp and I just upgraded to win7 (i'm mildly technically minded so there were no install or driver issues or anything like that). 

I'm using an Audigy 2 zs and a radeon 2600 and fps 2000 4.1 cambridge setup and this link is the technical layout for the sound card/ speakers which reflects my current setup (look at the 2nd pic under Multi-channel digital out section)  http://support.creative.com/kb/showarticle.aspx?sid=5764    <== I'm just showing this to give you a diagram, I know I don't have any of the features which the support page is talking about, whatever.

Anyway, to give a specific example, while listening to music and simultaneously if I go to browse some Achewood comics, users post comments and images and such and while those images load or if I scroll down the page the issue occurs.  Also crack/popping occurs sometimes when I open a new tab, as another example. 

I thought maybe it could be Flash related?  I've been to other sites that have Flash enabled stuff and my speakers crack/pop.  I don't notice the cracking/popping on the very plain text sites tho.

Another reason I wanted to show that link back there is because these fps2000 use the digital din technology and so I'm wondering if it's an issue with that, but again this never happened in xp.  PSU is strong so I don't think it is that but I don't even honestly know where to begin.  It seems like it's a video card vs. sound card thing and I haven't checked any IRQ setting but I'm pretty sure there's not conflicts.  I've tweaked with the latency of the audigy in both foobar2000 and a 3rd party latency tool.  I use the asio output in foobar2000 and it drastically improves over the direct sound output (meaning the crackling and popping is much less severe using asio)

A strange issue

Reply #1
Try running DPC latency checker as described in this thread. Do you see large spikes while listening to music and browsing, compared to just listening to music?

A strange issue

Reply #2
Try running DPC latency checker as described in this thread. Do you see large spikes while listening to music and browsing, compared to just listening to music?


I did this just now, and (sorry I don't know how to insert an img as I don't post on forums a lot) but the green bars are well below 500 micro seconds while I am just staring at a nonmoving screen and listenin to foobar.

Now, when I go to achewood and scroll around, as described, I get yellow spikes to ~ 1600 micro seconds. (to see what I'm talking about i.e. this scrolling thing == http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/one_strip?b...date%3D01042010

Thanks for your reply sir, I appreciate you helping out such a noob

A strange issue

Reply #3
No problem at all

What sort of graphics card to you have? Is it running the latest drivers? If you disable it under Device Manager, does the crackling audio disappear?

A strange issue

Reply #4
Yes, excellent.  I have a ati radeon 2600 xt and I disabled it in device manager then I performed my scrolling test and wow I am sitting at 200 microsecs!  So you have pinpointed my issue good sir.

What next?    I'm sitting on 640x480 res (ah good ol' win 95 memories).  How to troublshoot this issue?

A strange issue

Reply #5
I initially thought of disabling ATI's power throttling feature called PowerPlay, but it seems your card doesn't support it.

Given that's the case, I would try installing a different set of drivers to the ones you currently have. Download here. Re-enable your graphics card, uninstall the current drivers, and install the downloaded ones. If that doesn't fix anything, try downloading and installing a few other driver versions.

If that still doesn't help, it might be hardware related. It may be that when the graphics card is under load (when you're scrolling around large images, flash videos, etc), it's drawing more power than the power supply can deliver. Some cheaper power supplies claim high wattages (>600W), but have trouble delivering a stable voltage to the motherboard and system components. I'm just speculating here though. Another possibility is that the graphics card isn't making a good connection in the PCIe slot, so pulling it out and re-inserting it may help.

Anyways try the different drivers and let us know how it goes

A strange issue

Reply #6
I'm using an Audigy 2 zs ...

Yet another possibility is an interrupt sharing issue, so perhaps relocating the Audigy to a different PCI slot might help?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

A strange issue

Reply #7
Thank you guys both, I'll try the ideas in both of you guys' posts.  I will get a voltmeter and check the PSU while it's under load and see what's up with that because that may very well be the issue since this PSU I'm using is rather old (almost 5 years now, plus it is from dell lol).  THANKS!!!!

 

A strange issue

Reply #8
I experience pops/crackles when simultaneously browsing in IE or Firefox (latest versions) and listening to music (I use foobar2000 but it also happens on itunes, wmp, and winamp).  This never happened in xp and I just upgraded to win7 (i'm mildly technically minded so there were no install or driver issues or anything like that).

I experienced audio stuttering when I tried Windows 7 for a week. I had never had this problem before, and returning the Windows XP fixed it.

Apparently Microsoft introduced a new audio stack in Windows Vista; that may be the cause.

Some people have fixed the issue by re-installing some drivers: http://thewinforums.com/topic/1966-vista-sound-skipping/