Sound problems in windows 7

Sound problems


When I first put together the computer in question I used the on-board sound with no problems for many months. It is my work computer and is used for video and sound editing. I needed to get a better sound solution as the on-board sound was inadequate. I first bought a Asus Xonar DS 7.1 PCI Sound Card, a relatively cheap card. I disabled the onboard sound and disabled the drivers in windows. I then installed the card then the new drivers. All was fine for a day or two. Then I started to get crackling and distorted sound after a couple of hours use. This would stop after a restart or re-login to windows. I put up with this for a while thinking it was a faulty card and knowing I was going to buy a high quality USB audio interface soon anyway. (I could find no similar problems on forums).


I have now purchased a focusrite saffire 6. Again I uninstalled all the asus drivers before installing the new drivers for this unit. I now get the same problems within a few minutes of switching the computer on except this time it is much worse! Also if I am using a music player (iTunes or Foobar) The sound stops altogether after a song finishes. It starts to go crackly and distorted first then goes dead. At this point Itunes and Foobar won't play a song at all. The programs don't crash but if I try to play something the play head does not move! After this has happened all sounds in windows stop working. Again the only remedy is to reboot.


I would really appreciate some help on this matter as I can't work with this computer in this state. The only solution would be to go back to the onboard sound which I don't want to have to use.


Specs:
Asus p6t se
Intel Core i7 920 (Akasa AK-967 V2 cooling)
Asus GeForce GTX 260
OCZ Gold Low Voltage 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Triple Channel
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB * 4
USB focusrite saffire 6 audio interface
Coolermaster Dominator Case
Corsair TX 650W ATX power supply
windows 7 64 home premium (all current updates installed)



I started to get the problems after installing an Asus Xonar DS 7.1 PCI Sound Card. At the same time I added an aditional HDD (I went from 3 Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TBs to 4).
Could it be a power problem (the USB focusrite saffire 6 audio interface is bus powered)?


Thank in advance
JHollamby

Hi JHollamby,
Have you tried different USB ports as not all are powered the same. Usually the ports found at the back of the pc are the best for power/speed. If it's already in the back try swopping ports.
If the above fails then it's a process of elimination to determine what is producing the crackling.

Are these the most up-to-date drivers you are using from their websites, or just the one of the CD? What kind of crackling noise is this, load/Soft/defferential of high and low? could their be an interfearance from something else?

No, it's not a power problem. It couldbe a CPU throttling problem but probably not.

You're welcome to post the info to have us look at it. To do so, type msinfo32 in the start menu then press enter. File | save on the screen that opens. Zip the saved file then attach the zip here to a post.

As a side note, Realtek HD Audio (onboard) is extremely high quality. Higher than that ASUS card or anything Creative makes, with a much better signal-to-noise ratio. The only reason you'd want a card is to have EAX for gaming....or a professional firewire interface for audio tracking.

Don't know to much about the quality of many Sound cards But One's I have tried and used, I would recommend Realtek HD or Sound Blaster with EAX (PCI-E) But do send us the information for us to look at, on another note I have experiaced PC's that have cheap, rubbishy PSU's that they can have and horrible impact on sound and recording performance. Don't ask me why, but it does, Trust me.

Originally Posted by Firecracker

rubbishy PSU's that they can have and horrible impact on sound and recording performance. Don't ask me why, but it does, Trust me.

The psu is not the reason so much. It's the grounding in the case being unwell and/or the power being supplied from the wall that causes certain hums or the famed 60 Hz cycle noise.

That's why professional guitarists use Furman power conditioners to supply power to the rigs.

This is one of the many reasons that professional solutions, like firewire interfaces, are not internal to the machine and are stand-alone units. Also because there can actually be interference from the CPU and its circuitry if Spread Spectrum is not enabled in the bios.

Thanks for responding

First off this is not a sound 'quality' issue. This is a problem I have never encountered before.

I have tried all the USB ports on the back. I have tried going back to the onboard sound. I have tried the most up to date and older divers on all 3 sound options I have (onboard, Asus card and the focusrite).

I have tried every combination I can think of.

every time the same thing happens. The sound works fine for a few minutes, some times longer. Then gradually it starts to degrade, pop and crackle. Then soon after the sound stops completely. All sound in any program I am using at the time stops responding.

The even stranger thing is that play heads in music programs literally sop working. It is not that they carry on playing without sound, they won't move when I click play!


I am desperate here. I have wasted so much time trying to figure this out. I need to get on with some work!

Has anyone got any ideas?

You'd be all fixed up by now if you would have followed instructions.

Good luck with that there.

Originally Posted by jHollaby

Thanks for responding

First off this is not a sound 'quality' issue. This is a problem I have never encountered before.

I have tried all the USB ports on the back. I have tried going back to the onboard sound. I have tried the most up to date and older divers on all 3 sound options I have (onboard, Asus card and the focusrite).

I have tried every combination I can think of.

every time the same thing happens. The sound works fine for a few minutes, some times longer. Then gradually it starts to degrade, pop and crackle. Then soon after the sound stops completely. All sound in any program I am using at the time stops responding.

The even stranger thing is that play heads in music programs literally sop working. It is not that they carry on playing without sound, they won't move when I click play!


I am desperate here. I have wasted so much time trying to figure this out. I need to get on with some work!

Has anyone got any ideas?

No, I haven't got any ideas but EXACTLY the same problem using the an Avid Mbox audio interface with W7x64. Works for a while, then distorts and stops altogether routing any audio in and out, whether its Pro Tools or even Windows Media Player.

Do you solve it in the end?????

Cheers, Joe

First off I apologise for not responding to any of the above suggestions.

I was away on a job and then away over Christmas.

I still have not solved the problem.

I have done a clean install on a brand new HDD. It worked fine for a while now exactly the same problem has happened.

While writing a word document and listening to some music, an hour or so in the sound started to crackle and degrade then stopped altogether. All programs still load but if i try any program with a play-head (Windows Media Player, Gom, Adobe Premiere etc...) the play-heads don't move and there is no sound. The VU meter in windows 7 gets stuck as well.

I have tried all USB ports for my USB audio device (I am fairly confident that this is not the problem as it did the same with an internal sound card). The USB audio unit works perfectly on my laptop.

Over Christmas I also bought some new memory (Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Triple Channel) as one of the heat-spreaders on my current OCZ memory was hanging off. However the computer won't boot with this new memory. I posted an entry on the Corsair forum. I was told I needed to reset the bios and enable XMP mode. I reluctantly did this to no avail. The sticks all work individually but not when more than one is installed. I have put the OCZ memory back in for now. I am not impressed with Corsair at all. I don't expect to have to mess with thing on the bios just to change brands of ram (it is exactly the same spec as the OCZ ram).

I don't know if the memory has anything to do with the problem.

If I cant fix this soon I am seriously considering selling the computer for parts and buying a Mac Pro (which will be a lot more expensive to get the same spec).

This is so frustrating. I am willing to try anything.

If you give me some instructions I will follow them and try and diagnose the problem.

Thanks in advance
JHollamby