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crackles due to PCI bus noise?

post #1 of 40
2/24/07 at 5:32pm
Thread Starter 
I thought my X-fi gone bad because all suddenly I got crackles in my left driver only. Then I thought it was my amp but when playing non cd music I do get it still connecting my 750 directly to the soundcards. Have both the X-meridian and X-fi now so since I get crackles with both I think it´s PCI noise I got all of a sudden.

On our other computer don´t have this at all...

Anyway is there any solutions for this? It seems to get worse the longer I run the computer...
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post #2 of 40
2/24/07 at 6:13pm
What power supply do you have and how many PCI slots do you have occupied? It's possible that cheap(er) PSUs cannot provide even voltage to too many PCI devices.
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post #3 of 40
2/24/07 at 6:24pm
people say that sometimes is simply because the X-Fi Driver is not compatible with some mother board.

I had the same issue before, but mine is crackling on both side. I tried many way to solve it, but none of them work. Eventually, I realized that the card actually sounded fine at the moment before installing the driver. (the sound effect at the beginning of the driver installation.

I soon realized that it was all because of crappy driver,

After, I found a third party driver call YouP-PAX

and it actually works.

but I still wondering, what the hell was creative thinking when they wrote their driver for X-Fi,

I mean, even a third party programmer can do it, and why can't they do it, after all, they design the card

So, I reached a conclusion, I will not buy creative sound card again. I am moving to Juli@ for the next computer upgrade
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post #4 of 40
2/24/07 at 6:29pm
X-fi has compatibility problems with nForce motherboards, which means many AMD users are SOL However I don't think that's oqvist's problem:

Quote:
Have both the X-meridian and X-fi now so since I get crackles with both I think it´s PCI noise
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post #5 of 40
2/24/07 at 6:37pm
Wow I've been having this problem with my X-fi for quite some time now, I have Altec Lansing 621 speakers which sound amazing hooked up to any other source. But when hooked up to my pc, they crackle and pop when the volume panel on the pc is turned up past 3/4 or so. I hope this is a driver problem.
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post #6 of 40
2/25/07 at 1:22am
Thread Starter 
Yes it´s not the creative drivers they are great for me.

The thing is I got the exact same crackles when replaying a mp3 that got it. But if I play the same mp3 on our other computer which has an Audigy 2 I don´t get it at all.

Will see if I get it from a freshly booted computer as well...

PSU is a Silverstone Zeus 850 W and it sure gives steady voltage...
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post #7 of 40
2/25/07 at 2:13am
Have you tried messing with the hardware acceleration settings on either the soundcard or the video?

Do you have a video card in a PCI slot? That can wreak havoc if the card skips error correction to increase apparent speed. AGP shouldn't have such problems.

Have you tried using the ASIO4ALL plugin for foobar or winamp to bypass the kmixer entirely? See EnOYiN's explanation in the article, ASIO4All Explanation.

I'd like to know what else you try!

Terry
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post #8 of 40
2/25/07 at 2:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tbritton View Post
Do you have a video card in a PCI slot? That can wreak havoc if the card skips error correction to increase apparent speed. AGP shouldn't have such problems.
I vaguely remember something about that being the main cause of X-fi crackles (EAX5 and all require higher data input rate to function).

It could be some unfortunate motherboard tracing, too. Have you tried the cards in other PCI slots?
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post #9 of 40
2/25/07 at 6:50am
Try changing your pci latency settings if possible.
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post #10 of 40
2/25/07 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by oqvist View Post
Yes it´s not the creative drivers they are great for me.

The thing is I got the exact same crackles when replaying a mp3 that got it. But if I play the same mp3 on our other computer which has an Audigy 2 I don´t get it at all.

Will see if I get it from a freshly booted computer as well...

PSU is a Silverstone Zeus 850 W and it sure gives steady voltage...
try to install the driver that I had mentioned above and see if it works. Because the card works on my sis's computer with the original driver too.
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post #11 of 40
2/25/07 at 11:45am
It says here the driver is for SB Live and Audigy cards and not X-Fi as the OP has.

http://www.driverheaven.net/audio-ge...d-drivers.html
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post #12 of 40
2/25/07 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
I am not using the kx drivers. They kind of suck with no EAX support... I still need to game with this card and since I get same issues with the X-meridian other soundcarddrivers won´t help.

I have a PCI E videocard 8800 GTX... my two soundcards is using the lowest PCI buses.

At what latencies can these run at while still being stable?

I will try ASIO4All and everything else all that it´s all news for me .
I tried mp3gain and it surely helped though strange that I didn´t get this on the other computer as well... Though Audigy 2 is not as good as the X-fi or Xmeridian...
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post #13 of 40
2/25/07 at 5:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by oqvist View Post
I am not using the kx drivers. They kind of suck with no EAX support... I still need to game with this card and since I get same issues with the X-meridian other soundcarddrivers won´t help.

I have a PCI E videocard 8800 GTX... my two soundcards is using the lowest PCI buses.

At what latencies can these run at while still being stable?

I will try ASIO4All and everything else all that it´s all news for me .
I tried mp3gain and it surely helped though strange that I didn´t get this on the other computer as well... Though Audigy 2 is not as good as the X-fi or Xmeridian...
That is strange, indeed! I wonder if the input stages of the X-fi are being overloaded by the files before you mp3gain'ed them? If that is the issue, maybe my workaround for the laptop will help - I use the EQ in Winamp or iTunes, but placed to flat, and turn down the preamp slider. That presents a less "hot" signal to the input stages, and so a less "hot" signal is passed through all the stages. The theory predicating this move is that the EQ preamp slider exists before all other stages of amplification in the chain.

MP3gain lowers the volume even before the signal gets to the EQ preamps.

Terry
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post #14 of 40
2/26/07 at 6:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatticus View Post
It says here the driver is for SB Live and Audigy cards and not X-Fi as the OP has.

http://www.driverheaven.net/audio-ge...d-drivers.html
I am currently using the driver version 3.4

I am pretty sure that it is compatible with X-Fi Because I am using it right now.

just found the original forum here you go

http://www.youp-pax.org/viewthread.p...extra=page%3D1
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post #15 of 40
2/26/07 at 7:05pm
Thread Starter 
ASIO4All didn´t fix it.

I get the crackles both with X-fi and X-meridian (which already has ASIO built in).
I am now heavy considering the headroom micro DAC do I have a green light.
Then the only crackles I would get would be from bad recordings I assume.
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