[Get_Zwole]

Hey guys i have about a 3 year old Dell xps 410, this is my soundcard Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic, for some reason when i plug my speakers or headphones into the soundcard via the 1/8th out the music plays fine but every 5 or 10 seconds it skips kinda like the signal isnt getting there fast enough or something. Any ideas as to what it could be? Im about to purchase a Ibasso D4 for a DAC and amp to use with my UM mages will this solve the problem? Also when i plug my headphones into the headphone out on the front of the tower the same thing happens. I dont know that much about computers so i figured someone could offer some advice. thanks.

 

[moogman]

First thing I'd check is whether something is using too much CPU - use Ctrl-Alt--Del and check the performance tab. If it's high most of the time then check the Processes tab to see what's using most CPU (I'm assuming you have Windows XP).

Otherwise it could just be that your hard drive needs defragging [Run Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter]

 

[Get_Zwole]

Thanks for the tips my computer is auto defragmented once a month and was done 2 days ago so i don't think that's the problem. When i check the performance i have the meter on my desktop i have vista my ram is under 53% to 59% max with as much stuff open as i ever have when trying to play audio all i had open was Firefox and win amp. I closed it out and tried Itunes but the same thing kept happening.

Then i try ed again after restarting and updating some firmware and it worked fine for about 20 minutes then started doing it again. Its not that it skips its kinda like there is a hesitation in the music briefly then continues to play afterward. Its very annoying. I don't wanna buy a new DAC if its gonna keep this up until i fix something. Any ideas? thanks for the help.

 

[somestranger26]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get_Zwole /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hey guys i have about a 3 year old Dell xps 410, this is my soundcard Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic, for some reason when i plug my speakers or headphones into the soundcard via the 1/8th out the music plays fine but every 5 or 10 seconds it skips kinda like the signal isnt getting there fast enough or something. Any ideas as to what it could be? Im about to purchase a Ibasso D4 for a DAC and amp to use with my UM mages will this solve the problem? Also when i plug my headphones into the headphone out on the front of the tower the same thing happens. I dont know that much about computers so i figured someone could offer some advice. thanks.

Yank out the sound card and see if your onboard audio has the same problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moogman /img/forum/go_quote.gif First thing I'd check is whether something is using too much CPU - use Ctrl-Alt--Del and check the performance tab. If it's high most of the time then check the Processes tab to see what's using most CPU (I'm assuming you have Windows XP).

Useful knowledge: Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens taskmgr on all versions of Windows.

 

[Get_Zwole]

Quote:

Originally Posted by somestranger26 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yank out the sound card and see if your onboard audio has the same problem. Useful knowledge: Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens taskmgr on all versions of Windows.

I pulled the soundcard out but now it wont play anything and says no audio output device is installed. So i dont know how to test it without the soundcard hooked up.

 

[Get_Zwole]

Hooked it back up and it started back doing it immediately. If it is the soundcard which i dont know for sure would a usb dac eliminate this? It is sounding pretty good just the skipping is killing me. Anyone else have some input?

 

[userlander]

You probably need to install the drivers for your onboard sound for that to work, and possibly also remove the other sound card in device manager.

If it is the card, yes a USB dac will work around the problem. But it seems unlikely it would be that. On the face of it, it seems more like a CPU or system resource problem to me.

Possibly there are IRQ conflicts or something with the soundcard, although these days I think that is pretty rare, and in that case it might not work at all. Maybe your sound drivers for the card need to be updated. I would definitely look into that near the top of the list, make sure you have the latest ones installed.

What version of windoze is it, btw? Sorry if I missed that.

 

[Get_Zwole]

windows vista 32 bit, I went on dell and d/led the current update for the soundcard it was discontinued so the last one was a bit ago but it should be up to date now. Still is doing it. Ram at 59% should have plenty of juice left to run an uninterrupted song right? Man this is frustrating specially since im not really Computer savvy so im really at a loss now.

 

[userlander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get_Zwole /img/forum/go_quote.gif windows vista 32 bit, I went on dell and d/led the current update for the soundcard it was discontinued so the last one was a bit ago but it should be up to date now. Still is doing it. Ram at 59% should have plenty of juice left to run an uninterrupted song right? Man this is frustrating specially since im not really Computer savvy so im really at a loss now.

Try to get your onboard sound working to test that. Take out the card and install the drivers for the onboard, they should be on the dell site but maybe bundled in with others.

The onboard chip should show up in Device manager. You can install the drivers from there by right clicking/opening the device, or some hardware wizard or whatever might come up automatically after you reboot (you did reboot after taking out the soundcard, right?).

If you go back to the soundcard afterward, try putting it in a different IDE slot if you have a spare one.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Run the DPC Latency Checker. See if it displays huge tall red bars indicating big latency lags while playing music. If you see red bars the skips in audio playback will likely correspond to when those red bars show up.

 

[the search never ends]

Useful knowledge: Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens taskmgr on all versions of Windows.
What he said!
And without the annoying prompt.

 

[Get_Zwole]

Ok thanks for all the help guys im gonna try to install the driver hardwar without the soundcard tomorrow i gotta get some rest. Ill keep you posted thanks again.

 

[Lavcat]

Sounds to me like the audio player's output buffer is too small. For foobar I use a Buffer Length setting of 6000 ms. The foobar setting is found under:

File/Preferences/Playback/Output/Buffer Length

 

[grokit]

No offense but rotfl; get a stand-alone cd player/DAC or try a Mac computer so you can just enjoy the music

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get_Zwole /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...im not really Computer savvy so im really at a loss now.

 

[moogman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get_Zwole /img/forum/go_quote.gif i have vista my ram is under 53% to 59% max

Even if you have enough RAM there may be a program which is hogging CPU (processor) time, such as anti-virus software.

Have you tried using a different audio player? Which one are you using?