Audigy2 NX skips occasionally - any idea what's wrong?

[nleahcim]

Hi - I just recently got an Audigy2 NX (the USB 2.0 Audigy). Anyways - sound skips occasionally with it. Well I dunno if you'd say skips, or stutters, or what. But you get the idea... I don't know what could be causing it though - it's connected to one of my laptop's two usb 2.0 ports. My computer's load pretty much never goes above 30% or so, so that can't be the cause either (I would think). My only guess is that the other usb device attached (a usb 2.0 external hard drive) is using too much bandwidth? But that seems horribly unlikely - as it happens at random times, not when I'm specifically using that hard drive. I mean like I just tried copying a 700MB file from the external drive to my internal drive, and the music never skipped a beat. Any ideas as to what could be going on? This is starting to really bug me! Thanks!

 

[gychang]

oops!, I have one on order..., hope it doesn't caused the same problem.

do u have the same problem with latest driver and after rebooting without any other programs running?, antivirus programs?

gychang

 

[nleahcim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gychang oops!, I have one on order..., hope it doesn't caused the same problem. do u have the same problem with latest driver and after rebooting without any other programs running?, antivirus programs? gychang

Yes, yes, and yes.

 

[wolfen68]

Make sure you have the latest driver off of the Creative site. I don't know about the USB version, but other Audigy's have had trouble with PCI bus bandwidth and can stutter when the bus gets hogged.

I have one rig now where the Audigy always skips when I activate the PCI slot modem, or occasionally as I scroll the mouse wheel (USB). I know that a driver update will fix this (as I installed it on my second computer and it works), but I haven't bothered yet.

You'll also notice that the driver update history actually mentions this issue, so try that first.

 

[nleahcim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 Make sure you have the latest driver off of the Creative site. I don't know about the USB version, but other Audigy's have had trouble with PCI bus bandwidth and can stutter when the bus gets hogged. I have one rig now where the Audigy always skips when I activate the PCI slot modem, or occasionally as I scroll the mouse wheel (USB). I know that a driver update will fix this (as I installed it on my second computer and it works), but I haven't bothered yet. You'll also notice that the driver update history actually mentions this issue, so try that first.

Just tried installing the drivers that were released earlier this month. Still no improvement. I've noticed one thing that always makes it about 100 times worse - using my CF-PCMCIA adapter. Whenever I access files on a CF card in the adapter - audio almost completely stops working. I removed the cf adapter for now - but the problem still persists

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleahcim Just tried installing the drivers that were released earlier this month. Still no improvement. I've noticed one thing that always makes it about 100 times worse - using my CF-PCMCIA adapter. Whenever I access files on a CF card in the adapter - audio almost completely stops working. I removed the cf adapter for now - but the problem still persists

Using Windows XP?

Just out of curiosity, check out your IRQ's throught the Device Manager and see how many devices are sharing the Interrupt Request with your usb soundcard. Used to be a big issue with older OS's...still a problem in XP sometimes even though they say it isn't.

I've fixed this on other's computers by changing card slots...but that doesn't help much with a usb device (unless your MB allows manual designation of IRQ allocation)....

Another resolution worth pursuing is updating your motherboard bios and chipset drivers. This will often correct similar issues on desktops....I don't know much about laptops however.....

Good luck.

 

[nleahcim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 Using Windows XP? Just out of curiosity, check out your IRQ's throught the Device Manager and see how many devices are sharing the Interrupt Request with your usb soundcard. Used to be a big issue with older OS's...still a problem in XP sometimes even though they say it isn't. I've fixed this on other's computers by changing card slots...but that doesn't help much with a usb device (unless your MB allows manual designation of IRQ allocation).... Another resolution worth pursuing is updating your motherboard bios and chipset drivers. This will often correct similar issues on desktops....I don't know much about laptops however..... Good luck.

OK - well I just updated the bios to the newest revision and installed the newest chipset drivers - and still the same symptoms persist. I'm running XP Pro SP2, btw. Computer is a Dell D600.

I can't seem to figure out how to check which device is using which IRQ? How do I do that?

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleahcim OK - well I just updated the bios to the newest revision and installed the newest chipset drivers - and still the same symptoms persist. I'm running XP Pro SP2, btw. Computer is a Dell D600. I can't seem to figure out how to check which device is using which IRQ? How do I do that?

You're definitely working hard to resolve this....

I'm at an NT machine now...but from memory go to the device manager, right click the "computer" line item at the top of the device manager list and pick properties. A box pops up with three to four tabs...one of them is "interrrupt requests" or something like that. Look for what controls your sound card (it might be one of the usb controllers in your case) and see what other components shares it's value. Less in this case is better.

Maybe a better first step is to totally uninstall the soundcard and it's drivers. Search for a utility called "drivercleaner" and use it to remove the remnants of any and all creative drivers (or fragments) that are still lurking in your system (I think this utility supports audigys...make sure to check this). Either way search the internet an do everything you can find to get the creative stuff out.

Once done, reinstall the sound card and only use newest full driver for the install...so it's a one shot deal. With my audigy2, they released an updated driver that is a full version so you don't need any older files...and it has worked lickedly split for me. Hopefully the same for your USB version.

See where that gets you.........

 

[nleahcim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 You're definitely working hard to resolve this.... I'm at an NT machine now...but from memory go to the device manager, right click the "computer" line item at the top of the device manager list and pick properties. A box pops up with three to four tabs...one of them is "interrrupt requests" or something like that. Look for what controls your sound card (it might be one of the usb controllers in your case) and see what other components shares it's value. Less in this case is better. Maybe a better first step is to totally uninstall the soundcard and it's drivers. Search for a utility called "drivercleaner" and use it to remove the remnants of any and all creative drivers (or fragments) that are still lurking in your system (I think this utility supports audigys...make sure to check this). Either way search the internet an do everything you can find to get the creative stuff out. Once done, reinstall the sound card and only use newest full driver for the install...so it's a one shot deal. With my audigy2, they released an updated driver that is a full version so you don't need any older files...and it has worked lickedly split for me. Hopefully the same for your USB version. See where that gets you.........

Yeah - this is definitely a big deal to me. It's bad enough that if I can't fix it I'll just replace that damned thing.

Well - I can find the IRQ for most devices by going to the resources tab of their properties window from device manager - but the audigy has no such tab :-/.

About reinstalling the driviers - I may give that a shot. That's always scary with Creative Labs though...