[jivex5k]

Alright....
For some strange reason my computer has starting crackling whenever I play audio files. It happens at irregular intervals unless I minimize the program I use to play music, then it happens at a regular interval (every second id say). It is not an asio problem, it happens when i use directsound v1 or 2 or waveout. Kernel Streaming doesnt work for me, Asio does but crackles too. It is not a foobar problem because winamp and windows media player crackle. I have tried using 24bit, 32bit, 64bit, 24 padded to 32. They all crackle. I checked my windows audio settings and they are set all the way up. I have the latest drivers for my audio card. It's not a codec problem, it happens with APE, FLAC, MP3, and WAV files. It crackles every time my computer light blinks (the one that means its thinking i suppose). I'm running a Sharp Actius AV18. Im out of ideas please help.
BTW: My sound card is M-Audio Firewire Audiophile which goes to a Corda HA-1 MkII.

 

[Budley007]

That blinking light is probably the one that indicates hard drive activity. You only have 256Meg of RAM I believe if I read the spec sheet right.

I'd recommend you do some Windows XP Tuning. Slim down some resources and see about a memory upgrade. Atleast 512megs if you're going to be running applications with the music in the background.

If none of these tips clear the problem up, I'd suggest contacting the manfacturer's support line.

I can recommend some links that would get you started with the tuning, but all you really need to do is "Google" it and you'll find plenty of resources. (I'm not passing the buck, it just beats waiting for forum replies

)

If that get's you nowhere, just drop another post. We'll be glad to help.

 

[jivex5k]

Well the strange thing about it is that when it started happening I hadn't changed anything on my computer. Ill mess with windows a bit and see what happens. I don't think it applications however because I ran foobar as the only application (only had 17 processes running I believe) and it still would crackle.

 

[Reck45]

I had the same problem turns out it was an IRQ problem. I'm not even exactly sure what IRQ is though lol. I'm assuming it's like some kind of freqency that the cards use to communicate.

Quote:

Change the irq of your soundcard that may help. Start>run type msinfo32 and you can see all your irqs. Sometimes changing it will stop that. Think it can be reassigned in bios. Never done it before though...my soundcard is sharing 5 other irqs without problems though so...

There what I said before when someone here had a similar problem.

 

[Lynn]

Another thing to check is the DMA setting for your harddrive. Check in control panel system settings under your primary and secondary drive controllers. Sometimes, when there are i/o errors, (for instance on a CDROM drive attached to the same channel as your harddrive), and Windows will turn off dma thinking the problem is with DMA support. This can cause the problem you describe.

Another thing to check is task manager. Use the processes tab to monitor which processes are active when the problem occurs (sort by cpu to see what is active). Or, use the performance tab to monitor CPU usage (or you can also set up the tab to monitor disk i/o etc) to see if there is spike in activity when this happens.

Lastly, think some more about what has changed. Have you installed any new device drivers, a windows update? Or perhaps, has your virus scan software recently been updated.

 

[jivex5k]

DMA is enabled however it says the drive are currently using PIO transfer which i guess means the hard disks dont support DMA.
The audio card is sharing an IRQ port with the USB ports. (Audio Card is connected with firewire so i can see why they did that) Unfortunately my down key doesnt work so I'll have to jack a keyboard from work on monday to change the IRQ.
I've checked the task manager while running foobar and the CPU usage stays around 8-12 %.
I hope changing the IRQ will fix this.

 

[Lynn]

I suspect that it not an IRQ problem if your motherboard is fairly new (last couple of years). Modern motherboards using Windows have resolved the IRQ conflict issues by virtualizing the hardware.

You should be able to change the PIO to something like "DMA IF AVAILABLE".

Perhaps a firewire expert can comment for proper setup of Firewire. I have not use a firewire device, but I do know on my machine it is setup as a network device in network neighborhood with all of the usual settings including TCPIP.

I suggest something must have changed, spend some time thinking about what.

 

[Lynn]

One more thought. Is it possible that your defective keyboard is the issue? It is well known that problems with keyboard polling can cause similar affects to an IRQ problem. Trying another keyboard may be the ticket.

 

[lini]

jivex5k: Have you already checked the BIOS setup? Maybe DMA usage for the drive is disabled there...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

P.S.: 256 MByte are really not that much for running Win XP - investing in another 256 MByte so-dimm seems highly recommendable.