My audio nightmare

OK. I seem to be having annoying issues right 'bout here.

I'll break it down to simple steps of annoyance:

1. If I use my crappy internal laptop soundcard (RealTek '97) using it's analogue output, everything seems fine. EXCEPT anything

2. If I use my ol' skool Extigy (which I'm sure used to work fine, and DOES INDEED work fine when I use the optical-out from my PS2 to the optical-in to the Extify) connected to the laptop via USB I get the occasional audio drop outs. I'd say I get about 1-2 audio drop outs every 10 minutes, which makes Biosphere fucking annoying when played loud on headphones.

3. If I use the SP/DIF out from my internal soundcard to the extigy using an optical cable to the optical-in on the Extigy (when used as a standalone amplifier) I get the same drop outs as in no 2. but even more frequently and the dropouts are much longer (instead of a click, it's more of a 1/4 second fade out and in)

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON :devil:

The problem is, I have no idea what seems to be going on at all. If I buy a new soundcard then I worry that exactly the same thing will happen again.

It happens with WAVs/MP3s/DVDs etc. etc. basically everything slightly glitches. But in different ways depending on how it's connected.

Help me guys

1. Reformat - It started doing it when I had my laptop fresh.

2. Defrag - I do do frequenty

3. Ram Upgrade - Mwuh ?! I've got a gig, that should be enough especially just to run likkle Winamp (with old skin) playing an mp3

4. Drivers/OS - Latest ones on both soundcards. Running SP2 with all hardware updates

5. BIOS- It's a custom laptop BIOS, you can't really tweak anything apart from Boot Order and Date/Time

6. IRQ sharing - Both soundcards have unique IRQs (which was a bitch to tweak).

7. Soundcard - Problem is that the same thing could happen even with the new'un

Cheers anyway though boss.....

The thing that implies that the system itself isn't shitting itself to an early grave is like I say: The internal soundcard outputting in analogue works completely fine except for the weird metallicy resonance that you get with low frequencied sounds.

mcbpete; you mention that you managed to tweak your soundcards to separate IRQs on your laptop using win xp sp2 i asume. how did you manage that??? Ive IRQ sharing problems but can not solve it. Maybe you could write me a mail or sth or post it right here, how did you tweaked your IRQs???

id realy aprishiate your info if possible... i f cuk ing can not use my firewire soundcard normaly, cause usb and firewire ports have IRQ shareing...

why not try the audigy pcmcia card? if it sucks bring it back?

also have you tried installing or adjusting the ASIO drivers? for the built in card you can use ASIO4ALL and the extigy should come with ASIO drivers, but if not you can use ASIO4ALL also, try making the latency a bit higher and mess with the buffer settings

  plasma said:

mcbpete; you mention that you managed to tweak your soundcards to separate IRQs on your laptop using win xp sp2 i asume. how did you manage that??? Ive IRQ sharing problems but can not solve it. Maybe you could write me a mail or sth or post it right here, how did you tweaked your IRQs???

 

id realy aprishiate your info if possible... i f cuk ing can not use my firewire soundcard normaly, cause usb and firewire ports have IRQ shareing...

Hey man, usually IRQ sharing isn't really a problem and shouldn't be in most cases. The only way I managed to do it on my system is to simply disable the hardware that had the same IRQ (In my case the internal sound-card had the same IRQ as the built-in modem and the external soundcard (extigy) the same as the laptop trackpad).

acid1: I haven't tried it yet (installed, but not tried) but this could indeed be the thing that solves the bastard. Cheers dude

Dagnammit. That wasn't it. Even with a stupidly high latency & buffers it still did the occasional 'ramping' off and on noise. Basically, if I know 100% sure that replacing my external sound card will solve the problem then I'll change it. I just need to make sure that's what it is.....

I've found the solution: http://forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t17630-0.html

More specifically this:

  Quote

Ok, and now the instructions in order to fix the sound dropout bug, as suggested by tb2496:

 

1. Right click "My computer" and select "manage".

 

2. Select the "Device Manager" on the left part of the window.

 

3. On the right part of the window, select "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant control method battery".

 

4. On the dialog box, under "device usage" select "Do not use this device (disable)".

 

You can now listen to music without dropouts, from the internal soundcard or external usb/pcmcia soundcards.

If you go mobile, re-enable this device.

and it also explains why these drop outs didn't happen on my old laptop. Fingers crossed this is it :)

  plasma said:

mcbpete; you mention that you managed to tweak your soundcards to separate IRQs on your laptop using win xp sp2 i asume. how did you manage that??? Ive IRQ sharing problems but can not solve it. Maybe you could write me a mail or sth or post it right here, how did you tweaked your IRQs???

 

id realy aprishiate your info if possible... i f cuk ing can not use my firewire soundcard normaly, cause usb and firewire ports have IRQ shareing...

I had to do this some time ago.

The info I needed was on the microsoft website.

I can't remember the exact procedure but what you have to do is switch from one HAL (hardware abstraction layer) to another, I think you have to go to your device manager, select your 'system' and then change the driver, you don't need to reinstall windows or anything, just switch from blablabla mode to something like 'standard pc mode'.

Some things changed for me after switching from one hal to another (pc used to shut down automatically, now I have to switch if off) but it was worth it.

Anyway check the ms website.

Oh and you can just try different hals, you can always go back to your old settings without fucking anything up.

Metallic sound? I thought that was my imagination. I have the same problem with my indigo i/o soundcard then. Anywizzle. Make sure you disable your other soundcard, fuck with latency and samplerate settings etc. Although thats the obvious thing so I dont really know the problem.

just smack it, thats what i do to my dead grandmothers arse when it wont open

Why do you feel the need to post such a comment?

It's clever nor funny.

Jesus.

*applies ignore function*

  user said:

Why do you feel the need to post such a comment?

It's clever nor funny.

Jesus.

 

*applies ignore function*

sorry i'm a valgur man :arrr:

well i changed to standart pc, worked only when i reinstalled win, then i found out, that my usb and firewire ports are actually so together that they share irq-s always. reinstalled win and now i have a ACPI system WITH the abillity to change IRQs !!! :) but my usb and firewire are still together like (a female and male thingi i supose :P ) enyways i just want to post my model nr and stuff so everyone knows witch mashine has issues;

ibm thinkpad r52 type 1874 43G

but im not jet giving up, ja have a unused pcmcia slot and i will try to buy a usb or firewire card so i can still make music, but the IRQs are a bitch for real!!!

So even after switching to a mode that allowed you to change irqs your usb and firewire cards went back to sharing one?

Did you make sure to change the irg numbers both in windows and in your bios?

jep, did all i could, but i seemes that my model is just not thought for music making :)))) hahaha, but im gone buy a pcmcia firewire card and use my fw soundcard anyway. muahahahahaha :))))

I think think I've finally managed to get this sorted. As well as disabling the advanced battery software for windows, I have also downloaded SpeedSwitch XP. This program prevents swiching of CPU states which apparently lead to this glitching.

Apparently loads of AMD Athlon notebooks have been affected by this problem, and switching between soundcards (pcmcia/usb/firewire) still leads to the glitching effect. How rubbish....

ok buddys,

just got myselfe a pcmcia firewire card and now everything works like a charm, ques thats just that - meaning that tah compuuta isnt perfect yet :)

and now to synths and samples....

The SpeedSwitch XP really seems to have fixed my problem. I'm glad I didn't spash out on another new external soundcard.

I came a little late to this thread, but exactly the same thing happened to me when I bought a new laptop a while back.

Speedswitch XP really sorted it out for me. It took my weeks to find out what was wrong too.

(by the way, as you mentioned biosphere, I saw him live last Thursday and it was awesome. Looks like he was having laptop trounble though - there was an embarassing reboot in the middle of his set)

Ah man, that'd be terrible. A big crash in a Biosphere set would've killed the [i imagine] awesome flow of the set.