Sound Card Crackling Noises

[pinkpantherx]

I know that there have been several posts like this but i have tried all their sugestions.
The problem is when the CPU is under and stress there are crackling noises. The speakers are good, and i just bought a new sound card...it was making the noises with both cards.

Any ideas you may have would be great

System
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D
evga 7900Gt
AMD Opty 165
antech true power 2.0 550W

 

[uncle_ben]

if crackles occur when CPU is under stress, so are the PCI busses. Therefore

(1)Test this card in all PCI slots

(2)Turn onboard sound off in BIOS

(3)Change PCI latency values - simply play with them to find an optimum one

Theoretically for better PCI performance, a longer latency should be used.
So try increasing it to 64 cycles or even 128 cycles. But bear in mind the optimal value for every single system can be different. On the other hand a long latency can also reduce performance as the other PCI devices queuing up may be stalled for too long. Sound cards send relatively short bursts of data to the PCI bus more frequently then e.g. graphics cards. So shorter PCI latencies (e.g. 32) can work out better. Try it.

 

[pinkpantherx]

okay, thank you ill try those.

 

[chocobocorey]

im in the same boat as you panther. audigy 2 zs does that sometimes too

 

[Codesmith]

Have you tested the sound card with another set of speakers or headphones?

 

[pinkpantherx]

Yes i have tested the speakers and they are not the problem

 

[chocobocorey]

i think it was just a matter of interference even though my cell phone was pretty far away.. now i keep it VERY far away

 

[halcyon]

This may sound irrelevant, but I don't think it is... Have you tried upgrading your mobo to the latest bios?

Check this, it may relate...

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=61926

 

[linux_0]

I suggest you use

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-2.4.iso or

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso

to test the card and see if it does the same thing


http://forumz.tomshardware.com/software/memtest86-ISO-burning-HOWTO-ftopict230767.html


http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/download/ISORecorderV2RC1.msi

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/HowTo.htm

 

[anton]

I had this prob - make sure you have the latest audio drivers for your card. That may help.

 

[linux_0]

I had this prob - make sure you have the latest audio drivers for your card. That may help.

The latest drivers should always help in theory! I've had mixed luck with Creative drivers :?

 

[Human1]

I also had problems with my audigy 2zs. After tons of fiddling with things I figured out that it was my anti-virus program causing the problems. I don't know why, but Norton didn't play well with creative. So I canned Norton and went with ZA. Problem solved.
This probably isn't the same problem, but it's another thing to check anyway. 😀

 

[linux_0]

I also had problems with my audigy 2zs. After tons of fiddling with things I figured out that it was my anti-virus program causing the problems. I don't know why, but Norton didn't play well with creative. So I canned Norton and went with ZA. Problem solved.
This probably isn't the same problem, but it's another thing to check anyway. 😀

Indeed, it might be something like that or something else hogging the CPU.

:-D

 

[willcgi]

I have an audigy2 and have noticed the same thing... I found out that it was my wireless optical mouse that was causing this interference. Most likley its the actual wireless signal getting amplified. I just keep my speakers at a level were i dont hear it.

 

[furbag]

This may sound too simple but,try resetting all off your sound card settings to default and restart the application. This worked for my x-fi.

 

[linux_0]

I have an audigy2 and have noticed the same thing... I found out that it was my wireless optical mouse that was causing this interference. Most likley its the actual wireless signal getting amplified. I just keep my speakers at a level were i dont hear it.

There are many sources of interference in and around PCs so it could be anything causing the noise or any combination of sources of interference.


That trick does work to a point :-D

 

[halcyon]

I had this same problem earlier today and I couldn't believe it! Fortunately, I had my Harmon Kardon soundsticks plugged in...they're digital via USB, they don't use the X-Fi at all, in any way.

So...I switched the output to them to see if the crackling was still there...and sure enough it was. That kind of locked down for me that it wasn't the X-fi after all. I played with the settings and then I rebooted and the crackling was gone.

I can't figure what might have caused this. I have a USB bluetooth optical mouse, and per an earlier post, I'd wondered if that was it...but I've had that and it wasn't until today that I heard that little crackl'n. HOWEVER, I did rebuild this rig yesterday, putting in in a new Cooler Master case, adding RAID-0, ebuilding the OS from scratch, and toying with different mini-plugs (in search of the most signal-accurate sound).

I don't know which of these activities might have triggered the Phantom crackl'n noise. It only lasted about 10 minutes or so, I until I rebooted...but the fact that it was just as apparent with the HK SoundSticks, again, leads me to believe it may not have been the X-Fi at all...or maybe it was....

Well, its gone...I'll have to give some more thought about what I did that might have triggered this. I'll continue to tear down my rig at a moment's notice should it not be obedient, so I hope that's not the cause. 8O

 

[linux_0]

I had this same problem earlier today and I couldn't believe it! Fortunately, I had my Harmon Kardon soundsticks plugged in...they're digital via USB, they don't use the X-Fi at all, in any way.

So...I switched the output to them to see if the crackling was still there...and sure enough it was. That kind of locked down for me that it wasn't the X-fi after all. I played with the settings and then I rebooted and the crackling was gone.

I can't figure what might have caused this. I have a USB bluetooth optical mouse, and per an earlier post, I'd wondered if that was it...but I've had that and it wasn't until today that I heard that little crackl'n. HOWEVER, I did rebuild this rig yesterday, putting in in a new Cooler Master case, adding RAID-0, ebuilding the OS from scratch, and toying with different mini-plugs (in search of the most signal-accurate sound).

I don't know which of these activities might have triggered the Phantom crackl'n noise. It only lasted about 10 minutes or so, I until I rebooted...but the fact that it was just as apparent with the HK SoundSticks, again, leads me to believe it may not have been the X-Fi at all...or maybe it was....

Well, its gone...I'll have to give some more thought about what I did that might have triggered this. I'll continue to tear down my rig at a moment's notice should it not be obedient, so I hope that's not the cause. 8O

Many of my PCs have done that for decades.

i.e. moving the mouse triggers some funky noises on the sound card :-(

This was true even before mice were USB.

IIRC my serial and PS/2 mice did the same thing.

Have you tried Linux?

:-D

 

[greyambience]

I just made an account to give my solution to a similar problem:

I had cracking stuttering from a Focusrite soundcard and after installing LatencyMon and running the test it told me I could have a network issue that cause the problem. I disabled my network card and the problem was gone. I then bought a PCIe intel network card and disabled the onboard network card and the problem is gone. I guess my motherboard is getting old.