Crackles - yes I already read the related posts in the forum

[Mr_Kee]

Yet another crackle problem.

I had a friend over recording some of her songs the other night and imagine my embarrasment when I found crackles in my system I couldn't get rid of.

I am running Sonar 2.1 XL on the following system:

Athlon XP 1800
512 MB RAM
ASUS MoBo
SB Live 5.1 with Live Drive sound card
NVidia GeForce4 video card
Windows XP Home Edition

I have checked all the connections and have recorded using different mics from inputs on both the live drive and directly into the sound card. In every case I get the crackles. The crackles occur only when sound is being recorded. If I let it record silence I don't get any. I believe these crackles started after an upgrade (MoBo, Processer, RAM)

I have tried the following remedies to no avial:

Uninstalling and reinstalling the sound card drivers (latest from Creative)

Disabling the network as someone suggested in the other post

Uninstalling and reinstalling Sonar

Adjusting the latency settings

Checked that my HDs are operating with DMA enabled

Adjusted hardware excellerattion on the sound card

After 8 hours of troubleshooting I still have crackles. Anyone out there have a suggestion?

Thanks.

 

[James Argo]

Mr_Kee...

ASUS MoBo
SB Live 5.1 with Live Drive sound card
NVidia GeForce4 video card
Windows XP Home Edition

That's the common we got... (beside the crackless in the past ). And unfortunatelly... they are the common problem if being put together But don't worry... If I can work it out, then you might. First, after you upgrade the Mobo, etc... have you reinstall (...I mean CLEAN REINSTALL) Windows XP Home ? If you didn't, then do so... it will take a while, but will get rid all those hours tweakin' the problem. Reinstalling the driver doesn't mean a thing if you didn't CLEAN the uninstalled driver, which I think is not done by Windows. Windows keep several type of file for future refferences even if you had uninstalled the driver. If the problem continue, try to arrange your PCI cards in different way. Swap 'em one each other. If problem continue, call your doctor...














kiddin'... post again...

 

[Mr_Kee]

First, after you upgrade the Mobo, etc... have you reinstall (...I mean CLEAN REINSTALL) Windows XP Home ?

Yep, 4 times including reformatting the HD each time. I finally had to take it into the place that did the upgrade and it took them four days to get the system to run. It was crashing consistently when running graphics intensive programs. They finally found the problem and it has been running great since then, (except for the new crackle problem of course )

If the problem continue, try to arrange your PCI cards in different way. Swap 'em one each other.

I will try rearranging the cards as well as reverting to the SB drivers that came with the os. That will mean my live drive ir port will no longer work but it will be worth it if the crackles go away.

 

[Mr_Kee]

Found it

Well, no one had any more suggestions so I guess that was all anyone knew to do.

I reverted my driver from the latest Creative Labs driver to the original Windows XP driver. This gets rid of the crackles but at the same times makes you lose a lot of the functionality of the card.

No more ir port, no more mixer (you have to use the windows mixer and when you have as many sources as I do it reaches across and off of the screen which sucks since you can't resize it.) No more gaming environment functions etc. . .

 

[James Argo]

Yo Mr_Kee... you never told about the driver you used hehehe.. Yes it's true that you will get better performa with Microsoft driver. Avoid using Creative's driver. Anyway, you don't have to uninstall the whole package. I simply just roll back to previous driver in control panel, thus I don't loose any benefit of the firmware (Audio HQ, Mixer, etc.) Just pull the Microsoft driver back on the line...

(you have to use the windows mixer and when you have as many sources as I do it reaches across and off of the screen which sucks since you can't resize it.)

...get yourself better resolution monitor screen.

 

[Mr_Kee]

Actually I did

Actually I did mention I was using Creatives Drivers in my original post, but that's cool.

I have tried the following remedies to no avial:

Uninstalling and reinstalling the sound card drivers (latest from Creative)

Thanks for the tip on just rolling back the one driver. I will reinstall the Creative drivers and then roll back to the Windows driver to see if I can get the creative mixer to keep working. In my overzealousness to get things working I ripped everything out and started from scratch.

...get yourself better resolution monitor screen.

It's a matter of choice not necessity. My monitor can handle higher resolutions, I am just old and don't like things so tiny Hehe