pips and pops are driving me nuts

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ideashappen

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I have a 500 mhz AMD 2 3dnow cpu , 320 megs sdram 100 mhz,20.4 g 7200 ultra dma hdd (that is used only for recording) a sblive! value and all the editing apps you could imagine cool edit , pro audio, cubase ,sonic foundry , sound forge ,etc ,etc. My problem is that i get pips in the recordings no matter which app i use . Can someone help me before I go completely frickin' nuts.
 
Well, it sounds like your PC is more than capable. What OS are you running? There are a couple things you should try though. Make sure all non-essential background apps are shut off while recording (auto-insert for CD ROM, Real Player, etc). Make sure you have UDMA turned on for your hard drive (and you're using an ATA66 cable). Turn off hardware acceleration in your display settings, too.

Although, it really sounds to me like you have an IRQ conflict since its happening with all of your apps. Try putting the sound card in a PCI slot with a dedicated IRQ. The manual for your motherboard should give a layout. You may have to assign the IRQ manually in the BIOS, too. If that doesn't work, try taking out all your cards and putting them back in one by one, starting with your sound card.

Good Luck
 
I use win 98 .What is an ATA 66 cable and should I have one?
My Hdd is completely clean just bought zippo on it except apps and inernet.
 
ATA 66

Well, as you probably know, you connect all your IDE devices (Hard drives, CD-ROM, etc) to your motherboard via an IDE chain cable. Older computers (with ATA 33 or less) use a cable that has 40 conductors in it. To get faster burst speeds with the ATA 66, you need the appropriate ATA 66 cable that has 80 conductors in it. ATA 66 cables are usually blue, not grey and are around $15, not $5. There isn't really any better way I know of to tell the difference, except cutting one open. If you're in doubt, fork out the $15 and return it if it doesn't make any difference. Some hard drives now are ATA 100 capable, and those require a different cable too. Also, if you installed the drive yourself, you want to make sure your motherboard is ATA 66 capable, too. You should be able to check this in the manual, or go into the BIOS and look in UDMA settings for your hard drive. If you have the option for UDMA type 5 (I think?!) then it is capable.

But, I want to stress that those type of pops really sound like an IRQ conflict to me! Even with a slow hard drive, you should be able to record two tracks at a time without pops! Hope this helps....

Ben
 
pips&pops

Thanx Gnarled, I'll try the cable and reverify my irq even though in device setting for my blaster says no conflict , is it still possible ?
 
That sucks...I posted a response and now its gone. Oh well, for a brief version of it...

Your computer has a limited number of IRQs and for this reason it has to allocate them the best way it sees fit. So, it will assign the same IRQ to more than one thing. Your sound card could be sharing an IRQ, which doesn't generally present a problem unless you're doing something more demanding like recording audio. You can check to see if there is another device using the same IRQ as your sound card in "Computer" properies in the device manager (I think- I use Win2K). If your sound card is using an IRQ that nothing else uses....great. If not, well then its probably because either the PCI slot your in automatically shares one, or you have plug and play on and windows is allocating it that way. There are a number of ways to deal with this...let me know if I can help. Later.
 
Probably an IRQ conflict.

One suggestion I would make would be to remove any modem/fax board you have and see if the problem stops.

On three occasions I have found problems with clicks and pops caused by "WinModems", voice/data modems and modems that use the PC's sound drivers for voicemail type functionality. Give it a shot.
 
pips&pops

Unclethumpy, as a matter of fact I do have a modem but I installed it weeks after the problem so I strongly doubt that is the problem , any other suggestions?
 
ideashappen, read my reply in the other thread on this subject.
 
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