Sound card issues.

[Cornish boy]

Hello, Hope someone can help.
After installing my new xonar dg I have interrupted playback of music. Sounds like it's paused but still playing. I have disabled the onboard sound and installed the latest driver.

Running Windows XP home edition version 2002 service pack 2. AMD Athlon XP 2800+ with 3gb DDR. Radeon X1650 series 512 MB.

I have checked with ASUS, only driver available is the same version as the one I got with the card, (5.12.8.1794). Used Driver Finder and the results were all drivers are in date. Disabled on board sound via BIOS and then double checked it. Device manager says no conflicts or issues. IRQ 18 assigned to card, nothing else using it.

In Device manager, under Sound, video and game controllers, I have Asus Xonar DG audio device, Audio codecs, Legacy audio drivers, legacy video capture devices, Media control devices and video codecs.

Can't see anything a miss but doesn't stop it from being a problem and sending me round the bend...

[BillyGoat]

Hi CB,

I'm a little confuddled (don't take much these days). Can you clarify what you mean by "Sounds like it's paused by still playing".

As in, does it sound like it's stuttering and stuck or other?

Is this an internal PCI card?

Even thought the resources are free and unshared, doesn't mean the PCI slot you may have chosen doesn't have a shared bus with another internal card that places a high demand on the PCI bus.

Quite commonly, these sorts of things used to happen with alarming frequency during high production builds, the solution? Move it into another slot.

For example:

slot 1 (towards the bottom of the case) Modem.
Slot 2 - TV Tuner
Slot 3 - Empty.
Slot 4 - AGP / PCI-E / Whatever

Symptoms - oddly, dropped dial up calls to the internet even when tuner not in use.

Solution - move TV tuner to slot 3.

Cheers,

BG

[Cornish boy]

Hi BG, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Basically it sounds like it is stuck for a second then continues on as if nothing has happened, , for example, instead of the word hello, it would hold the e for a second and then continue. Have found a program called DPC Latency Checker and it says "Some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams. To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device Manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time. Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems, internal sound devices, USB host controllers, etc." Now I did this and things went bad for a time, very stupid me, but got it back and here I am, banging my head against the wall again.

Its a self-build machine. Its an internal card with only a USB PCI card and the Radeon in the AGP slot. Have tried moving it around to other slots but no go and also took the USB card out completely but didn't then try other slots as it was the only PCI card in the machine.

If the on-board sound is disabled in BIOS, can it be over ridden by windows???

Don't know if there is a solution to this, I hope so...

Cheers for helping
CB

[BillyGoat]

Ahh, just had a thought!

If you've tried different slots, then that is ruled out.

If the sound is disabled in the BIOS - it's off. Job done - don't worry about that. It's only if it's set to "Auto" that you have issues that can creep back in.

Basics First.

What model of motherboard is it?

My next instinct is that XP is missing the ability to handle the PCI bus and resources correctly.

Have you installed chipset drivers? This is especially so if it's an intel board.

Open Device manager and expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers and tell me what is there!

BG

[Cornish boy]

That's what I thought but its good to hear it from someone else.

Motherboard is VIA kt400a-8237 with AMD Athlon XP 2800+

Don't remember installing any chipset drivers.

2x NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller
2x Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
1x USB Mass Storage Device
8x USB Root Hub
4x VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller

Is it right to have so many?

Thanks

CB

[Cornish boy]

May or may not help but,

I have no Driver installed for the RAID Controller, as I never intend to use this I never got a round to dealing with it.

You never know...

[BillyGoat]

It's running on the Windows stock drivers - you don't have the chipset drivers installed. This is a possible cause.

http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/VIA_4in1_443v.zip

There might be newer ones, but those look like the badger!

Christ....I remember building a machine a long time ago with the KT400-RAID version.

No problem with so many showing - it just got a couple of controllers on board.

Standard Enhanced means it's USB 2 - it would usually be branded Intel XXXX802blar or VIA - means it's running on stock. Open one and check the driver date....2000/2001 more than likely. lol


BG

Edit: RAID drivers will make no difference.

[Cornish boy]

Checked 3 and all July 2001,

Will use that link now and get back to you.

[BillyGoat]

Create a restore point before you start....always worth it.

start > programs > accessories > system tools > system restore.

BG

[Cornish boy]

have run the program but no change, drivers still have the same date on them.

[Cornish boy]

Thanks for trying, going off line now, need to eat and rest.

[BillyGoat]

USB drivers are seperate it seems - those are chipset drivers. I'm having trouble locating - apparently they are supplied through Windows update when you install service packs for that southbridge.

Is the sound still causing problems now?

Another test to see if it's USB/onboard devices is to go into the BIOS and disable all the intergrated stuff - like serial, parallel, usb, sound and see if that helps.

If it does, then it's turning them back on to see which is the problemo.

What BIOS revision is your board too?

BG

[Cornish boy]

Okay here goes,

Disabled Serial and Parallel ports, FDC controller, LAN, Modem, USB Host controller.

Fired it back up and still bad times

BIOS = Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00 PG, looking into that right now. using Driver detective software, see what happens.

CB

[Cornish boy]

Well that's nice.

Driver Detective tells me I have 15 out of date drivers and 4 without drivers, then BiosAgentPlus tells me I have 16 out of date, the BIOS being the extra one. Both want to charge me money to update these but I'm Cornish and don't like spending money needlessly, however can't find new BIOS anywhere else. Not even sure I want to risk flashing the BIOS anyway.

Will check the rest and see what I can find, but first a quick question, would updating to SP3 be a good idea? I haven't before because I read some bad things about it and AMD machines but haven't checked recently.

Cheers for everything,

CB

[BillyGoat]

I'd be running latest SP's and there shouldn't be a need to pay anyone for any drivers - most of it is sh*t anyhow.

Any "new" XP machines currently being produced (yes, there are still XP machines being made....shock) all have SP3 installed, then require an addional 103 odd updates depending on builds......you are quite a way out of date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd not be touching another driver until you are fully patched/updated.

Should have asked that earlier, but kindof take that for granted.

BG