Post by thread:[OT]: Sound Card Acting Weird.

Hello friends, I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing songs very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does is that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it spins on a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens like every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried another one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be going on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but to no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. ********************************* Get your free E-Mail and Homepage Go to http://www.networld.com ********************************* -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

Maybe the slot that you tried the card(s) in??? Try the card in another computer if you can... Quoting Vic Lopez <spam_OUTlopezTakeThisOuTNETWORLD.COM>: {Quote hidden}> Hello friends, > I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing songs > very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does is > that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it spins on > a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens like > every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried another > one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to > happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be going > on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but to > no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. > > > > > ********************************* > Get your free E-Mail and Homepage > Go to http://www.networld.com > ********************************* > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics > (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics > ---------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://www.mywaterloo.ca -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

Sounds like either the laser optics in the CD player need a clean - or they need replacing! Cleaning is simple provided you are careful. Remove covers etc so you can see the lens system & very gently brush with a small brush. Blow with clean air. Don't be fooled if it "looks" clean - they usually do but a cleanup will generally restore things as they should be. Be careful not to scratch the lens - it is probably plastic - and don't use a solvent as this can make things worse Richard P Hello friends, I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing songs very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does is that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it spins on a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens like every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried another one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be going on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but to no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. ********************************* Get your free E-Mail and Homepage Go to http://www.networld.com ********************************* -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

It not the sound card problem. Very likely to be the driver, or memory-shortage problem. Tried remove the sound card device driver, and a re-install the driver. Make sure your driver is the right-one and setup correctly. If this can't cure, and you do not have much invested on your system, you can try reinstall window. Ling SM {Quote hidden}> Jai, > Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try another slot. The second card > I tried works well in another computer, but didn't work well either in > mine. I'll give report. Regards. Vic > > > Hello friends, > > > I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing > > songs > > > very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does > > is > > > that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it > > spins on > > > a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens > > like > > > every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried > > another > > > one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to > > > happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be > > going > > > on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but > > to > > > no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

Its possibly an IRQ sharing problem. I got this when my sound card was sharing an IRQ with the USB ports. Some sound cards are happy to share - others arent. Try moving the card to another slot - it might help Regards Dom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vic Lopez" <.....lopezKILLspam@spam@NETWORLD.COM> To: <PICLISTKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 9:40 AM Subject: Re: [OT]: Sound Card Acting Weird. {Quote hidden}> You know what? I think you are right.Is not the sound card, but > something else. This is what I have done so far: > > 1. Tried another card. It did the same thing. (So, is not the card.) > 2. Re-installed Windows(98). Same thing. > 3. Re-installed driver from original CD that came w/card.Same result. > > So, maybe you are right about the memory issue, although my brother > had a system close to mine with same memory size and had no problems > playing music. I'll look into adding more memory though. Thanks a lot > for your input. Regards. Vic Lopez > > {Original Message removed}

A short explanation of what causes this might help you track down the problem. When a sound card is told to play some wav information, the computer loads the card's buffer up with data and the card starts playing from there. Tha data is usually loaded via DMA (ie, the sound card grabs it from the computer's memory at the computer's request). When the sound card has played through the buffer it issues an interrupt, and the computer refills the buffer. If the buffer is not refilled and the computer does not issue a stop playing command, the sound card continues to play looping through the buffer again. I'm uncertian whether it issues an interrupt each time it runs through the buffer, or if it holds the interrupt high until it's serviced. The upshot of this is that you need: One non-shared IRQ One non-shared DMA channel Good driver installation Non-busy machine so the driver can service the hardware when needed. If the sound card is ISA then you have to carefully check out whether the IRQ and DMA channels are seperate from other devices, or if the system has mistakenly loaded drivers for non-existant devices on those IRQ and DMA channels. If your ISA card is not plug-n-play then you need to make sure that the BIOS is assigning the IRQs the card is set up for to the ISA bus, and isn't trying to give them to any PCI devices. If the card is PCI you have less to worry about since the computer can usually manage shared IRQs among pci devices fine. If you have an AGP card, its IRQ is usually shared with the first PCI slot right next to it, so it's best if you leave that slot empty. Lastly, if it is PCI, you can usually find a BIOS function which will erase the old PnP data and reassign all the IRQs, DMA, etc among the PCI devices and ISA bus. If nothing else works, supect the motherboard of having a problem. Get the latest BIOS, find out if other users have experienced this problem. Buy a better (not cheap) motherboard and sound card. You will typically never see these problems on good motherboards and good sound cards. Many older, cheap motherboards have issues with PnP devices. -Adam Vic Lopez wrote: {Quote hidden}>Hello friends, > I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing songs >very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does is >that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it spins on >a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens like >every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried another >one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to >happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be going >on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but to >no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. > > > > >********************************* >Get your free E-Mail and Homepage >Go to http://www.networld.com >********************************* > >-- >http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics >(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics > > > > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

Sorry - Disregard - I missed the mention of the hard drive. If it is happenning with the hard drive as well as the CD it must be a system problem! RP Sounds like either the laser optics in the CD player need a clean - or they need replacing! Cleaning is simple provided you are careful. Remove covers etc so you can see the lens system & very gently brush with a small brush. Blow with clean air. Don't be fooled if it "looks" clean - they usually do but a cleanup will generally restore things as they should be. Be careful not to scratch the lens - it is probably plastic - and don't use a solvent as this can make things worse Richard P Hello friends, I am looking for some pointers. My sound card is not playing songs very well ( both from CD's and from the hard drive ). What it does is that as it plays a song, it kind of gets stuck for a second it spins on a spot and sounds like a small machine-gun. This operation happens like every 5 seconds. I thought it was the sound card, but I tried another one and is the same deal. It is VERY bothersome.This didn't used to happen. Can you kind people give me pointers as to what may be going on? I eliminated potential programs running in the bakcground, but to no avail. Thanks in advance. Vic Lopez. ********************************* Get your free E-Mail and Homepage Go to http://www.networld.com ********************************* -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.