I get random crackling noises from time to time

mika2salo · Dec 3, 2004, 04:37 PM

Hi all!

I think that kx driver is about 200% times better than audigy drivers but i have 1 problem with it..
when i install kx drivers i start to get ramdom crack noises at time to time.
Crackling is REALLY random.. it can happen during gameplay, music listening, idle.. Time between crackles can be from 20 seconds to few 10 minutes.
I have disabled all -in modules like midi / line-in ports but it doesnt really have any effect.
It can be that something activates crackling really often but i havent figured it out.
My pc doesnt lock up with the sound and everything else works perfectly during the cracks.
With creative audio drivers everything works fine, but sounds lame..

My configuration:

kx-Driver:
Version: 5, 10, 00, 3538c - debug

PC Components:
Creative audigy bulk (Emu10k1)
2 hifi stereo Speakers / headphones
Abit kd7 Mainboard / 512 MB RAM / 1,6 Ghz amd athlon xp CPU / onboard sound disabled
Gainward g-force FX 5200 Graphics card, latest drivers from nvidia.com

Software:
Windows XP Prof. / SP2 / some hotfixes
DirectX 9.0c

I have tried to move audigy card to another pci slot, all drivers in my pc are the newest, resizing buffers, i have reinstalled windows between tests of drivers (3537,3538a,3538c), but nothing seems to help..

I can have missed or reported wrongly some data so if u have any idea please let me now and dont mind my technical report.

ps. I can send url to crackling sample file later when i record 1 to my homepage.

**dj_stick** · Dec 3, 2004, 04:45 PM

does it happen regardless of what speaker cable, headphones etc is plugged in?

mika2salo · Dec 3, 2004, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dj_stick

does it happen regardless of what speaker cable, headphones etc is plugged in?

yes it happens with both, speakers and headphones.

mika2salo · Dec 3, 2004, 05:34 PM

The problem might be caused by my motherboard but im not sure..
cracking popping sounds
was mentioned low latency patch and i downloaded and installed it, but i still can hear crackling. I also configured my pci controls at bios but it helped none/very little.

If someone knows more about pci / motherboard problems with kx drivers please help!

TravelRec. · Dec 5, 2004, 12:25 PM

Hi!

What is your lowest latency without crackles if there´s any? Do you have USB devices running? Try to disable them. Sometimes external hubs or card readers or simply USB-keyboards affect the sound while data polling via USB.

imperia · Jan 17, 2005, 01:32 PM

it seems this is wide spread problem. after fighting with this problem for 1-2 years. today i decided that the problem maybe is coming from PCI Latency of SBLIVE.

Chester01 · Jan 19, 2005, 02:32 PM

it is because you have a via apollo pro 133 chipset or atleast i know that the apollo pro has this affliction also. I have been trying for some time to find a fix for this problem but have found nothing. if you go to guru3d.com, they do have a latency changer tool; would it be better to have a larger latency or a smaller latency? thanks

imperia · Jan 25, 2005, 05:37 AM

too bad that i do not have this chipset:

http://www.georgebreese.com/sites/ge.../net/software/

^^ this is your solution...

Chester01 · Jan 25, 2005, 06:45 PM

i do, ive tried that and it sort of works, not as well as youd think though, especially if I am heavily using my pci bus, such as during a file copy from one drive to another. or really heavy reading of a file such as loading a large program

tklown · Feb 13, 2005, 09:26 AM

I get the same thing, I have a SB Live 5.1 and a Asus a7n8x mobo though

chrisw85 · Feb 18, 2005, 08:45 PM

I get crackling, but it isn't random. It only happens after a MIDI file has played, and then I go to play somthing that goes through the WAV or directsound (direct sound in the end does route to wav output).

So, for example, I can play MP3s on a fresh restart all i want with no crackling, and then as soon as any midi plays, either one i play in WMP or one built into a webpage, and then i go to play another mp3 right after, I will get crackling while the mp3 is playing or anythig going throuhg the wav output.. I should note that it appears to crackle say, when I am switching browser pages, using the mouse buttons or scroll wheel; i.e it seems as though anything using the pci/usb bus is causing the crackle, but only after i play a midi file. I am using a 29MB "Music Theoria" soundfont bank if that makes any difference. The only way for teh crackling to dissapear is to do a fresh restart.

SB Live! (the 16 bit version, it was actually the "MP3" edition) CT4760
AMD athlon 2000XP
MSI 6380E KT3 mobo with VIA KT266/333 chipset
768MB ram
WinXP SP1
latest VIA drivers
latest Kx drivers: 3537

Something I have noticed is that it is using IRQ 17, which is shared with my TI IEEE1394 firewaire card/controller as well as my NEC USB 2.0 card, but if this were the cause, then wouldn't it crackle before playing a MIDI? like all the time? Is the soundfont I'm using to blame? Its Musica Theoria 29MB.

Thanks in advance.

**dj_stick** · Feb 18, 2005, 09:07 PM

please try another soundfont and report the results

chrisw85 · Feb 19, 2005, 03:23 PM

It does it with any soundfont I load, from the stock 4MB creative one to a 128MB one i have. I'm thinking it has to do with the way the soundfonts are loaded into memory and accessed from memory and then when something like WAV/pci bus/usb/etc uses the same resources for hardware buffers or whatnot, i dunno what im talking about, just throwing stuff out there. The card is using the same IRQ 17 as my firewire card and usb 2.0 card, and those use the PCI bus. But, i don't see [technically] how the crackling happens only after the loaded soundfont memory is accessed and not before. It does seem to crackle more often while playing MP3s when larger soundfonts are loaded, and less so when the 4mb is loaded.

I am aware of a bug with the creative hardware/algorithm itself which can lead to crakling when playing MIDIs. [color=blue]http://www.wstco.com/pianosounds/sbliveproblems.htm[/color] That page links to a little tidbit explaining the problem. "Sample clicks during attack phase" Is that a software level bug or hardware? It seems creative is unwilling to fix that. And, I kinda don't want to get a newer card to possibly fix it.

when I load the fonts, they load as:
Engine: EMU8000 ; Bank 0
Target Synth: Both Banks

I should note that the "crackling after playing a midi then playing a mp3" never happened on the creative drivers, but the creative drvers had it's own problems, like the 6db higher on the left channel after while when playing anything through winamp. that got solved by using the kX drivers. WMP would play mp3s fine however on the creative drivers, i suppose it had somthing to do with wav output versus directsound that WMP uses. The kX drivers sound a lot cleaner than the creative ones using the imrproved codec thing on the rear outputs.

If you need any other system specs or how things like software wise are setup, let me know.

Jitter · Feb 19, 2005, 03:36 PM

I was getting crackling every now and then w/ my card and the 3537 drivers as well. The fix for me was changing my display adapter PCI latency to 64. Since ive done that all has been well.

chrisw85 · Feb 21, 2005, 02:22 PM

What do I do to change the latency? I have AGP video card, not PCI, so would that make a diff?

Tipstaff · Feb 21, 2005, 05:49 PM

AGP is just an enhanced PCI bus. There is more to it, but that is the simplest answer I can give you.

As for the PCI Latency Tool v.2.0 you can grab that HERE . Extract to a folder, and run the program. Any devices that have a 0 or 32 in them leave alone. The one for your graphics card (VGA Compatible Controller) is the one you need to look at, and it's usually way too high (probably 200+). Change this one to 128 first, but if, and only if this doesn't correct things then try 64. When you've changed those goto 'Settings/Apply', 'Settings/Save', and reboot.

Also, you if the latency values keep reseting after this it's cuz of Windows. What you do is search through the registry and change every listing of "DisableProgPCILatency" from 0 to 1. This will force Windows to stop resetting the PCI Latency values at startup. You can also put this tool in a folder on the root of your hard drive, and hit 'Settings/Apply on Startup' to force LtcyConfig to make these changes on Windows Startup all the time.

As for making a diff, it can, but not always.

Smoke Screen · Feb 22, 2005, 11:43 PM

I had also this "random crackling effekt",but only with v3538. The older
v3537 works perfect on my HW (Audigy 2ZS on Abit NF-7). Adjusting the
latency of my gfx-card with the mentioned tool didnt help,i changed back
to the older kX-Version and

no more crackling.

crion · Mar 10, 2005, 02:37 PM

My cackling started also when upgrading to 3838h.

The scary thing is that my computer freezes the mouse pointer when this occurs. It occurs mostly when reading from my SCSI boot drive.

I did some rearranging in the computer so I didn't suspect the kX drivers, but now I'm actually leaning on going back to the 37 drivers.

I will report what I find out because this crackling is driving me and my girlfriend crazy, we can't listen to music anymore.. (Foobar 2k Kernel streaming)

Dec 3, 2004, 04:37 PM	#1
mika2salo DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	I get random crackling noises from time to time Hi all! I think that kx driver is about 200% times better than audigy drivers but i have 1 problem with it.. when i install kx drivers i start to get ramdom crack noises at time to time. Crackling is REALLY random.. it can happen during gameplay, music listening, idle.. Time between crackles can be from 20 seconds to few 10 minutes. I have disabled all -in modules like midi / line-in ports but it doesnt really have any effect. It can be that something activates crackling really often but i havent figured it out. My pc doesnt lock up with the sound and everything else works perfectly during the cracks. With creative audio drivers everything works fine, but sounds lame.. My configuration: kx-Driver: Version: 5, 10, 00, 3538c - debug PC Components: Creative audigy bulk (Emu10k1) 2 hifi stereo Speakers / headphones Abit kd7 Mainboard / 512 MB RAM / 1,6 Ghz amd athlon xp CPU / onboard sound disabled Gainward g-force FX 5200 Graphics card, latest drivers from nvidia.com Software: Windows XP Prof. / SP2 / some hotfixes DirectX 9.0c I have tried to move audigy card to another pci slot, all drivers in my pc are the newest, resizing buffers, i have reinstalled windows between tests of drivers (3537,3538a,3538c), but nothing seems to help.. I can have missed or reported wrongly some data so if u have any idea please let me now and dont mind my technical report. ps. I can send url to crackling sample file later when i record 1 to my homepage.

Dec 5, 2004, 12:25 PM	#5
TravelRec. Alternative Audioproductions Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Germany / Sachsen-Anhalt Posts: 1,704 Rep Power: 42	Hi! What is your lowest latency without crackles if there´s any? Do you have USB devices running? Try to disable them. Sometimes external hubs or card readers or simply USB-keyboards affect the sound while data polling via USB. __________________ Always take a look behind.

Jan 19, 2005, 02:32 PM	#7
Chester01 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: St. Cloud, MN Posts: 487 Rep Power: 0	it is because you have a via apollo pro 133 chipset or atleast i know that the apollo pro has this affliction also. I have been trying for some time to find a fix for this problem but have found nothing. if you go to guru3d.com, they do have a latency changer tool; would it be better to have a larger latency or a smaller latency? thanks __________________ COMP: Dual Intel PIII 733 Mhz; GeForce 4 Ti 4600; 1.128 Gb RAM; SB0350 (Audigy 2 ZS Platnium) STEREO(I UPGRADED):Crown Audio K1 and K2 amplifiers (4000 watts at .1% THD ), JL 13w7 Subwoofer (6.5 CF) (2) 18" PR's, Klipsch SB-1's, some cement blocks for speaker stands...

Jan 25, 2005, 06:45 PM	#9
Chester01 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: St. Cloud, MN Posts: 487 Rep Power: 0	i do, ive tried that and it sort of works, not as well as youd think though, especially if I am heavily using my pci bus, such as during a file copy from one drive to another. or really heavy reading of a file such as loading a large program __________________ COMP: Dual Intel PIII 733 Mhz; GeForce 4 Ti 4600; 1.128 Gb RAM; SB0350 (Audigy 2 ZS Platnium) STEREO(I UPGRADED):Crown Audio K1 and K2 amplifiers (4000 watts at .1% THD ), JL 13w7 Subwoofer (6.5 CF) (2) 18" PR's, Klipsch SB-1's, some cement blocks for speaker stands...

Feb 19, 2005, 03:36 PM	#14
Jitter DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 532 Rep Power: 0	I was getting crackling every now and then w/ my card and the 3537 drivers as well. The fix for me was changing my display adapter PCI latency to 64. Since ive done that all has been well. __________________ Sony Vaio PCV-RX670 P4 1.8ghz XP Pro SP2 1 GB PC2100 RAM ATI All in Wonder 9700 pro Audigy 2 ZS Aquamark ~29,500 3dMark03 ~ 5,000

Dec 3, 2004, 05:34 PM	#4
mika2salo DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	The problem might be caused by my motherboard but im not sure.. cracking popping sounds was mentioned low latency patch and i downloaded and installed it, but i still can hear crackling. I also configured my pci controls at bios but it helped none/very little. If someone knows more about pci / motherboard problems with kx drivers please help!

Jan 17, 2005, 01:32 PM	#6
imperia DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Sofia, Bulgaria Posts: 167 Rep Power: 0	it seems this is wide spread problem. after fighting with this problem for 1-2 years. today i decided that the problem maybe is coming from PCI Latency of SBLIVE.

Jan 25, 2005, 05:37 AM	#8
imperia DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Sofia, Bulgaria Posts: 167 Rep Power: 0	too bad that i do not have this chipset: http://www.georgebreese.com/sites/ge.../net/software/ ^^ this is your solution...

Feb 13, 2005, 09:26 AM	#10
tklown DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: NJ Posts: 7 Rep Power: 0	I get the same thing, I have a SB Live 5.1 and a Asus a7n8x mobo though

Feb 18, 2005, 08:45 PM	#11
chrisw85 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	I get crackling, but it isn't random. It only happens after a MIDI file has played, and then I go to play somthing that goes through the WAV or directsound (direct sound in the end does route to wav output). So, for example, I can play MP3s on a fresh restart all i want with no crackling, and then as soon as any midi plays, either one i play in WMP or one built into a webpage, and then i go to play another mp3 right after, I will get crackling while the mp3 is playing or anythig going throuhg the wav output.. I should note that it appears to crackle say, when I am switching browser pages, using the mouse buttons or scroll wheel; i.e it seems as though anything using the pci/usb bus is causing the crackle, but only after i play a midi file. I am using a 29MB "Music Theoria" soundfont bank if that makes any difference. The only way for teh crackling to dissapear is to do a fresh restart. SB Live! (the 16 bit version, it was actually the "MP3" edition) CT4760 AMD athlon 2000XP MSI 6380E KT3 mobo with VIA KT266/333 chipset 768MB ram WinXP SP1 latest VIA drivers latest Kx drivers: 3537 Something I have noticed is that it is using IRQ 17, which is shared with my TI IEEE1394 firewaire card/controller as well as my NEC USB 2.0 card, but if this were the cause, then wouldn't it crackle before playing a MIDI? like all the time? Is the soundfont I'm using to blame? Its Musica Theoria 29MB. Thanks in advance.

Feb 19, 2005, 03:23 PM	#13
chrisw85 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	It does it with any soundfont I load, from the stock 4MB creative one to a 128MB one i have. I'm thinking it has to do with the way the soundfonts are loaded into memory and accessed from memory and then when something like WAV/pci bus/usb/etc uses the same resources for hardware buffers or whatnot, i dunno what im talking about, just throwing stuff out there. The card is using the same IRQ 17 as my firewire card and usb 2.0 card, and those use the PCI bus. But, i don't see [technically] how the crackling happens only after the loaded soundfont memory is accessed and not before. It does seem to crackle more often while playing MP3s when larger soundfonts are loaded, and less so when the 4mb is loaded. I am aware of a bug with the creative hardware/algorithm itself which can lead to crakling when playing MIDIs. [color=blue]http://www.wstco.com/pianosounds/sbliveproblems.htm[/color] That page links to a little tidbit explaining the problem. "Sample clicks during attack phase" Is that a software level bug or hardware? It seems creative is unwilling to fix that. And, I kinda don't want to get a newer card to possibly fix it. when I load the fonts, they load as: Engine: EMU8000 ; Bank 0 Target Synth: Both Banks I should note that the "crackling after playing a midi then playing a mp3" never happened on the creative drivers, but the creative drvers had it's own problems, like the 6db higher on the left channel after while when playing anything through winamp. that got solved by using the kX drivers. WMP would play mp3s fine however on the creative drivers, i suppose it had somthing to do with wav output versus directsound that WMP uses. The kX drivers sound a lot cleaner than the creative ones using the imrproved codec thing on the rear outputs. If you need any other system specs or how things like software wise are setup, let me know.

Feb 21, 2005, 02:22 PM	#15
chrisw85 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	What do I do to change the latency? I have AGP video card, not PCI, so would that make a diff?

Feb 21, 2005, 05:49 PM	#16
Tipstaff DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Toronto Posts: 5,529 Rep Power: 94 System Specs	AGP is just an enhanced PCI bus. There is more to it, but that is the simplest answer I can give you. As for the PCI Latency Tool v.2.0 you can grab that HERE . Extract to a folder, and run the program. Any devices that have a 0 or 32 in them leave alone. The one for your graphics card (VGA Compatible Controller) is the one you need to look at, and it's usually way too high (probably 200+). Change this one to 128 first, but if, and only if this doesn't correct things then try 64. When you've changed those goto 'Settings/Apply', 'Settings/Save', and reboot. Also, you if the latency values keep reseting after this it's cuz of Windows. What you do is search through the registry and change every listing of "DisableProgPCILatency" from 0 to 1. This will force Windows to stop resetting the PCI Latency values at startup. You can also put this tool in a folder on the root of your hard drive, and hit 'Settings/Apply on Startup' to force LtcyConfig to make these changes on Windows Startup all the time. As for making a diff, it can, but not always. __________________ >><<

Feb 22, 2005, 11:43 PM	#17
Smoke Screen DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	I had also this "random crackling effekt",but only with v3538. The older v3537 works perfect on my HW (Audigy 2ZS on Abit NF-7). Adjusting the latency of my gfx-card with the mentioned tool didnt help,i changed back to the older kX-Version and no more crackling.

Mar 10, 2005, 02:37 PM	#18
crion DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 12 Rep Power: 0	My cackling started also when upgrading to 3838h. The scary thing is that my computer freezes the mouse pointer when this occurs. It occurs mostly when reading from my SCSI boot drive. I did some rearranging in the computer so I didn't suspect the kX drivers, but now I'm actually leaning on going back to the 37 drivers. I will report what I find out because this crackling is driving me and my girlfriend crazy, we can't listen to music anymore.. (Foobar 2k Kernel streaming)