[MitchRapp]

hey guys
I've just noticed this issue over the past few days of testing Win7x64

When I don't use my sound card for a good 10 minutes, it's as if it goes to "sleep" because as soon as I do something that requires any sound (like the "click" sound when opening a folder), my speakers go POP! and my sound card goes on...

is there a way to tell the sound card to STAY AWAKE !

specs:
Asus M2N-E motherboard with integrated SoundMax ADI1988 audio


very weird huh!

[IvanV]

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but, the only thing I know of which could have an influence on your issue would be "Link State Power Management". Go to Control Panel/Power Options/Change plan Settings (for the selected plan)/Change advanced power settings. There, expand the PCI Express branch for the active plan and set Link State Power Management to off. Hopefully it will work.

[MitchRapp]

It's already off I did put everything else to OFF ... It's a desktop and whenever it's on, it's because I'm using it (never leave it idle or anything) so we'll see if it was another setting (like USB sleep mode...)

[-VK-]

Im going to throw a random one in here....

Is your monitor connected by HDMI to your graphics card? In your monitor settings, try turning the sound off of HDMI....

I had the same problem, and found that the monitor was trying to get sound from the VGA card, causing it to make popping noises.

[MitchRapp]

hmmm no but you know what, my monitor is plugged via DVI but my "HDMI" sound is "on" ... lemme see when I get home later about disabling HDMI sound ... could it be that the ATI drivers installed this "HDMI sound" thing last time? (version 9.9 for Win7 x64)

[MitchRapp]

cmon someone must know... it's driving me bonkers1

- Sound card is idle for more than 5 minutes
- I plug in a USB key or a windows sound plays and POP! my sound card wakes up abruptly...


this started happening ONLY on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
my Vista x64 Ultimate was just fine ...

same sound card - same drivers (vista x64 drivers, the website say it's ok)
same speakers (it's not the speakers, I tried others)


gah!

[MitchRapp]

dang nothing works...
I can confirm that it is the sound card (onboard on the Asus M2N-E) and not my speakers in any way...
and this happens ONLY in Windows 7...

Guess I can get more info after Oct 22nd when more and more people install it and see that there's an issue with the onboard sound drivers

[Tipstaff]

From what I remember the original drivers don't work properly in Windows 7, at least not the ones that are posted for your board. Asus, more specifically ADI, had updated their drivers 1 more time after the ones you have, but only for some boards. Last time I checked there was a post on the net about Asus having updated the drivers for their P5B motherboard, and it was suggested to try those out. The ones you have are probably v.6.10.01.6110, while the newer ones were v.6.10.1.6180. You will have to go to their website to grab it yourself as they no longer have direct linking to their site. Just go to support.asus.com, then to Downloads, Motherboard as the Product, choose Socket 775 as the Series, and P5B as the Series.

However, there's a more recent page that might be of interest right HERE. Can't say if it works or not, but it was suggested to me by someone else, however I never needed to use it. On that site, in the top right corner, is a download to a much more recent driver, listed as v.6.10.2.6030, which also includes a fix for a problem that has plagued the ADI1988 chip under Vista for a long time, and that is that the audio software has a memory leak that can eat up system memory until the system fails.

Be sure to let us know if either of these work out for you.

[MitchRapp]

indeed my current drivers are: SoundMAX Drivers 6.10.01.6110 [Vista x64]

I'm trying the others asap... let u know in a few minutes



ok
uninstalled 6110, rebooted, installed 6.10.2.6030 and rebooted.
I'm going idle for 15 minutes and when I come we'll see if the first noise-related thing I do (like emptying my recycle bin) makes a huge POP first or just does its normal sound without a POP !

[MitchRapp]

alrighty problem appears resolved
one thing i noticed is that a long silence replaces the POP sound now after my sound card was idle for 15 minutes (the issue is Windows 7 basically disabling my sound card after 15 minutes of not using it? I dunno but hey the POP sound is gone!)

Thanks !

[Tipstaff]

Glad it worked out for you.

[MitchRapp]

yeah well the other problem is less of an issue to my ears
instead of a loud POP sound when un-idling my sound card, now it just takes a good 5 seconds to start up (meaning, if I have been idle for a while and I suddenly play a movie/tv show, Windows Media Player freezes a good 5 seconds to initiate the sound card


same thing for shutting down Windows. If my sound card was idle, the shutdown process says "waiting" a couple of seconds because it wants to play the exit sound

no big deal


I upgraded my nVidia nforce drivers (motherboard) but it doesn't look like sound drivers are included
will wait it out...

[Tipstaff]

You'll probably be waiting forever. The audio on that board isn't supplied by Nvidia, but by ADI (aka SoundMax). Realtek is the only company I know of that has kept, or at least put out new AC97 drivers. ADI, even though they may have newer drivers, don't release them personally, instead relying on the manufacturers that use their products to release them. In this case if Asus doesn't put out updated AC97 drivers for that chip then you'll never see them unless someone else decides to for their board.

My advice, get yourself an inexpensive audio card, and ditch the onboard. Something like an old Audigy 1, 2, or 4 card (you can get them dirt cheap on Ebay), or even an X-Fi Xtreme Audio (OEM is cheaper) will run you anywhere from $20-40. Don't go with anything lower though.

[MitchRapp]

da'um I sold my Audigy 2 when I built this PC hah...