Windows audio problem

[dave at microway.com (David Backeberg)]

I've seen something similar before a few years ago but I don't remember how I 
remedied it...

an idea:
You only mention playing cds as your audio souce. A k6-2 500 is more than fast 
enough to play on mp3 or wav file. Do digital audio files produce the static 
too or is it only when playing cds? To the best of my knowledge, Windows 
beyond a certain version can play cds digitally through the ide cable, rather 
than routing the sound through those tiny audio cables that join the sound 
card and the cd drive.

If you figure out that digital audio files don't produce the crackle, you 
might try playing cds with that tiny audio cable detached, to see if it's 
confusing Windows.

On Thursday 29 April 2004 18:58, edwardp at operamail.com wrote:
> (Per suggestion of Jerry F., what follows is a description of an audio
> problem I'm having under Windows XP Home.  Strangely enough, this same
> problem does not occur under Linux, so I do not believe it is a hardware
> issue.)
>
> --
>
> I recently upgraded from 98SE to XP Home, and
> unfortunately, still have an audio problem.  I do not
> believe this is hardware related, as Linux also runs on
> the same hardware, and I am not having any audio problems
> whatsoever under Linux.
>
> Whenever a music CD is played under XP Home, and this is
> regardless of which program is used (Windows Media Player
> 9, RealPlayer, or Nero Media Player), audio will sound
> crackled/has static when menus fade in, if a web browser
> is open and web pages are scrolled (This goes double when
> there is a Flash-based advertisement on the same page,
> the static gets worse in this instance.)
>
> The CPU is an AMD K6-2 with 3D Now at 500 MHz, memory is
> 512 Mb, and the sound card is a Creative SoundBlaster 5.1
> Live.  Both the original drivers that installed with XP
> Home, and updated drivers from Creative's web site did
> not remedy the problem.
>
> Please note that under Windows 98SE on this same
> hardware, the same problem occurred, except only under
> Windows Media Player 9.  RealPlayer and Nero did not
> cause the same under 98SE.
>
> I have checked various settings in both Windows Media and
> RealPlayer.  A setting changed in RealPlayer caused the
> static to stop, however this resulted in the quality of
> the audio to diminish considerably.  Nothing changed in
> the Windows Media settings caused the static to stop.
>
> Since the fading-in of menus also cause brief static with
> the audio, I disabled this in an attempt to remedy the
> problem, however it did not resolve the problem.
>
> As I do not believe this is hardware-related, are there
> any settings in XP Home that are not necessary and can be
> temporarily disabled to see if that remedies the
> problem?  At this point, I am guessing that perhaps XP
> Home as installed, is too much of a strain on this
> system, which is causing this problem?

-- 
David Backeberg (dave at microway.com)
Microway Technical Support - http://www.microway.com

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