Asrock K7s8x sound problem

[matmak]

Hey Peeps

Hope you can help

Board as above, Athlon 2600, 1GB Ram, 80GB HDD, panasonic 106D DVD Burner, MSI MS8348 CD Burner, Sound Blaster 128 PCI (Have disabled on Board in Bios but problem exists with either) Realtek RTL8180 Wireless Lan (On Board Lan disabled in Bios)

Problem:

Sound Playback (I fear that this is more system related but anyhows) can get a few seconds into then slows for a second or two then plays normal for so long then slows for a second or two and so on

All devices installed and working no conflicts event viewer shows absolutely nothing

Any Ideas (Dodgy Board or am I missing something)

 

[matmak]

C'Mon peeps someone must have an idea of whats going on!!!

 

[Peter]

I can't believe people are disabling onboard sound to use a WORSE PCI card.

Apart from that, early Soundblaster PCI solutions are ridden with PCI compliance problems and driver issues.

Re-enable the onboard sound.

 

[matmak]

Peter,

Had you bothered to read the call properly, you would have noticed the Quote "(Have disabled on Board in Bios but problem exists with either)"

I.e. it is not sound related

But thanks for at least taking the time to respond

anyone any other ideas?

 

[Mem]

Do you`ve the latest drivers installed for your onboard sound?...Get them from here .

 

[matmak]

People

PLEASE READ THE CALL

Although it appears to be a sound problem this is merely how the fault is manifesting itself, it is in fact system latency

Anyone any idea?

 

[Peter]

You need to figure out exactly what the system does when this is happening. Disk access (to a drive that has DMA transfers disabled)? CPU throttling itself for thermal problems? Etc.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Play around with the PCI Latency Timer BIOS option.

 

[dbdynsty25]

Have you tried pulling the PCI card out and just running with the onboard sound? Try that and see if it still shows.

 

[matmak]

Guys,

thanks for all your suggestions (helpfull and otherwise) problem resolved, trwacked it down to unsigned drivers for the Realtek 8180 Wireless Lan card,

Problem now resolved and thanks for the input

 

[Boonesmi]

i still dont understand why you would use the pci soundblaster card?? your motherboards onboard sound is a much better option.

 

[will889]

Originally posted by: Boonesmi
i still dont understand why you would use the pci soundblaster card?? your motherboards onboard sound is a much better option.

Explain to me how AC97 is a option better in general than an add-in PCI card, or more specifically a "creative card". maybe a SB PCI 128, but any other creative card would be better imo.

 

[Peter]

"AC97" is just the name of the digital sound data bus. This says NOTHING about the capabilities of the sound engine inside the chipset, and also NOTHING about the capabilities of the digital/analog converter chip on the mainboard (the codec).

Even Audigy2 and VIA Envy cards use AC97.

PCI audio has the big problem that the PCI bus is the slowest bus in the system, and even there, the sound card has to share bandwidth and fight for low latency with everything else on this bus. Chipset integrated sound engines are on the fast chipset interconnect, and in some cases (SiS!) even have a dedicated path with guaranteed latencies and throughput.
Thus, in case the mainboard designers didn't cut corners on the analog circuitry, chipset integrated sound w/ onboard codecs can provide a better experience than PCI cards.

Finally, Creative has had a pretty awful track record on PCI compatibility issues and driver quality. If it works for you, great - we've seen plenty cases where it doesn't.

 

[will889]

Yeah. I know what the AC97 spec is about, and about shieling and true dedicated circuitry. I just wanted to hear you out since I thought you had some knowlwdge about audio yourself. Nice read, but I still think most motherboards handle creative just fine. VIA with some tinkering...

 

[Peter]

Yeah, I'd expected you to spin THAT myth again. The VIA-Creative issue is exactly one of the PCI compliance problems of the Creative chips, not a VIA problem. Happens on SiS chipsets too.
Back then, Creative's official position was "we test on Intel chipsets, and we don't care about the others". This hasn't changed, neither has their track record in making drivers. Failure rate is high, and so is CPU usage, even if no sound is being played.

If someone wants more in/out flexibility from their PC than their onboard solution gives them, I've been giving them cards that use the IC-Ensemble Envy24 series chips (now owned by VIA as it happens). With more and more mainboards having six-channel onboard solutions with digital I/O, this number is dwindling.

 

[will889]

Peter I'm not spinning any myth. Six channel onboard solutions can come in the form of realtek AC650 or CMI 9739a @ 16 bit. Nothing to be excited over. Most aren't excited over ALC 650,655,658, or any of the newer 24/96 "solutions" that are onboard from realtek you see on the new K8 boards, or CMI that are "AC97 compliant". I just don't have the problems with creative cards that you do. And i'm not about to believe that onboard is much better than any creative card.

 

[Peter]

I meant the "VIA chipset issue" with Creative sound chips.

Yes there are enough poorly executed onboard audio solutions - just as many as there are dodgy PCI audio cards as well. It's a matter of circuit design quality, not so much of device choice.
That's the quality thing.

My point is the bus attachment - and the restrictions it imposes on the sound device as well as on other devices that are on the same bus. Chipset internal audio engines have a lower latency, higher throughput system bus to work with than PCI. That's my point.

 

[matmak]

Guys this thread ended about four notches up

thanks for the insight and all but I think they've gone

Later....................