I'm lost here, don't understand the problem

[Zenoth]

Hey,

After some six years of good service my beloved Altec Lansing 2.1 setup died a few days ago, one satellite suddenly stopped emitting any sound, and the other started to crackle horribly the next day. But the crackling problem first started on the satellite that died first (hope that was clear enough). The crackling occurred only when certain types of sounds played, for instance when I listened to some rock music with lots of bass, there was a perceivable and very annoying constant crackling from the left speaker, and curiously enough even if I plugged in my headphone I would also hear that same crackling on my left ear. Alright, with that said, that setup died, it was time for a replacement, so I bought a Edifier M3400 2.1 setup, brand new from NCIX, no problems there. It was delivered today, this morning, opened up the box, installed the whole thing, all components well protected, no issues, brand new stuff. I plugged in everything properly and so on. I boot up the system, blue led on the sub and the volume knob (it's a physically separate knob from the satellites, with a headphone jack and such, must turn the knob clock-wise to turn the speakers on and adjust the volume). So everything works.

I did not change any of my Creative audio settings in the meantime. Alright, so I got to the desktop and tested the new sound setup by opening WMP and starting some tracks on my play list, some rock again (to test the crackling mostly). Well guess what? That damn crackling and AGAIN on the left speaker STILL occurs. So, completely baffled I decided to completely un-install the Creative drivers (with the help of Driver Cleaner .NET in Safe Mode), to also physically remove the audio card, to turn the PC off and to use my can of compressed air to remove all the dust from the audio card (barely any dust on it), blow some air in the PCI slot as well, re-checked if all the new audio setup wires were well plugged, and yes they were. So I moved the audio card back in the same PCI slot. After that I re-started the system, went back in Normal Mode, and then re-installed the Creative drivers (latest WHQL, 2.18.0013) and made sure they were for Vista x64, and they are, they installed properly, all is fine in terms of installation, and the configurations work, nothing grayed out). Then re-booted and then tested the sound once more after adjusting some Creative settings (EAX effects, Crystallizer, turned some stuff Off, then back On, made a basic elimination process for the configurations, tried different audio quality options, like 44Hz, 48Hz, 96Hz, 16-Bit, 24-Bit, etc). Nothing worked, the crackling was and still is present right now.

So after all that said, I did the next obvious troubleshooting step, using the on-board Realtek sound to make 100% certain that the crackling did not come from my audio card possibly dying on me. And that's what I did. I un-installed the Creative drivers again (same steps as before with Driver Cleaner .NET and so on). Then I went into the BIOS and activated the "Alezia Codec" (on-board) option (motherboard in signature). Then booted back in Normal Mode and the OS recognized the new sound without issues, and I immediately downloaded and installed the latest WHQL Realtek HD Audio drivers 2.28 for Vista. I installed that driver, installation went fine. I re-started the system after that and then adjusted some unfamiliar settings (first time trying on-board sound). I also physically removed the X-Fi card from the motherboard during that time by the way. In the end I finally tested and guess what, yes, the freakin' annoying crackling is still there. So it's not my audio card itself, that's for sure.

Now, the questions arise:

1) If it ain't my audio card causing the crackling, and if changing the sound setup itself (brand new) did not help, then what could be the cause?

A) Could long-term (although stable) over-clocking somehow damage the motherboard and cause audio-related issues? (currently not OC'ed, but still wondering)
B) Could it be some sort of electrical problem? Perhaps coming from the power-bar? (would surprise me, but I'd presume possible)
C) IRQ Resource conflict? But why did I never experienced any crackling before? It only started relatively recently with my previous audio setup just before it started dying. And how do I know I even have an IRQ conflict anyway?
D) Apparently not a drivers issue, since I tried both my Creative card and the on-board audio, both requiring completely different drivers, issue present with both.
E) Could it be the OS? Vista doing funny things with my sound? Should try XP maybe?

But the one and single million dollars question is the following:

2) Why crackling on the left speaker only?!

There big problem here is that I cannot for the love of me and God remember exactly when the crackling issue began with my previous audio setup. I can't remember if it were there when I made the switch from XP to Vista, or if it was there after trying new Creative (and final, non-beta) audio drivers, or anything... as far as I try to remember it's been there only recently, but I first thought it was drivers-related and did not take any action about it since by then I knew my previous setup already had problems. And I thought it was the previous setup causing the crackling... I don't get it.

This is very frustrating. By the way, the crackling here isn't that loud, and it does not happen often, as I said earlier it only occurs for certain types of sounds and frequencies, some stuff sound just crystal clear and fine, sometimes it will slightly but constantly crackle, it's audible, you don't have to really pay attention to it, it's there and annoying, but it doesn't make my ear bleed at least, but it ruins the audio experience that's for sure. It seems to not crackle so far in games, only seems to affect other types of applications / audio. I tried playing my music from Winamp, Fubar2000 and WMP, same problems each time. I un-installed Winamp, same problem, un-installed Fubar2000, same issue. I also un-installed third party codec packs, same issue. I'm at a loss right now.

I think I'll have to switch back to XP. If that doesn't work, will buy a new power-bar. If that doesn't work... well... maybe buy a new sound card (but that would be foolish). And, again, if that doesn't work... full PC upgrade? Jeez... please help!

EDIT: Ok, I just remembered something. In Windows XP, in the volume control panel, there was a "MP3" volume slider, and whenever that MP3 slide bar was above 50% I would start having some crackles in some of my games (completely regardless of how high was the main volume slide bar at). I just noticed that there's no such MP3 slide bar in Vista's volume control panel nor within the Creative-specific settings. Is there a way to check out about that in Vista? To make sure that there's no such equivalent option that is turned too high and causing crackles? All the currently visible slide bars I see in the control panel are currently placed at 50% and muted (only the main volume is activated, placed at maximum volume, but even if I reduce it to almost turned off the crackles are still present, exactly as if I had that MP/ slider too high in XP).

 

[jackschmittusa]

First, physically pick up the left and right speakers and reverse their placement (without changing any wiring). If the problem remains on the left side, it is some kind of interference at that location. Try the headphones again.

Next, try booting from a Linux "live cd" and see if the problem goes away. If it does, likely a Windows problem.

Using the same music files for the tests? Try different ones to eliminate corrupted files. Play from a cd.

 

[Zenoth]

Well, I've tried to move the speakers away from any potential source of interference, but the problem persisted. Then I tried a Linux Live CD (Slax) and the problem still persisted. Then I installed Windows XP on a separate partition, and it still persisted (even by reducing the MP3 volume slide bar which I suspected might have had a role to play in my problems). Then I removed the motherboard's battery to reset the CMOS, then I loaded the factory default settings, rebooted, then flashed to a new BIOS from the manufacturer's web-site, and even that did not help at all.

My conclusion is fairly simple now, my motherboard is dying on me, the damage may have been caused by 24/7 over-clocks over the years (bought this system except for the GPU back in December 2007 if my memory serves me well). The over-voltage and/or perhaps resulting heat may have damaged it to some extent. I've also just discovered that some of my 8-Bit and 16-Bit era gaming music tracks are all mixed up and don't even play properly anymore, lots of sounds don't play anymore and others are cut in half or are drastically distorted (especially sound files with the SPC format which I play via Winamp with a specific plug-in).

I'm pissed off, but I accept it, it had to lose some efficiency over time I'd guess (or degradation). The thing is I don't want to upgrade my system yet, I'm waiting for Intel's next Core i7 refresh (can't remember the name). In the meantime I'll try to find some X38 or P45 motherboard to replace my current one.

 

[PM650]

Stupid question here, but are you using the same audio cable to connect both pairs of speakers to the pc (individually)? Can the crackling be reproduced by any physical means (wiggling something)?

 

[Zenoth]

The crackling cannot be reproduced by physical means, also both speakers are separately plugged in the sub-woofer (2-way satellite design). The thing is I had the same problem with my previous audio setup (Altec Lansing 2.1) which did not had a 2-Way design, and that one had just one wire coming out of the "main" satellite which I had to plug directly in the audio card, but my new setup is different, I have to plug both satellites in the sub-woofer's In lines, and the volume controller (rotatory knob design) is the one plugged in the audio card.

There are some types of audio in which there's a horrifying high-pitched screeching sound right before the track starts, as if I took a needle and move it on a compact disc with force, it doesn't do that often, but it's mostly doing it with my SPC format files, also when that screeching occurs the rest of the track is screwed up for the most part, as if some sounds were moved from their supposed location where they should have played, like a sound delay or something, it's difficult to explain, it's as if you took each sounds contained in the track, each instruments, you would put them in a jar and shake it, you wouldn't have the sounds playing in the same "order", but what is affected is not the actual order but more the synchronization of them, their speed and tempo.

The last thing I've tried was to move my motherboard RAM from their slot to the other ones, and I went back to Vista (after trying Linux Live CD and XP on a separate partition) on a completely new partition (only Vista on it, single partition), but there's no go, still the exact same issue. The only thing I haven't tried yet is to revert to older chipset drivers, since the one thing I do remember having changed recently enough are the chipset drivers by Intel, they released a new version not long ago, and perhaps it has something to do with my problems, I'm not sure, I'm just trying stuff. Additionally, still in Vista, I've checked my IRQ resources and devices, and I noticed that both my graphics card and my audio card are sharing the same IRQ with other stuff, but I don't know much about IRQ-related things so I don't understand what it clearly means, but the description window tells me that there's no conflicts detected.

Just to make sure, that's what I got with my IRQ stuff:

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1843/irq.gif

Today I'll call a friend of mine who knows a lot more about PC hardware and configurations then I do, I'm merely a gamer myself. I'll see what he has to say about all this, one thing I do know however is that I did have problems before and I was often able to resolved them by myself, but this one is the most mysterious I've ever experienced in the past couple of years.

 

[Dahak]

you could try the on-board sound card. to see if it could be the sound card it self

 

[Zenoth]

I tried that as mentioned in my first post. No go, still crackling.

 

[Zenoth]

Ok, a small update about this...

I've tried a couple of music CD-ROMs, and the sound from that type of media plays perfectly fine, clear, no screeching, crackling or popping. Now, IF the problem was the audio card and/or the audio drivers, then would audio coming from that type of media also crack and pop and such? I don't really understand why it's doing this. I thought it was my motherboard dying on me, now I'm having second thoughts, could it be... could it be my Hard-Drives?!

In the end, all the sound on my Hard-Drives (both), namely my games, anything I watch streaming on the web (YouTube, Dailymotion, etc), all my backed-up MP3s and such, it's all ultimately relying on system I/O Hard-Drives to get processed, or something along those lines, right? Could it be something about SATA/IDE settings?

Gah... if only I knew more about hardware, that teaches me a good lesson for being a gamer and not a hardware enthusiast (and knowing about it). Anyone got any ideas? I think the most obvious thing to try next is to... hmmm... to perhaps burn some of my MP3s I have on my HDDs on a CD-ROM and try to play them from there and see if it crackles. Yup, I think I'm going to try that. In the meantime if any of you got any suggestions please let me know.