Muffled sound (gaming)

[Navid]

I used the on-board audio on my P4P800 deluxe with my Logitech Z-640, in 5.1 surround setup.
After playing a game for 10-20 minutes, the sound was not crisp anymore. I would have to increase the volume.

I then got an Audigy2 ZS sound card and started using it and disabled the on-board audio in the bios. I still have the same problem.

Motherboard Monitor shows the CPU (P4C 2.6 @3.1) and case temperatures to be 30 and 34 at idle and 40 and 37 under load.

Is this a heat problem?
Which component is heating up? I need to know to improve its cooling.

Has anyone seen (heard) this before?

Thaks,

Navid

 

[SLCentral]

Doesn't sound like a heat problem, those temperatures are too low, as far as I know, for any kind of heating problem. Does it happen when playing music/movies?

 

[Navid]

Thanks for your reply SLCentral.

I have never noticed this problem with music. But, I do not listen to much music on the PC. That may be why!

It cannot be the speakers either since I had the same problem with my previous set of 2.1 speakers.

 

[SLCentral]

What I would do is play music or a movie for an hour or so, and see if the problem happens. Does this happen in all games or specific ones only? Have you updated to the latest drivers for the Audigy, chipset, and graphics card? You never know what conflict may be happening. Is the sound card directly under the graphics card in the case, or is a few slots down? There might be an IRQ conflict too.

 

[Navid]

I have noticed the problem playing Far Cry and Halo.

There are 2 empty PCI slots and one occupied one between the sound card and the AGP card. The PCI card beside the sound card is the network card.

I have the latest chipset driver, the latest Creative driver for the sound card and the latest graphics driver for my 6800OC graphics card.

 

[SLCentral]

I'm stumped .

 

[Navid]

Bump