Sound Blaster Live! and XP Pro problems

[dsparks]

Does anyone else experience clicks/pops while playing back music on XP with a SB Live card?

I have updated to latest drivers from Creative to see if that would fix the problem, no dice...

Anyone else?

 

[DaiShan]

which slot is it in? try to keep it out of the first and last slots.

 

[dsparks]

It is in the third PCI slot. (of four)

 

[dsparks]

Any other ideas anyone?

 

[minendo]

What program are you using to play back music? I had a similar problem with my SB Live card and it was because of a piece of software/plug in that Creative had installed with the drivers of my card. I removed all Creative software except the drivers and checked to see removed any plugins that were installed with in winamp by Creative. That solved my problem.

 

[dsparks]

Plain old Winamp.

The only thing I installed was the drivers for the card though...

 

[dude8604]

Do you have the same problem with other sound playing programs? If you don't, then try disabling direct sound output (it's an option in Winamp).

 

[dsparks]

Yes, it happens in Windows Media although it is more pronounced.

 

[dsparks]

Does anyone have anymore ideas?

 

[dsparks]

Please?

 

[bruincal]

instead of using the drivers from Creative, have you tried using the drivers from the www.WindowsUpdate.com site yet? click the Windows update link on the left hand side, and the windows site will automatically find an approved driver for you...
I believe that the SB! live driver has a problem with Winxp .. it was adressed in the windows support site, but i forgot...

 

[dsparks]

That is a funny thing that you bring that up...

I installed the Creative Drivers only because the sounds were happening on a Base installation of XP pro.

I am going to go and try it again though...

 

[ThaGrandCow]

<< Does anyone have anymore ideas? >>

AFAIK the SB Live cards have problems with noise from the PCI bus "leaking" into the sound card. It was one reason so many people moved to the audigy because they solved that problem. I think all you can do is deal. Thats what I'm doing since I own a SB Live

 

[dsparks]

Does it do this regardless of choice of OS? I haven't used it under anything else.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I went to the Windows update site and downloaded a patch they have there for an issue like yours. Might take care of it, but then again it might not. It did fix it for me though. I have a SB X-Gamer that I used to have pops and clicks on with Win XP Pro. It wasn't an update for the card itself, but an update to XP Pro software. It's called the Windows Messenger Audio Update.

 

[Mitzi]

AFAIK the SB Live cards have problems with noise from the PCI bus "leaking" into the sound card. It was one reason so many people moved to the audigy because they solved that problem. I think all you can do is deal. Thats what I'm doing since I own a SB Live

I've not had that problem with my SBLive! and XP (or 98/2000 for that matter). I'm using the latest drivers from Creatives site.

 

[dsparks]

Is it possible that is environmental? I am using it in a Dual PII system w/ SCSI raid drives... (It is a SuperMicro board though, I thought they were really good motherboards???)

 

[bruincal]

are all your hard drives set to the highest UDMA mode possible? i used to have this problem too. at first, i didn't know what was causing it, but i found out that whenever the hard drive performed a read/write or request, the sound would skip... i later checked and it was because my drives were set to PIO mode instead of UDMA mode 5 ... i changed it, and no more clicks, pops ,or skips

EDIT: oh wait, nevermind, sorry didn't read the SCSI part =P

 

[OnfireForGod]

I have windows XP and a soundblaster live and my winamp plays fine. I just thought you would like to know that. Only two words for you. HA! HA!

 

[dsparks]

Thanks OnfireForGod! That is encouraging in a wierd way...

 

[manly]

<< Does it do this regardless of choice of OS? I haven't used it under anything else. >>



No, because different operating systems have different drivers.

In my case, W9x and WXP didn't exhibit any noticeable crackling.

Linux's ALSA drivers had very slight crackling.

However, Linux's kernel sound module (written by Creative) is okay.

By most accounts, this is a flaw in the SB Live that will never be officially acknowledged nor fixed.

 

[dsparks]

manly: Thank you. I got this thinking my audio performance would be much better, but in general - it hasn't been.

 

[Latts]

I dont have that problem.

At least I dont appear to. Is it really obvious, or should I turn my volume up to listen for it?