*Note* This is a revision of the first post I made earlier, but I figured I would just bump this thread instead of making a new one. Any input would be appreciated.
Okay, this is going to be a long post, because I'm running out of ideas and I'm going to write everything I've done to try and nail down this problem. After extensive testing, I have reason to believe that theres something up with the motherboard, although I'm not positive.
First my specs:
EVGA 680i Mobo
2x EVGA GeForce 7900 GS KO
2GB DDR2 800 Ram
Intel C2D 2.4 Ghz
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro
WD Raptor 150G
2x 500G Drives
250G Drive
I dont do ANY overclocking, all the speeds listed are stock.
The problem is what whenever I play a game in SLI mode, the games sound will go psycho at any moment (ranging from about 10 minutes to over an hour before the problem occurs). Instead of playing the sounds it should, all I get is a high pitched sound playing. When I quit the game, the sound is silent until I run an application that has sound (like winamp), and then the high pitched sound comes back. In order to fix this, I have to restart the computer. This occurs when Directsound, EAX, or OpenAL are being used, including any combo of those (Like quake 4 using OpenAL and EAX at the same time). I have not been able to recreate this problem with SLI turned off so far.
At first I tried the basic stuff like reinstalling drivers etc, but none of that worked. I then suspected that the heat could be a problem. Luckily for me, theres a grate on the side of my case right over the area in question, and I installed an intake fan over the area, making the temperatures drop from 67 Celcius under extreme punishment to 56 Celcius under the same load, and these sound problems persisted. I also reinstalled directx.
Once again I was in luck, because I have the exact same type of sound card in another system. So thinking that the sound card could have gone bad, I switched them. Both cards worked flawlessly in the other system, but both cards freaked out in my current system, so the cards are working fine, its somehow an issue between the cards and the rest of the machine (also take note that I tried using different PCI slots as well while trying to diagnose this). I decided to disable the Audigy altogether and try to recreate this problem using the onboard Realtek sound. The games ran perfectly, not a sound glitched, nothing.
The ONLY thing that changed on the machine prior to this was that I updated to the new P23 BIOS. Prior to this update, everything was running perfectly. I was one of the lucky ones not getting any problems with SATA or anything, but I thought I should go with the safe route and update anyway (because EVGA said so). I checked to see if there were any conflicts between devices, and none were listed.
So just to recap, the conditions are as follows:
SLI on, Audigy card installed and enabled = Sound wigging out after a period of time, forcing a reboot.
SLI off, Audigy card installed and enabled = Works great
SLI on, Audigy card disabled, onboard sound enabled = works great
SLI off, Audigy card disabled, onboard sound enabled = works great
Games that this has happened in so far:
Company of Heroes (A LOT)
Guild Wars (Hardly ever)
Quake 4 (Fairly often)
Both my original and spare Audigy 4 pro cards work perfectly in another machine.
What I think may be the problem is somehow a conflict develops between the PCIx and PCI buses when SLI is on? I could be way off base here, but I've got a hunch that something in the motherboard is screwed. I really want to get this fixed, but I cant really think of anything else to do, can anyone give any suggestions?
Okay, this is going to be a long post, because I'm running out of ideas and I'm going to write everything I've done to try and nail down this problem. After extensive testing, I have reason to believe that theres something up with the motherboard, although I'm not positive.
First my specs:
EVGA 680i Mobo
2x EVGA GeForce 7900 GS KO
2GB DDR2 800 Ram
Intel C2D 2.4 Ghz
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro
WD Raptor 150G
2x 500G Drives
250G Drive
I dont do ANY overclocking, all the speeds listed are stock.
The problem is what whenever I play a game in SLI mode, the games sound will go psycho at any moment (ranging from about 10 minutes to over an hour before the problem occurs). Instead of playing the sounds it should, all I get is a high pitched sound playing. When I quit the game, the sound is silent until I run an application that has sound (like winamp), and then the high pitched sound comes back. In order to fix this, I have to restart the computer. This occurs when Directsound, EAX, or OpenAL are being used, including any combo of those (Like quake 4 using OpenAL and EAX at the same time). I have not been able to recreate this problem with SLI turned off so far.
At first I tried the basic stuff like reinstalling drivers etc, but none of that worked. I then suspected that the heat could be a problem. Luckily for me, theres a grate on the side of my case right over the area in question, and I installed an intake fan over the area, making the temperatures drop from 67 Celcius under extreme punishment to 56 Celcius under the same load, and these sound problems persisted. I also reinstalled directx.
Once again I was in luck, because I have the exact same type of sound card in another system. So thinking that the sound card could have gone bad, I switched them. Both cards worked flawlessly in the other system, but both cards freaked out in my current system, so the cards are working fine, its somehow an issue between the cards and the rest of the machine (also take note that I tried using different PCI slots as well while trying to diagnose this). I decided to disable the Audigy altogether and try to recreate this problem using the onboard Realtek sound. The games ran perfectly, not a sound glitched, nothing.
The ONLY thing that changed on the machine prior to this was that I updated to the new P23 BIOS. Prior to this update, everything was running perfectly. I was one of the lucky ones not getting any problems with SATA or anything, but I thought I should go with the safe route and update anyway (because EVGA said so). I checked to see if there were any conflicts between devices, and none were listed.
So just to recap, the conditions are as follows:
SLI on, Audigy card installed and enabled = Sound wigging out after a period of time, forcing a reboot.
SLI off, Audigy card installed and enabled = Works great
SLI on, Audigy card disabled, onboard sound enabled = works great
SLI off, Audigy card disabled, onboard sound enabled = works great
Games that this has happened in so far:
Company of Heroes (A LOT)
Guild Wars (Hardly ever)
Quake 4 (Fairly often)
Both my original and spare Audigy 4 pro cards work perfectly in another machine.
What I think may be the problem is somehow a conflict develops between the PCIx and PCI buses when SLI is on? I could be way off base here, but I've got a hunch that something in the motherboard is screwed. I really want to get this fixed, but I cant really think of anything else to do, can anyone give any suggestions?
