• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

WEIRD audio problem related to graphics?

T

tapir

Senior member
Hey all,

I have been tweaking my new C2D build which features a nice 7900GTX graphics card I got for cheap on eBay. It hasn't been a perfect marriage so far, though. I have a strange issue that whenever my graphics are cranked up to a high enough intensity level, my audio goes to crap and starts popping and hissing. Strangely the problem won't replicate when I only do CPU-intensive work such as prime 95/64 torture test. At first I thought it was just a driver problem with F.E.A.R. but I downloaded an HDR artifact tester and noticed that if I crank up the settings on that while playing winamp the sound turns into garbage. What's weird is if I leave it at default settings which is 640x480 the sound is great. It's when I resize the window to make the rendered area bigger and up the multisample rate that it happens.

Also I tried disabling the Audigy and using onboard sound and the same results ensued!

There is also the fact that I'm getting artifacts in games and under the torture test, which is strange to me. The automatic fan control didn't seem to be getting it done so I used rivatuner to crank it to 100% which I thought fixed the problem but not really.

I have tried a couple different nVidia drivers and none seem to make a difference except new beta drivers made it worse.

My system:
Gigabyte 945P S3 motherboard
E4300 @ 300FSB = 2.7ghz
2x1gb Corsair DDR2 800
Forsa 7900gtx 512mb at stock
Audigy 1
PCI-e SIL3132 RAID card w/ 2x 74gb raptors

any thoughts?
 
You didn't list power supply, that's important.

Also how are your system temps under load? For example, does it happen if you take the side off the case and point a big desk fan at it?
 
I have an Enermax 370w... now that I've checked it out on the extreme power supply calculator online, that is cutting it kinda close at estimated ~345W... I guess that might be worth checking out.

I will try it with the hood down and maybe normal clock speeds as well.

EDIT: Just tried it with FSB @ 200 (stock) and nothing has changed. I might try it with a fan blowing on it in a few hours. If anyone else has suggestions I'd be very open to them.
 
well I tried with a fan blowing into the case on very high and that didn't help anything. I'm thinking it might be a power issue but it;d be nice to have some confirmation of that before I run out and blow $60 on a new one...

I think the artifacts though are caused by thermal issues because having the side off/fan on helped with that a lot.
 
After scouring the net for a couple days it looks like this is a pretty common issue with nVidia's Vista-64 drivers. People with the same problems have reported that moving from XP to Vista 64 with identical hardware was all that it took to cause these problems... I should have stuck with 32-bit. This is only an issue in some applications anyway so I think I'll survive. And from what I've seen the 7900GTX needs about 22A on the +12V rail while the PSU that I already have has 2x 18A rails for 36A total. And like Atheus implied I would probably have to shell out $$ to beat 36A...
 
Oh you should have mentioned you operating system! Sorry about that - I nearly made you buy a PSU you didn't need.
 
Turning off anti-aliasing seems to fix the problem in real games, although I can still recreate it using an artifact tester. I can't tell the difference between AA on and off at 1920x1200 anyway...
 
Originally posted by: tapir
Turning off anti-aliasing seems to fix the problem in real games, although I can still recreate it using an artifact tester. I can't tell the difference between AA on and off at 1920x1200 anyway...
Click to expand...
You must have blury vision. o.o
 
Haha... well I haven't really used it often enough to make that statement, my old 9800 couldn't run anything with even 2x AA but hopefully nVidia will get some better drivers out and I can have 4x AA on all the time...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top