Where can I find enough technical expertise to inquire for an illusive software related sound problem?

[Samsonid]

After a string of calls to M$ support my Audio problem was not resolved.

Formating this drive right now, is out of the question.

Heck.. how many layers of software can there be between the 1s and 0s on the hard drive (for the MP3 file) and the PC speakers? There should be a way to trace what gives, shouldn't there?

Where should I turn for some in depth expertise regarding audio troubleshooting?

Your suggestions are appreciated. Thanks

 

[FPSguy]

My post in this thread has some steps you can try to fix audio problems. You might give those a shot. Ignore the links to the motherboard updates and audio drivers, unless you happen to have the same configuration as that guy. You might look at updating your own bios and audio drivers, though.

 

[Samsonid]

Thanks for the reply,

Unfortunately the problem, this time, seems to be too tricky and it doesn't get resolved with standard troubleshooting.

The interesting part is that when the primary hard drive is disconnected and the machine is booted from a backup harddrive the sound is OK (and everything else is in top condition).

The BIOS is not the cause of it. As a matter of fact, the machine was working fine until a Windows crash corrupted the sound irreperably.
All relevant drivers have been updated, installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc (that was part of the M$ support session), but they don't seem to touch the problem. Even the DirectX was updated and the multimedia codecs were removed and reinstalled.. NOTHING...

May I add, the sound is not totaly gone, but it comes out scrambled and there is echos and reverberations mixed in.

(All this is on Win98SE)

 

[Adul]

uninstall the sound drivers
remove sound card
remove the inf files related to this sound card
remove any dll's relate to the sound card
remove any registry entries related to the sound card

place sound card in a different PCI slot.

install the newest drivers

 

[Samsonid]

>uninstall the sound drivers
>remove sound card

hmmm.. that won't be possible because it is the built in Avance AC97 audio of the motherboard

>remove the inf files related to this sound card
>remove any dll's relate to the sound card
>remove any registry entries related to the sound card

Ok, that's interesting... if I do remove those files are they going to be restored later automaticaly or do I have to reinstall them manually. (If I do remove all these files will the machine even boot)?

What would be the best way to isolate those files and fish them out?

>place sound card in a different PCI slot.
>install the newest drivers

 

[gsaldivar]

"...the machine was working fine until a Windows crash corrupted the sound irreperably..."

If you can't repair, then just reinstall the OS completely.

 

[Slikkster]

I agree with gsaldiver...you don't need to format your drive. Just reinstall Windows to the same folder it's in now. (e.g. c:\windows). It will keep your program settings and documents and just refresh the windows files. That should do it if it's a windows issue. It will at least rule out Windows as the problem if the issue isn't fixed. It's all part of troubleshooting.

Now, after you reinstall Windows, go to Windows Update and reinstall (if necessary) the updates you may have had before...especially the security patches. But DirectX will be at version 6.1 vs. 7 or 8 that you may have upgraded to.

 

[Samsonid]

Reformating is absolutely out of the question. (if it comes down to reformating as the only option then I'll just leave it as is with no sound)

>Just reinstall Windows to the same folder it's in now.

Yes, windows has been already reinstalled, but it had no effect on the problem.

Do you think this is a sound virus of some sort? The antivirus (with latest update) is not picking up anything though.

 

[gsaldivar]

"...Reformating is absolutely out of the question..."

Samsonid, noone suggested reformatting your system.

You need to reinstall the OS. This didn't work last time, because you probably didn't do a *clean* install.

If I were you, I'd move all your important stuff to a new folder at the root level of the drive. Use a second hard disk to boot the system, and then delete all of the Windows directories from the disk that's causing you problems. Then remove the second hard disk, and boot with the Windows CD - install a fresh copy of the OS onto the problem hard disk.

 

[GregANDTCH]

Is this with all sounds?
.wav & .mid, etc.

 

[Samsonid]

>Is this with all sounds?
>.wav & .mid, etc.

-When a CD is playing from the principal CD rom (master) which is connected via cable to the sound card, the sounds are playing fine.

-When the sound is playing from the hard drive (stored MP3, wav etc) or from a music CD in the slave drive (not connected via cable) then there is evident scrambling, echos and reverberations. In other words, whenever the music is decoded digitaly it gets scrambled.

-The problem is most prominent with MP3s. However, WAVs, MIDs etc will sound prety much normal except they will be very "muted" as if there is a pillow in front of the speakers.