Comments on: sound card issues on a pc

Question: sound card issues on a pc

dodgygeezer — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:12:13 -0800

['PooterFilter] So I've put Win 2k Server on my laptop, and now the sound card clicks/skips. I'm not getting anywhere with this problem. Any ideas? [mi]

It's a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4300 with a Yamaha DS-XG. I've tried the driver from Toshiba but that skips and clicks. I've tried a few different Yamaha DS-XG drivers but they fail completely. Previously had WinME installed and all worked fine.

Oh and this happens with WMP, WinAmp, RealPlayer with CD's, WAV's and MP3's.

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:25:01 -0800

You should see what IRQ your sound card is using. Being a laptop, it might be slightly harder to do, but go to your BIOS and force your sound hardware (or the piece of hardware that is sharing your soundcard) to a different IRQ and see what happens. Does it click when you are accessing the hard drive? Does it click more when your on the net?

By: delfuego

delfuego — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 16:20:05 -0800

Also, go to your System control panel and see what "role" your computer is set to -- file server vs. workstation, I think. As you could imagine, processor power is shunted towards file server-like activities (hard disk caching, server processes) when your computer is set to be the former, and towards user-like activities (video redrawing, audio) when it's set to the latter.

By: cheaily

cheaily — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 21:55:50 -0800

Can I ask what may seem like a dumb question... why are you running Windows 2000 Server? You might find that your hardware (and drivers) respond a lot better to 2000 Professional.

By: majick

majick — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 22:13:12 -0800

There are very few differences between the server and workstation flavors of NT. One of them is the scheduler, which in a slower, more marginal machine might make the difference between smooth and choppy audio from foreground applications.

By: dodgygeezer

dodgygeezer — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 03:08:18 -0800

I guess I should just post here for the sake of closure.

Thanks for the ideas but they haven't helped and the problem continues.

I was going to use 2k Server for some development work / testing I was doing. That requirement has now passed so I'll probably reformat and try XP.

I do tech support for a living (admitedly just servers) and I can't believe how bloody frustrating this problem has been - there aren't many problems that defeat me but this one has. Persistence is futile, I guess it just aint gonna work with this OS.

Once again - thanks for the help.