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Sound driver question



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 15th 18, 06:27 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

A puzzling audio problem on one of my laptops: I noticed the windows sound
events all sounded lower in pitch than normal (guessing about 3% or 4%
lower)
on this Dell e6500 laptop. So I copied some of the sound events over to a
temp
folder, and played them using various wav players, and sure enough, they
all sound lower in pitch (with the exception of one wav player, which
renders
the pitch correctly). I think I have finally noticed one thing unique about
this: these windows event sounds are mostly 22.05 kHz, 16 bit wave files,
not the
standard 44.1 kHz. Sitll, they should all play with the correct pitch!

I've got the up-to-date IDT audio driver, so that's apparently not the
issue.
This Dell e6500 uses a IDT High Definition Audio Codec (whether I like it or
not). I was hoping to find some other alternative audio codec that might
work
better (assuming that codec is related to this problem), but I haven't found
any alternative (on the Dell drivers site, and they are all listed there).

How this can happen is puzzling to me, however, and short of getting some
alternative audio driver(s), I don't see an obvious solution, unless I'm
missing
something. It's not the end of the world, but I'd sure like to know if I
can
rectify it, or if someone has some suggestions. As I said, everything is
hunky dory in Device Manager and all drivers are up to date. What is also
interesting is that one really simple player (called Billy Player) plays the
pitch correctly, but the others do not.

Maybe it means there is some overhead in decoding non 44.1 kHz audio files
on this system, causing some latency? But that just seems too far out to
me. Besides which, Billy Player says it's using the IDT audio and it plays
it correctly.

Any ideas? TIA.


Ads
  #2  
Old August 15th 18, 12:41 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Sound driver question

Bill in Co wrote:
A puzzling audio problem on one of my laptops: I noticed the windows sound
events all sounded lower in pitch than normal (guessing about 3% or 4%
lower)
on this Dell e6500 laptop. So I copied some of the sound events over to a
temp
folder, and played them using various wav players, and sure enough, they
all sound lower in pitch (with the exception of one wav player, which
renders
the pitch correctly). I think I have finally noticed one thing unique about
this: these windows event sounds are mostly 22.05 kHz, 16 bit wave files,
not the
standard 44.1 kHz. Sitll, they should all play with the correct pitch!

I've got the up-to-date IDT audio driver, so that's apparently not the
issue.
This Dell e6500 uses a IDT High Definition Audio Codec (whether I like it or
not). I was hoping to find some other alternative audio codec that might
work
better (assuming that codec is related to this problem), but I haven't found
any alternative (on the Dell drivers site, and they are all listed there).

How this can happen is puzzling to me, however, and short of getting some
alternative audio driver(s), I don't see an obvious solution, unless I'm
missing
something. It's not the end of the world, but I'd sure like to know if I
can
rectify it, or if someone has some suggestions. As I said, everything is
hunky dory in Device Manager and all drivers are up to date. What is also
interesting is that one really simple player (called Billy Player) plays the
pitch correctly, but the others do not.

Maybe it means there is some overhead in decoding non 44.1 kHz audio files
on this system, causing some latency? But that just seems too far out to
me. Besides which, Billy Player says it's using the IDT audio and it plays
it correctly.

Any ideas? TIA.


In Audacity, record a reference sine wave tone in a waveform.
Say, 440Hz.

Play it back.

Pass the signal to a second computer for recording.

See if the ratio is 44100/48000 , implying some driver
is using the wrong sampling rate for something. Audacity has
an FFT display, which can show the frequency of spikes
in the frequency domain graph.

As far as I know, sound is managed by "keeping a buffer full".
That means, to play a sample, the hardware is set to a nominal
rate. If the buffer drops below a threshold value (like, "half full"),
an interrupt is issued, and the sound subsystem loads a bit
more stuff into the buffer. The processor itself isn't
really metering the flow. You would think the sound
subsystem could underflow, be data starved, and have
to repeat samples (create a flat spot in the waveform
at some point), but I suppose it's a function of the
source. For playback of music, it just means the
entire composition finishes sooner. For video playback,
with a video and audio sound stream, there's likely to
be some other sort of pacing method.

If it was a crystal timebase reference problem, that's
probably good to 100ppm. And I don't know if human pitch
sensing can detect that small of a shift.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)

"Below 500 Hz, the jnd is about 3 Hz for sine waves,
and 1 Hz for complex tones; above 1000 Hz, the jnd for
sine waves is about 0.6% (about 10 cents)."

Which suggests you cannot hear 100ppm of error.

But 48000/44100 or about 9% error caused by a sampling
rate setting error in a driver, you could hear that.

A number of sound chips are inherently 48000 sampling
rate, and some other rates are done by resampling
or something.

In any case, the purpose of recording the output of
the defective setup, is to note whether the error
is "exactly 9%", if you get my drift... In other
words, it's a known issue with the sampling or
resampling going on in some chips and their
drivers. If the error was some other weird ratio
(suggestive of a broken quartz time base), then
you'd have to come up with a new theory to explain it.

On your "measurement machine", the chip may offer a
192KHz sampling rate. But this doesn't mean it can
properly reproduce a 96KHz sine wave (Nyquist).
The input filter (let's pretend it's an RC low
pass filter) is set for around 50KHz or so.
Frequencies higher than that can be severely
attenuated. But, using the 192KHz sampling rate
doesn't hurt the time domain measurement capability.
By using the high sampling rate, you may improve
the pitch measurement accuracy. That's assuming
the chip on the second computer isn't doing
something stupid too :-)

Here's an example of me checking Audacity 440Hz
on the other machine, by using Audacity on this
computer to record LineIn. On the source Audacity,
the "Generate" menu produces a 30 second 440Hz
tone by default. And I've recorded that on this
computer, then done an FFT on it.

https://s15.postimg.cc/5brhkzb63/Lin...other_comp.gif

Paul
  #3  
Old August 15th 18, 02:25 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Sound driver question

In message , Paul
writes:
Bill in Co wrote:
A puzzling audio problem on one of my laptops: I noticed the windows sound
events all sounded lower in pitch than normal (guessing about 3% or
4% lower)


If that _is_ the difference, you have good ears: adjacent semitones (on
an even-tempered scale, which is what's mostly used nowadays) differ by
2^(1/2), which is about 6%, so you're noticing well under that. I think
I would certainly notice that in successive playings, but for a sound
that I only hear for certain events, I don't think I would. (Out of
curiosity, which sounds did you notice this on? What sound scheme are
you using, or is it one you've created yourself?)

on this Dell e6500 laptop. So I copied some of the sound events over
to a temp
folder, and played them using various wav players, and sure enough, they
all sound lower in pitch (with the exception of one wav player, which
renders
the pitch correctly). I think I have finally noticed one thing unique about
this: these windows event sounds are mostly 22.05 kHz, 16 bit wave
files, not the
standard 44.1 kHz. Sitll, they should all play with the correct pitch!


My first thought _was_ a faulty reference crystal, but if it's only
sounds at a certain rate (and only some - even if all but one -
players), then it's not going to be that.

You say you "noticed" it. Do you mean/think it has _started_ doing it,
or has always done it on that machine? (Did you notice it because you
happened to have the same event - and sound - on two machines at around
the same time? There, I too would have noticed half a semitone
difference, I think. [Depending on what the sound was.])

I'd be tempted to load them into something that can do it (Audacity?,
GoldWave), and upsample them to 44100, and see if they then play
correctly - and, try downsampling some 44100 files to 22050, and see if
they then play oddly. (I'm just wondering if there's some other property
that's particular to the sound event files provided by Microsoft. If you
temporarily associate a 44100 Hz .wav file to one of your events, does
it play right?) Though you say it's players too, so not just the Events
subsystem.
[]
See if the ratio is 44100/48000 , implying some driver
is using the wrong sampling rate for something. Audacity has
an FFT display, which can show the frequency of spikes
in the frequency domain graph.


That'd be nearly 9%, or 1½ semitones. (Though Bill did say he _guessed_
at the 3 or 4 %.) Good thinking though.
[]
If it was a crystal timebase reference problem, that's
probably good to 100ppm. And I don't know if human pitch
sensing can detect that small of a shift.


I think the cheapest might be as much as 500 ppm. But that's basic
accuracy, or drift over time (months or years, or with _considerable_
change in temperature). And even that's 0.05%. But - unless the sound
system uses different crystals for different rates, and I can't see it
doing that (certainly not for 22050 and 44100 as they're related) - and
Bill says it's only some playings that are low/slow, I don't think it's
that.

(Writing "low/slow" there made me think: it'd be interesting to see if
it is only pitch, or duration that's affected - but you'd need a longish
[say well over a minute] file, and one with a clearly audible start and
stop [maybe your burst of concert A], to check that. But I suspect
duration _would_ be affected.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)

"Below 500 Hz, the jnd is about 3 Hz for sine waves,
and 1 Hz for complex tones; above 1000 Hz, the jnd for
sine waves is about 0.6% (about 10 cents)."

Which suggests you cannot hear 100ppm of error.


Interesting that it _isn't_ a percentage for low notes (assuming the
above is correct).
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'm a paranoid agnostic. I doubt the existence of God, but I'm sure there is
some force, somewhere, working against me." - Marc Maron
  #4  
Old August 15th 18, 08:27 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
Bill in Co wrote:
A puzzling audio problem on one of my laptops: I noticed the windows
sound events all sounded lower in pitch than normal (guessing about 3%
or 4% lower)


If that _is_ the difference, you have good ears: adjacent semitones (on
an even-tempered scale, which is what's mostly used nowadays) differ by
2^(1/2), which is about 6%, so you're noticing well under that. I think
I would certainly notice that in successive playings, but for a sound
that I only hear for certain events, I don't think I would. (Out of
curiosity, which sounds did you notice this on? What sound scheme are
you using, or is it one you've created yourself?)

on this Dell e6500 laptop. So I copied some of the sound events over
to a temp
folder, and played them using various wav players, and sure enough, they
all sound lower in pitch (with the exception of one wav player, which
renders
the pitch correctly). I think I have finally noticed one thing unique
about this: these windows event sounds are mostly 22.05 kHz, 16 bit wave
files, not the
standard 44.1 kHz. Sitll, they should all play with the correct pitch!


My first thought _was_ a faulty reference crystal, but if it's only
sounds at a certain rate (and only some - even if all but one -
players), then it's not going to be that.

You say you "noticed" it. Do you mean/think it has _started_ doing it,
or has always done it on that machine? (Did you notice it because you
happened to have the same event - and sound - on two machines at around
the same time? There, I too would have noticed half a semitone
difference, I think. [Depending on what the sound was.])

I'd be tempted to load them into something that can do it (Audacity?,
GoldWave), and upsample them to 44100, and see if they then play
correctly - and, try downsampling some 44100 files to 22050, and see if
they then play oddly. (I'm just wondering if there's some other property
that's particular to the sound event files provided by Microsoft. If you
temporarily associate a 44100 Hz .wav file to one of your events, does
it play right?) Though you say it's players too, so not just the Events
subsystem.
[]
See if the ratio is 44100/48000 , implying some driver
is using the wrong sampling rate for something. Audacity has
an FFT display, which can show the frequency of spikes
in the frequency domain graph.


That'd be nearly 9%, or 1½ semitones. (Though Bill did say he _guessed_
at the 3 or 4 %.) Good thinking though.
[]
If it was a crystal timebase reference problem, that's
probably good to 100ppm. And I don't know if human pitch
sensing can detect that small of a shift.


I think the cheapest might be as much as 500 ppm. But that's basic
accuracy, or drift over time (months or years, or with _considerable_
change in temperature). And even that's 0.05%. But - unless the sound
system uses different crystals for different rates, and I can't see it
doing that (certainly not for 22050 and 44100 as they're related) - and
Bill says it's only some playings that are low/slow, I don't think it's
that.

(Writing "low/slow" there made me think: it'd be interesting to see if
it is only pitch, or duration that's affected - but you'd need a longish
[say well over a minute] file, and one with a clearly audible start and
stop [maybe your burst of concert A], to check that. But I suspect
duration _would_ be affected.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)

"Below 500 Hz, the jnd is about 3 Hz for sine waves,
and 1 Hz for complex tones; above 1000 Hz, the jnd for
sine waves is about 0.6% (about 10 cents)."

Which suggests you cannot hear 100ppm of error.


Interesting that it _isn't_ a percentage for low notes (assuming the
above is correct).
[]


I did some more experiments. The pitch shift is around 40 cents, or a bit
over 2 %. I can definitely tell if a song is off pitch by 2 %. (In fact,
on the radio, if it's off that much, it's annoying to me (and I can tell
that from my own memory of the original song, even from years ago). It
happens on all of the windows sound events, since they are all 22.05 kHz
wave files. And yes, it has always been this way on this one laptop.

So just for kicks, I converted one of them to 44.1 kHz, and sure enough, it
sounds fine; reconvert it back, and got the same problem.

And again, this issue happens on all my media players (with the exception of
that one simple one called Billy Player, which apparently must process the
22K audio signal differently - and correctly). (And it is nowhere near a 9
% pitch error, so that other idea isn't explaining it, either). Maybe it
has something to do with the buffering as Paul suggested, but I don't know
(some of these sound events are only one second)


  #5  
Old August 15th 18, 09:40 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Sound driver question

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
I did some more experiments. The pitch shift is around 40 cents, or a bit
over 2 %. I can definitely tell if a song is off pitch by 2 %. (In fact,
on the radio, if it's off that much, it's annoying to me (and I can tell
that from my own memory of the original song, even from years ago). It


Hmm, a third of a semitone, nice.

happens on all of the windows sound events, since they are all 22.05 kHz
wave files. And yes, it has always been this way on this one laptop.

So just for kicks, I converted one of them to 44.1 kHz, and sure enough, it
sounds fine; reconvert it back, and got the same problem.

And again, this issue happens on all my media players (with the exception of
that one simple one called Billy Player, which apparently must process the
22K audio signal differently - and correctly). (And it is nowhere near a 9
% pitch error, so that other idea isn't explaining it, either). Maybe it
has something to do with the buffering as Paul suggested, but I don't know
(some of these sound events are only one second)


So the fault only occurs with one set of hardware (that one laptop), and
at only one sample rate (have you tried 11.025 kHz? Or something that
_isn't_ a binary multiple/factor thereof, such as 24 kHz?), unless
played with one particular player.

I'm out of ideas (-:!

I think seeing if the _duration_ is affected might be useful to know,
although I'm not sure why. (You'd need a long enough file to be able to
time it, though, which for a 2% error, probably means a couple of
minutes or so at least. With a clearly-discernible start and end so you
know when to click the stopwatch or whatever.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Everyone learns from science. It all depends how you use the knowledge. - "Gil
Grissom" (CSI).
  #6  
Old August 15th 18, 09:46 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Sound driver question

Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
Bill in Co wrote:
A puzzling audio problem on one of my laptops: I noticed the windows
sound events all sounded lower in pitch than normal (guessing about 3%
or 4% lower)

If that _is_ the difference, you have good ears: adjacent semitones (on
an even-tempered scale, which is what's mostly used nowadays) differ by
2^(1/2), which is about 6%, so you're noticing well under that. I think
I would certainly notice that in successive playings, but for a sound
that I only hear for certain events, I don't think I would. (Out of
curiosity, which sounds did you notice this on? What sound scheme are
you using, or is it one you've created yourself?)

on this Dell e6500 laptop. So I copied some of the sound events over
to a temp
folder, and played them using various wav players, and sure enough, they
all sound lower in pitch (with the exception of one wav player, which
renders
the pitch correctly). I think I have finally noticed one thing unique
about this: these windows event sounds are mostly 22.05 kHz, 16 bit wave
files, not the
standard 44.1 kHz. Sitll, they should all play with the correct pitch!

My first thought _was_ a faulty reference crystal, but if it's only
sounds at a certain rate (and only some - even if all but one -
players), then it's not going to be that.

You say you "noticed" it. Do you mean/think it has _started_ doing it,
or has always done it on that machine? (Did you notice it because you
happened to have the same event - and sound - on two machines at around
the same time? There, I too would have noticed half a semitone
difference, I think. [Depending on what the sound was.])

I'd be tempted to load them into something that can do it (Audacity?,
GoldWave), and upsample them to 44100, and see if they then play
correctly - and, try downsampling some 44100 files to 22050, and see if
they then play oddly. (I'm just wondering if there's some other property
that's particular to the sound event files provided by Microsoft. If you
temporarily associate a 44100 Hz .wav file to one of your events, does
it play right?) Though you say it's players too, so not just the Events
subsystem.
[]
See if the ratio is 44100/48000 , implying some driver
is using the wrong sampling rate for something. Audacity has
an FFT display, which can show the frequency of spikes
in the frequency domain graph.

That'd be nearly 9%, or 1½ semitones. (Though Bill did say he _guessed_
at the 3 or 4 %.) Good thinking though.
[]
If it was a crystal timebase reference problem, that's
probably good to 100ppm. And I don't know if human pitch
sensing can detect that small of a shift.

I think the cheapest might be as much as 500 ppm. But that's basic
accuracy, or drift over time (months or years, or with _considerable_
change in temperature). And even that's 0.05%. But - unless the sound
system uses different crystals for different rates, and I can't see it
doing that (certainly not for 22050 and 44100 as they're related) - and
Bill says it's only some playings that are low/slow, I don't think it's
that.

(Writing "low/slow" there made me think: it'd be interesting to see if
it is only pitch, or duration that's affected - but you'd need a longish
[say well over a minute] file, and one with a clearly audible start and
stop [maybe your burst of concert A], to check that. But I suspect
duration _would_ be affected.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)

"Below 500 Hz, the jnd is about 3 Hz for sine waves,
and 1 Hz for complex tones; above 1000 Hz, the jnd for
sine waves is about 0.6% (about 10 cents)."

Which suggests you cannot hear 100ppm of error.

Interesting that it _isn't_ a percentage for low notes (assuming the
above is correct).
[]


I did some more experiments. The pitch shift is around 40 cents, or a bit
over 2 %. I can definitely tell if a song is off pitch by 2 %. (In fact,
on the radio, if it's off that much, it's annoying to me (and I can tell
that from my own memory of the original song, even from years ago). It
happens on all of the windows sound events, since they are all 22.05 kHz
wave files. And yes, it has always been this way on this one laptop.

So just for kicks, I converted one of them to 44.1 kHz, and sure enough, it
sounds fine; reconvert it back, and got the same problem.

And again, this issue happens on all my media players (with the exception of
that one simple one called Billy Player, which apparently must process the
22K audio signal differently - and correctly). (And it is nowhere near a 9
% pitch error, so that other idea isn't explaining it, either). Maybe it
has something to do with the buffering as Paul suggested, but I don't know
(some of these sound events are only one second)



22050 * 1.02 or 22050 / 1.02 , doesn't give a "canonical" frequency.

I can't guess as to where that is coming from.

IDT bought Sigmatel, which means the part number
and logo of some of them, indicates Sigmatel. And
Googling on the Sigmatel part number might bring
up more hits for you. I don't have a strong feeling
that IDT was serious about being a sound chip maker.

When you look at your FFT plot, is the spike nice
and sharp, or is the tip of the spike spread out
a bit ? That would be a check that "something has
broken loose" in the playback hardware. Like an
unlocked clock synthesizer.

You're going to need to dig up a part number
for that thing, to find further possibilities.

Paul
  #7  
Old August 15th 18, 10:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Sound driver question

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
When you look at your FFT plot, is the spike nice
and sharp, or is the tip of the spike spread out
a bit ? That would be a check that "something has
broken loose" in the playback hardware. Like an
unlocked clock synthesizer.


Except if it's that, why does the one player among the several he's
tried (I think he said it was called "Billy"; I've never heard of it)
_not_ exhibit the fault (despite using, presumably, the same hardware)!
It's an odd one.

You're going to need to dig up a part number
for that thing, to find further possibilities.

Paul


(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is usually
a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that will
analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The desire to remain private and/or anonymous used to be a core British value,
but in recent times it has been treated with suspicion - an unfortunate by-
product of the widespread desire for fame. - Chris Middleton,
Computing 6 September 2011
  #8  
Old August 15th 18, 11:04 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Sound driver question

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:


(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is usually
a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that will
analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)


Device Manager :
Sound,video,and game controllers
SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Properties
Details
Device Instance ID
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

11d4 Analog Devices
(table incomplete)

*******

An example of a Sigmatel...

FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_76A0

8384 SigmaTel
(no table at all)

It's not looking like that pci.ids file is going to help.

Paul
  #9  
Old August 15th 18, 11:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
When you look at your FFT plot, is the spike nice
and sharp, or is the tip of the spike spread out
a bit ? That would be a check that "something has
broken loose" in the playback hardware. Like an
unlocked clock synthesizer.


Except if it's that, why does the one player among the several he's
tried (I think he said it was called "Billy"; I've never heard of it)
_not_ exhibit the fault (despite using, presumably, the same hardware)!
It's an odd one.

You're going to need to dig up a part number
for that thing, to find further possibilities.

Paul


(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is usually
a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that will
analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)


It's called Billy Player, probably the lightest player you can get. Here is
the URL:
http://codecpack.co/download/Billy.html

But the fact that it (alone, so far) plays the file correctly (in pitch) is
what is weird.

WMP doesn't, VLC doesn't, 1by1 (another simple player) doesn't. As for
other than 22.05 kHz files, I haven't tried, but I would expect them to be
off pitch, too. I haven't looked at the FFT plot, as there isn't that much
installed on it yet. (I've been spending time trying to make sure it's
clean and all drivers are up to date, since I bought it used).

I'll add this. If that one player didn't play it correctly, I think things
would make more sense! This seems to imply that this one player (Billy
Player) does something unique in rendering the 22K WAV file such that it
gets it right - go figure). And it says it is using the IDT audio under
properties.


  #10  
Old August 15th 18, 11:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:


(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is usually
a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that will
analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)


Device Manager :
Sound,video,and game controllers
SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Properties
Details
Device Instance ID
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

11d4 Analog Devices
(table incomplete)

*******

An example of a Sigmatel...

FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_76A0

8384 SigmaTel
(no table at all)

It's not looking like that pci.ids file is going to help.

Paul


I don't see SoundMAX in here, although surprisingly, when I ran a registry
cleaner just to check on things, there is an invalid reference to the Start
Menu folder SoundMAX, so maybe that was uninstalled long ago (before I got
this).

Instead, under Device Manager, I have these relevant entries:
Device Manager
Sound, video and game controllers
Audio Codecs
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC (see note below)
Legacy Audio Drivers

Under the IDT codec line above, I find:
Properties
Details
HDAAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_111D&DEV_76B2&SUBSYS_1028024F &REV(etc)

Strange, isn't it. Maybe I should go look up some stuff on SoundMAX.


  #11  
Old August 15th 18, 11:51 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Sound driver question

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is usually
a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that will
analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)

Device Manager :
Sound,video,and game controllers
SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Properties
Details
Device Instance ID
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

11d4 Analog Devices
(table incomplete)

*******

An example of a Sigmatel...

FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_76A0

8384 SigmaTel
(no table at all)

It's not looking like that pci.ids file is going to help.

Paul


I don't see SoundMAX in here, although surprisingly, when I ran a registry
cleaner just to check on things, there is an invalid reference to the Start
Menu folder SoundMAX, so maybe that was uninstalled long ago (before I got
this).

Instead, under Device Manager, I have these relevant entries:
Device Manager
Sound, video and game controllers
Audio Codecs
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC (see note below)
Legacy Audio Drivers

Under the IDT codec line above, I find:
Properties
Details
HDAAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_111D&DEV_76B2&SUBSYS_1028024F &REV(etc)

Strange, isn't it. Maybe I should go look up some stuff on SoundMAX.


Up to three devices can be on the HDAudio bus.

A typical usage is one bus decode is for an Audio
Codec, and a second bus decode is for a Modem and
RJ11 to a phone line. That's a config that may
appear on a laptop, not a desktop.

Since your thingy is "FUNC_01", you might expect any
other devices on the bus to have a different decode
like FUNC_02. The company_name of the FUNC_02
device, is unlikely to be anything we've discussed
already.

It would be pretty difficult to bodge in a SoundMAX
driver into the thing, I would guess. It requires
INF editing. Check the INF folder in Windows
for evidence of "wizardry". Maybe it's already
been deleted, whatever they were doing. The only
case of this I've heard of, is people jamming
RealTek HDAudio drivers into other brands of
sound chips - which works for stereo LineOut only.
HDAudio may have sufficient "standard" register
definitions, that all devices can be run with
a single "stereo" driver. I've never tried anything
like that.

Now, the question would be, can one audio driver
foul up a second hardware instance. And my home
experience here is (unfortunately) yes. I had one
sound card, damage a global setting used by all
sound devices on the computer. I caught the
little ******* with ProcMon, but it took quite
a while scrolling through 100,000 registry calls
until I found an actual (wrong) "entry not found".
There are all sorts of "entry not found" entries
in a ProcMon run. My job in that case, was to
recognize one that was crucial to any sound card
to be working.

*******

See ? People do idle away the hours hacking drivers.
Imagine the mess this will make.

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/to...-vista/?page=9

*******

This covers up to Windows 7.

92HDxxx

https://www.dell.com/support/home/ca...driverid=t10v6

Your chip might be 92HDM46

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/to...rivers/?page=4

I've played the Dell game before. They have drivers that
other makers don't offer, newer drivers. The trick
is Googling to find the actual latest one, which
isn't easy.

The reason I had to play the Dell game, is my SoundMAX
on my old P4 system, used to "pop" every ten minutes,
which would blow you out of your seat. Quite unpleasant.
Various Asus drivers, would change the time between
pops, from around 10 minutes to 20 minutes.

I think I eventually found an even later driver on
the Dell site, that fixed it. Thank you, Analog Devices,
and your crappy driver policy...

Good luck with your (what might be) Sigmatel.

Paul
  #12  
Old August 16th 18, 04:19 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(He'd probably have to open up the laptop to find that, which is
usually a tedious process. Unless you can point him at a utility that
will analyse/interrogate peripheral chips electronically.)
Device Manager :
Sound,video,and game controllers
SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Properties
Details
Device Instance ID
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

11d4 Analog Devices
(table incomplete)

*******

An example of a Sigmatel...

FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_76A0

8384 SigmaTel
(no table at all)

It's not looking like that pci.ids file is going to help.

Paul


I don't see SoundMAX in here, although surprisingly, when I ran a
registry cleaner just to check on things, there is an invalid reference
to the Start Menu folder SoundMAX, so maybe that was uninstalled long
ago (before I got this).

Instead, under Device Manager, I have these relevant entries:
Device Manager
Sound, video and game controllers
Audio Codecs
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC (see note below)
Legacy Audio Drivers

Under the IDT codec line above, I find:
Properties
Details
HDAAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_111D&DEV_76B2&SUBSYS_1028024F &REV(etc)

Strange, isn't it. Maybe I should go look up some stuff on SoundMAX.


Up to three devices can be on the HDAudio bus.

A typical usage is one bus decode is for an Audio
Codec, and a second bus decode is for a Modem and
RJ11 to a phone line. That's a config that may
appear on a laptop, not a desktop.

Since your thingy is "FUNC_01", you might expect any
other devices on the bus to have a different decode
like FUNC_02. The company_name of the FUNC_02
device, is unlikely to be anything we've discussed
already.

It would be pretty difficult to bodge in a SoundMAX
driver into the thing, I would guess. It requires
INF editing. Check the INF folder in Windows
for evidence of "wizardry". Maybe it's already
been deleted, whatever they were doing. The only
case of this I've heard of, is people jamming
RealTek HDAudio drivers into other brands of
sound chips - which works for stereo LineOut only.
HDAudio may have sufficient "standard" register
definitions, that all devices can be run with
a single "stereo" driver. I've never tried anything
like that.

Now, the question would be, can one audio driver
foul up a second hardware instance. And my home
experience here is (unfortunately) yes. I had one
sound card, damage a global setting used by all
sound devices on the computer. I caught the
little ******* with ProcMon, but it took quite
a while scrolling through 100,000 registry calls
until I found an actual (wrong) "entry not found".
There are all sorts of "entry not found" entries
in a ProcMon run. My job in that case, was to
recognize one that was crucial to any sound card
to be working.

*******

See ? People do idle away the hours hacking drivers.
Imagine the mess this will make.

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/to...-vista/?page=9

*******

This covers up to Windows 7.

92HDxxx

https://www.dell.com/support/home/ca...driverid=t10v6

Your chip might be 92HDM46

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/to...rivers/?page=4

I've played the Dell game before. They have drivers that
other makers don't offer, newer drivers. The trick
is Googling to find the actual latest one, which
isn't easy.

The reason I had to play the Dell game, is my SoundMAX
on my old P4 system, used to "pop" every ten minutes,
which would blow you out of your seat. Quite unpleasant.
Various Asus drivers, would change the time between
pops, from around 10 minutes to 20 minutes.

I think I eventually found an even later driver on
the Dell site, that fixed it. Thank you, Analog Devices,
and your crappy driver policy...

Good luck with your (what might be) Sigmatel.

Paul


Well, I think I found a solution, although not my preferred solution. Just
on a hunch, I installed the Dell SRS Premium Sound driver to see if that
might "help" in some weird arcane way. It apparently acts as a go-between
between the IDT driver and sounds, and sure enough, it "resolves" the pitch
problem on these 22 K files (wav or mp3), so long as it's activated. My
preferred solution would be to simply use another audio driver altogether,
like Realtek, but if I read what you wrote here right, that could be
problematic, and it's not listed on the Dell site as being compatible for my
particular Dell model. So maybe I best let sleeping dogs lay with this work
around. One thing I did do is minimize the audio effects in SRS so I'm just
using it as a buffer, without too many "enhancements".


  #13  
Old August 16th 18, 10:27 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Sound driver question

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
Well, I think I found a solution, although not my preferred solution. Just


(Why not? I sense that, like me, you don't want the "enhancements" it
offers [I presume those are things like Hall, Rock, Classical type
"effects".] But presumably these can be disabled [e. g. by selecting
"flat" or "none" or similar].)

on a hunch, I installed the Dell SRS Premium Sound driver to see if that
might "help" in some weird arcane way. It apparently acts as a go-between
between the IDT driver and sounds, and sure enough, it "resolves" the pitch
problem on these 22 K files (wav or mp3), so long as it's activated. My


You hadn't mentioned before that it was doing it for any 22050 file, not
just .wav ones; but then it hadn't occurred to us to ask!

preferred solution would be to simply use another audio driver altogether,
like Realtek, but if I read what you wrote here right, that could be
problematic, and it's not listed on the Dell site as being compatible for my
particular Dell model. So maybe I best let sleeping dogs lay with this work
around. One thing I did do is minimize the audio effects in SRS so I'm just
using it as a buffer, without too many "enhancements".

I guess since you've got a solution ... "life's too short" is a
sentiment I find myself using more as I get older!

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
-Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
  #14  
Old August 16th 18, 06:50 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Sound driver question

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
Well, I think I found a solution, although not my preferred solution.
Just


(Why not? I sense that, like me, you don't want the "enhancements" it
offers [I presume those are things like Hall, Rock, Classical type
"effects".] But presumably these can be disabled [e. g. by selecting
"flat" or "none" or similar].)

on a hunch, I installed the Dell SRS Premium Sound driver to see if that
might "help" in some weird arcane way. It apparently acts as a
go-between between the IDT driver and sounds, and sure enough, it
"resolves" the pitch problem on these 22 K files (wav or mp3), so long
as it's activated. My


You hadn't mentioned before that it was doing it for any 22050 file, not
just .wav ones; but then it hadn't occurred to us to ask!

preferred solution would be to simply use another audio driver
altogether, like Realtek, but if I read what you wrote here right, that
could be problematic, and it's not listed on the Dell site as being
compatible for my particular Dell model. So maybe I best let sleeping
dogs lay with this work around. One thing I did do is minimize the
audio effects in SRS so I'm just using it as a buffer, without too many
"enhancements".

I guess since you've got a solution ... "life's too short" is a
sentiment I find myself using more as I get older!


I'm getting there too. Actually, I'm already there. :-)


 




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