Sound Distortion

A few weeks ago I noticed the sound coming out of my computer is distorted.
It seems as if it has slowed up a bit. Women sound like men, etc. I have an
hp pavilion 753n with xp profesional installed. The motherboard was replaced
about 17 months ago. I know the sound card is Realtek AC97. The driver
version is 5.10.06240 from 4/25/07, if that is any help. I don't know
anythingt about the mother board. I have tried troubleshooting, but to no
avail. I tried to update the driver but it asked me to supply a CD or disk,
I don't have them. I don't have a system back up. Am I spinning my wheels
here or is there a way to fix this? I don't want to spend any real money as
the computer is old. If there is a way I can download a driver or something
to fix the problem for free or very little money please let me know. Thank
you.

Gary Marks/New York City
--
gjm

gjmarks wrote:
A few weeks ago I noticed the sound coming out of my computer is distorted.
It seems as if it has slowed up a bit. Women sound like men, etc. I have an
hp pavilion 753n with xp profesional installed. The motherboard was replaced
about 17 months ago. I know the sound card is Realtek AC97. The driver
version is 5.10.06240 from 4/25/07, if that is any help. I don't know
anythingt about the mother board. I have tried troubleshooting, but to no
avail. I tried to update the driver but it asked me to supply a CD or disk,
I don't have them. I don't have a system back up. Am I spinning my wheels
here or is there a way to fix this? I don't want to spend any real money as
the computer is old. If there is a way I can download a driver or something
to fix the problem for free or very little money please let me know. Thank
you.

Gary Marks/New York City

I have a technical theory, as to why this can happen. But I don't
understand what software could possible screw up that way. An easy test
is to try the most recent driver, but with no assurance it'll fix
anything.

Audio sampling rates are values like 44.1KHz and 48KHz. Audio files will
likely have the sample rate used, recorded in the header of the file. The
driver is supposed to be able to match up the sample rate requested, with
the hardware support in the chip. The scheme should be bulletproof.
But you wouldn't be the first person with a "Chipmunks" type sample
rate mismatch problem.

If you had two computers, you could record the sound coming out
of one computer, and measure its frequency with another computer.
What I'd be interested in, is whether the ratio of the "bad"
computer output, to the proper frequency, was related to 48000/44100
or not.

*******

For your driver, I started here.

HP Pavilion 753n drivers. I don't see an audio driver. Page mentions motherboard is MS-6577

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...ro duct=90390

I found a description of MS-6577 here. Realtek ALC202A AC'97 sound chip is
connected to ICH4 Southbridge chip.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=bph07843#

Picture of MS-6577 "Xenon" motherboard.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA.../c00437815.jpg

RealTek has drivers, which you can download. This page is for "AC'97 Audio Codecs"

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

One download is an EXE (18295k). The other is a ZIP file (18361k).
Either one of those should give you a working driver. Those
files support a bunch of different OSes. XP is one of them.
The EXE should give you an easy update.

"Windows 98Gold/98se/Me/2000/XP/2003(32/64 bits) for Driver only"

HTH,
Paul

gjmarks wrote:
A few weeks ago I noticed the sound coming out of my computer is distorted.
It seems as if it has slowed up a bit. Women sound like men, etc. I have an
hp pavilion 753n with xp profesional installed. The motherboard was replaced
about 17 months ago. I know the sound card is Realtek AC97. The driver
version is 5.10.06240 from 4/25/07, if that is any help. I don't know
anythingt about the mother board. I have tried troubleshooting, but to no
avail. I tried to update the driver but it asked me to supply a CD or disk,
I don't have them. I don't have a system back up. Am I spinning my wheels
here or is there a way to fix this? I don't want to spend any real money as
the computer is old. If there is a way I can download a driver or something
to fix the problem for free or very little money please let me know. Thank
you.

Gary Marks/New York City

I have a technical theory, as to why this can happen. But I don't
understand what software could possible screw up that way. An easy test
is to try the most recent driver, but with no assurance it'll fix
anything.

Audio sampling rates are values like 44.1KHz and 48KHz. Audio files will
likely have the sample rate used, recorded in the header of the file. The
driver is supposed to be able to match up the sample rate requested, with
the hardware support in the chip. The scheme should be bulletproof.
But you wouldn't be the first person with a "Chipmunks" type sample
rate mismatch problem.

If you had two computers, you could record the sound coming out
of one computer, and measure its frequency with another computer.
What I'd be interested in, is whether the ratio of the "bad"
computer output, to the proper frequency, was related to 48000/44100
or not.

*******

For your driver, I started here.

HP Pavilion 753n drivers. I don't see an audio driver. Page mentions motherboard is MS-6577

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...ro duct=90390

I found a description of MS-6577 here. Realtek ALC202A AC'97 sound chip is
connected to ICH4 Southbridge chip.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=bph07843#

Picture of MS-6577 "Xenon" motherboard.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA.../c00437815.jpg

RealTek has drivers, which you can download. This page is for "AC'97 Audio Codecs"

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

One download is an EXE (18295k). The other is a ZIP file (18361k).
Either one of those should give you a working driver. Those
files support a bunch of different OSes. XP is one of them.
The EXE should give you an easy update.

"Windows 98Gold/98se/Me/2000/XP/2003(32/64 bits) for Driver only"

HTH,
Paul