If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On 3/22/2012 8:37 AM, jim wrote:
OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? Yes I have an idea. When you make changes to an OS, there is always a chance of breaking something. I would go back to SP2 and see if it works again. Or find out if there is any updated audio drivers that is compatible with SP3. I personally regret updating some of my computers to SP3. As SP2 worked perfectly for me except for one needed KB for hibernating with more than 1GB of RAM. Even OE6 compacting doesn't work right with SP3 either. As it often hangs on folders.dbx if SP3 is installed. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0 Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3
Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? jim |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
"jim" wrote in message ...
OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? jim Up date you Computer Audio Drives, the the new SP3 OS.. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
jim wrote:
OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? jim I think Xear 3D Audio is part of the CMedia package. In terms of the drivers, there are the old drivers, and then at one point I think Creative bought some company that owned licensing for a certain sound playback technology. And they forced the companies that were previously using it, to stop. It took CMedia around a year to re-write the drivers, to work around it. And for a year, you couldn't get drivers from their site as a result. Eventually, I think the drivers came back. The drivers now, would be subtly different than the ones that came out originally. This is probably a red herring. So in terms of driver versions, you'd have an older version on your sound card in-box CD, than the type of driver you might get from CMedia now. Your symptoms don't ring a bell, in terms of type. I doubt it's a Delayed Transaction setting or a PCI Latency setting, as on more modern systems, the first item is always enabled, and the second one is probably not even a setting any more (could be set to 32 or 64 by default). At one time, sound card problems were caused by bus starvation. But your symptom description doesn't match - bus starvation is described as "crackling" when it happens. So that leaves some other kind of shim, stuffed in by another software. If you use Skype, they may have an "Echo Suppressor" driver, which runs all the time, instead of just when Skype is being used. And there may be an interaction between the number of channels the echo suppressor handles, versus your current sound setting. The Echo Suppressor might be compatible with 2-channel running mode for the sound card, and be relatively invisible if the card is run that way. And then muck things up, if you use 5.1 . I'm just going from memory here, and grasping at straws. Other possibilities are things like Ventrilo for in-game audio communications for collaborative game play, as sometimes game audio communicators need echo suppression to prevent feedback if you're playing with an open microphone and speakers next to them. Good luck, Paul |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:33:31 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, BillW50 , wrote On 3/22/2012 8:37 AM, jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? Yes I have an idea. When you make changes to an OS, there is always a chance of breaking something. I would go back to SP2 and see if it works again. Or find out if there is any updated audio drivers that is compatible with SP3. I personally regret updating some of my computers to SP3. As SP2 worked perfectly for me except for one needed KB for hibernating with more than 1GB of RAM. Even OE6 compacting doesn't work right with SP3 either. As it often hangs on folders.dbx if SP3 is installed. Thanks. Going back to SP2 is not really an option since that Disk will no longer boot, but acts just fine as a system data disk. (most likely the registry is corrupted on that one.) The audio distortion is the same with or without that disk connected. jim |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:04:56 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, "Hot-Text" , wrote "jim" wrote in message ... OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? jim Up date you Computer Audio Drives, the the new SP3 OS.. Excellent idea! Thanks, jim |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:42:04 -0400, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, Paul , wrote jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? jim I think Xear 3D Audio is part of the CMedia package. Possibly. In my case, I bought it as third party hardware/software about 2 years ago. The Xear information panel reads: Audio Engine: Xear3D DS3D EAX Audio Codec: CMI8738 Audio Driver Version: 5.12.8.1733 Audio Controller: C-Media Audio Controller DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0C C-Media 3D Audio Configuration 1.1.22.00 In terms of the drivers, there are the old drivers, and then at one point I think Creative bought some company that owned licensing for a certain sound playback technology. And they forced the companies that were previously using it, to stop. It took CMedia around a year to re-write the drivers, to work around it. And for a year, you couldn't get drivers from their site as a result. Eventually, I think the drivers came back. The drivers now, would be subtly different than the ones that came out originally. This is probably a red herring. So in terms of driver versions, you'd have an older version on your sound card in-box CD, than the type of driver you might get from CMedia now. I'll be honest, drivers are a mystery to me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to them. Your symptoms don't ring a bell, in terms of type. I doubt it's a Delayed Transaction setting or a PCI Latency setting, as on more modern systems, the first item is always enabled, and the second one is probably not even a setting any more (could be set to 32 or 64 by default). At one time, sound card problems were caused by bus starvation. But your symptom description doesn't match - bus starvation is described as "crackling" when it happens. So that leaves some other kind of shim, stuffed in by another software. If you use Skype, they may have an "Echo Suppressor" driver, which runs all the time, instead of just when Skype is being used. And there may be an interaction between the number of channels the echo suppressor handles, versus your current sound setting. The Echo Suppressor might be compatible with 2-channel running mode for the sound card, and be relatively invisible if the card is run that way. And then muck things up, if you use 5.1 . I'm just going from memory here, and grasping at straws. Other possibilities are things like Ventrilo for in-game audio communications for collaborative game play, as sometimes game audio communicators need echo suppression to prevent feedback if you're playing with an open microphone and speakers next to them. Good luck, Paul Yes. Luck is something I definitely need. :-) It isn't feedback, i do not have Skype installed. I do have DFC audio enhancer but the problem was there before as well after installing that. (I had hoped that software might clean things up.) I realize it could any one or more of many different things. Thanks, jim |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
jim wrote:
I'll be honest, drivers are a mystery to me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to them. "Drivers" is just a fancy name for a program over which the user generally has no control but which is used by other programs, generally to accomplish some hardware task. A printer driver takes info from wherever and sends it to the printer...an audio driver does likewise for sound (to the sound card). They save programers from having to write low level code to deal with devices thus allowing them to concentrate on their app. -- dadiOH ____________________________ dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
jim wrote:
OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Disconnect the external speakers from the line-out jacks from the motherboard backpanel. Connect headphones or a headset to the same jack. Is the sound good or bad using the headphones or headset as alternate speakers? This is a quick test to eliminate your external powered speakers as the source of the problem. Some speakers provide their own controls, like adding surround sound or other effects, so their logic can go bad and produce artifacts in sound reproduction. You don't say that this is a new problem that cropped up on an old host that was working before or if it is a new hardware setup and this problem has been exhibited ever since that hardware setup was created. Is it a new problem on old working hardware or is it a new hardware setup with the problem always there? |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On 3/22/2012 2:09 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Disconnect the external speakers from the line-out jacks from the motherboard backpanel. Connect headphones or a headset to the same jack. Is the sound good or bad using the headphones or headset as alternate speakers? This is a quick test to eliminate your external powered speakers as the source of the problem. Some speakers provide their own controls, like adding surround sound or other effects, so their logic can go bad and produce artifacts in sound reproduction. You don't say that this is a new problem that cropped up on an old host that was working before or if it is a new hardware setup and this problem has been exhibited ever since that hardware setup was created. Is it a new problem on old working hardware or is it a new hardware setup with the problem always there? Jim (OP) stated all was fine before SP3 was installed. So it isn't that hard to figure out. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0 Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/22/2012 8:37 AM, jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? Yes I have an idea. When you make changes to an OS, there is always a chance of breaking something. I would go back to SP2 and see if it works again. Or find out if there is any updated audio drivers that is compatible with SP3. I personally regret updating some of my computers to SP3. As SP2 worked perfectly for me except for one needed KB for hibernating with more than 1GB of RAM. Even OE6 compacting doesn't work right with SP3 either. As it often hangs on folders.dbx if SP3 is installed. I have found it safest to close IE (if its open) and not be running anything else at the time when I run OE compacting. I simply run OE from its shortcut directly, and then compact all folders. |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On 3/22/2012 2:55 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote: On 3/22/2012 8:37 AM, jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? Yes I have an idea. When you make changes to an OS, there is always a chance of breaking something. I would go back to SP2 and see if it works again. Or find out if there is any updated audio drivers that is compatible with SP3. I personally regret updating some of my computers to SP3. As SP2 worked perfectly for me except for one needed KB for hibernating with more than 1GB of RAM. Even OE6 compacting doesn't work right with SP3 either. As it often hangs on folders.dbx if SP3 is installed. I have found it safest to close IE (if its open) and not be running anything else at the time when I run OE compacting. I simply run OE from its shortcut directly, and then compact all folders. What always works for me under SP3 is to toggle OE/IE for offline use. Close OE. Then reopen (it better say it is still offline). Now compact. It should run perfectly now. SP2 didn't require this nonsense though. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0 Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/22/2012 2:55 PM, Bill in Co wrote: BillW50 wrote: On 3/22/2012 8:37 AM, jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Any ideas? Yes I have an idea. When you make changes to an OS, there is always a chance of breaking something. I would go back to SP2 and see if it works again. Or find out if there is any updated audio drivers that is compatible with SP3. I personally regret updating some of my computers to SP3. As SP2 worked perfectly for me except for one needed KB for hibernating with more than 1GB of RAM. Even OE6 compacting doesn't work right with SP3 either. As it often hangs on folders.dbx if SP3 is installed. I have found it safest to close IE (if its open) and not be running anything else at the time when I run OE compacting. I simply run OE from its shortcut directly, and then compact all folders. What always works for me under SP3 is to toggle OE/IE for offline use. Close OE. Then reopen (it better say it is still offline). Now compact. It should run perfectly now. SP2 didn't require this nonsense though. That sounds like a good idea. I think I now recalled what happened in my case: If I I hadn't run OE compacting on my own for some time, and finally OE requested doing it right now (i.e. it reached its counter value), sometimes it borked. So in the future, when that autoprompt to compact came up, I declined, closed down everything, and then reopened OE and did it manually. No issues that way. |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
dadiOH wrote:
jim wrote: I'll be honest, drivers are a mystery to me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to them. "Drivers" is just a fancy name for a program over which the user generally has no control but which is used by other programs, generally to accomplish some hardware task. A printer driver takes info from wherever and sends it to the printer...an audio driver does likewise for sound (to the sound card). They save programers from having to write low level code to deal with devices thus allowing them to concentrate on their app. I think we can paint a more optimistic picture than that :-) Ring 3 | "Kernel country, Ring 0 security" | User Program | -- User program is blocked, and | | can't touch hardware directly | +-------------- Driver (in ring 0) ------ actual hardware register | | The driver must be carefully written, or the entire OS can become unstable. Good driver writers "go to school" to learn how to write safe and effective drivers. On some of the older OSes, the security structure was rather flat, and you could do whatever the hell you wanted. Those were great days while they lasted. (As a hardware guy, I loved those days.) But with more "protected" OSes, came restrictions. To help guarantee a user program could never "tip over" the OS and cause a BSOD or a kernel panic, the ring structure of the processor was used for protection. By only allowing certain activities in each ring, the operating system is protected from the evil or careless user. (Or so the model goes...) The processor hardware, for some strange reason, had four rings numbered 0 through 3, but in practice, only two get used. No one has ever figured out a use for the middle two of them. When a driver is not installed, not one of any sort, the Device Manager (Start : Run : devmgmt.msc) will show a "mark" of some sort, to show a driver is not present. When a driver is present, it carries out some kind of operation to "register" its presence, so the OS knows it is open for business. If you had only one sound card and no driver for it, the OS considers you have zero audio devices working, and any alert sounds cause the computer beeper to beep. That's a fallback if there are zero audio devices ready to go. It's still possible, for a valid audio device to be present, and no sound to be heard. All you need to do, is turn the volume to zero, or go into the Sound control panel and select the wrong audio device and so on. So 1) Yes, you can be missing an audio driver. You may see a mark in Device Manager. You may be prompted by the new hardware wizard, to load a driver, and it could happen on each boot attempt. And worst case, you may even be greeted by the computer case beeper doing some beeping. 2) With the driver in place, it's still possible for malfunctions. A shim, otherwise known as a "Filter driver", is something that sits in the stream, and messes around. I'm not sure of the mechanics, and this is a vague handwaving sort of diagram implying how a filter driver can choose to interfere. In the case of an echo suppressor filter for example (i.e. Skype), the filter driver would take in "echoed" audio samples and output "un-echoed" samples on the other side. Or react in any way needed, to prevent echoes from making the audio unbearable. User ---- Upperfilter --- driver --- Lowerfilter --- hardware ******* In all the excitement, I've forgotten one other detail. Sound drivers have "effects", such as "concert hall". You should go into the CMedia control panel and disable all effects, as a starting point when debugging. These pictures are in French, but they're the only good ones I could find. The first one shows "Effet sonore" or "sound effect". You'd want to set this to disabled. http://jmhauchard.free.fr/perso/info...teson/cmi5.png In this one, the setting is in the upper left. http://jmhauchard.free.fr/perso/info.../cmedia3d4.png Turning off any virtualizer can help too. A virtualizer, converts 2 channel sound, into 5.1. If you had actual 5.1 content, like sound coming from a DVD movie playback, then you'd want that off. Turn it off, until you get the audio problems under control. http://jmhauchard.free.fr/perso/info.../cmedia3d2.png HTH, Paul |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Audio is distorted -- XP Pro, SP3
On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:09:38 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, VanguardLH , wrote jim wrote: OS: Windows XP Pro,SP3 Audio Codec: CMI8738 Affected: All audio output Third Party: Xear 3D Audio (set for 6 speakers, I have 5) The audio output is distorted including the Windows start up wave. String instruments sound out of tune, Wind instruments sound as if they have vibrators attached, etc. -- that sort of thing. If I had to guess as to "sounds like", i would guess that the audio sounds like it was over-recorded. My control is that i had a Win XP Pro,SP2 setup on the same hardware, same software -- on the same machine -- and it was clear as a bell. Disconnect the external speakers from the line-out jacks from the motherboard backpanel. Connect headphones or a headset to the same jack. Is the sound good or bad using the headphones or headset as alternate speakers? That was an interesting test. The headphones had no distortion. This is a quick test to eliminate your external powered speakers as the source of the problem. Some speakers provide their own controls, like adding surround sound or other effects, so their logic can go bad and produce artifacts in sound reproduction. You don't say that this is a new problem that cropped up on an old host that was working before or if it is a new hardware setup and this problem has been exhibited ever since that hardware setup was created. Is it a new problem on old working hardware or is it a new hardware setup with the problem always there? The *only* hardware change was using a new boot disk, and installing the same base operating system from the same CD as was used for the previous boot disk. Thanks, the headphone test actually told me a lot. jim |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|