Audigy Platinum EX making crackling/popping sou

Whenever I'm pressing a key on the keyboard (qwerty keyboard, not midi keyboard) and a sound plays, it makes a very loud and annoying crackling/popping/static sound. It does this primarily in games, but it can also do it Windows. I've been dealing with this for close to a year and I am fed up with it. If I cannot get these issues resolved, I will never buy another Creative product again. I would greatly appreciate any help to fix this problem.
System configuration:
AOpen AK-79D 400Max nForce2 motherboard
AthlonXP 3000+ Barton (400 MHz FSB)
2x-52 MB PC3200 GEIL DDR in dual channel
Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH MyVIVO (GeForce FX5900)
Promise FT S50TX2 RAID card
250 GB Western Digital SATA + 250 GB Western Digital ATA in a RAID0 stripe configuration
Klipsch Pro Media 5. speakers
PowerRight 500 watt power supply

I also have the exact same problem. Most prevalent when playing games as a result of holding a key down. Note I have an Audigy2 What do you mean? Check out GET CREATIVE.
ABIT AN7 MB
XP 3200 +
Audigy2
Powercolor ATI 9600 Pro video
GIG Crucial Xtreme XMS M2M
2 - 80 GIG Raptor SATA Dri'ves Mirror 0
350 Watt PS
Does not matter which keyboard.... I've tried several.....had the exact same problems with
ABIT NF7-S
XP 2800 +
I think I am going to go through my BIOS settings?
Can anyone help?

Similar Messages

  • Audigy 2 ZS Snap, Crackle, Pop and a c

    I just got a new Audigy 2 ZS. My system is as follows:
    Athlon XP 2800+
    Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro
    Nvidia 5900
    .5GB DDR
    Altec Lansing 4. speakers
    I have all the latest drivers and bios for everything. I've switched PCI slots and I've tried all the knowledge base action items. The speaker config is for 4/4. speakers.
    I get crackling, popping and an occasional chirp with most applications:
    Musicmatch Jukebox 0
    Adobe Audition .5
    Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 2005
    Windows sounds
    Half Life 2
    I don't get the sound problems with some applications:
    Creative MediaSource Player
    Sid Meier's Pirates
    Rome: Total War
    Riddick Escape From Butcher's Bay
    Half Life 2
    I listed Half Life 2 because it is the clue! After installing the card, I got horrible sound from HL2. I opened the audio properties and the game was configured for 2 speakers. I changed the config to 4 speakers and the sound is perfect and amazing.
    I went back through the applications, and the ones that work are driving 4 speakers, and the ones that don't are only driving 2. This looks like a straight up driver issue. If the application asks for 2 speakers only, then the card produces distortion.
    If anyone can confirm this observation, then perhaps it will point toward a fix.

    Thanks for the tip. I tried it and unfortunately it didn't work.
    Since the card will produce clear sound when driving all 4 speakers, the card and speakers should be ok. I'm still getting the problem when any application is only driving 2 speakers. This one's a real head scratcher.

  • K8N SLI PLATINUM - SBLi onboard crackling & popping?? Same with SBLive PCI???

    Hi!
    I just put the new machine together a week ago and I'm having a few problems.
    Everything is smooth except these few things:
    (Running XP pro SP1 + hotfixes)
    1. I have problems with sound, the sound from the onboard SB live 24 bit is kind of popping and crackling, which is annoying
    2. I put an PCI SB live Gamer 5.1, and got the same results, which is weird
    3. Moving the mouse around isnt smooth as before this mobo, every so and so it stutters a little, still much useable but annoying
    I'm stumped with the audio problem. How can the sam thing happen with both cards?
    The PCI card is using MS drivers on purpose, and the onboard is using Creative drivers from the install cd, so that rules out driver problems. Tried reinstalling DX (using 9.0c), tried disabling HW acceleration on the cards, even disabled USB in bios, but the problem remains :/
    It also isn't connected to volume controls, even tried playing with winamp setting using waveout instead of directSound, the same. It also happend on all sound played, be it system or through different players.
    I know the PSU isnt 24 pin, but it's strong enough to handle this, as this should be using less power then my last config
    I had no such problems on my last mobo nf3 based s754, the only difference is the mobo+cpu+gfx, was using EPOX 8KDA3+, a64 3200+ (2.2GHz), Radeon 9800PRO. I was even using the realtek onboard at the same time as SB live 5.1. And the whole thing was OC'ed, mem 260MHz, cpu 2600MHz.
    So if you guys have any ideas please do help, it's driving me mad 
    BTW, the voltages reported in BIOS and the MSI tool are stable 12v at 11.97-12.02
    Just finished running Prime95 and Memtest86+ , no errors whatsoever 

    Quote from: EdwinGF on 20-December-05, 03:23:00
    It seems strange you're having problems with this board's onboard audio. That's really strange for me, as I never had
    any problems with Creative products, with the only exception of a Creative WebCam Go! Plus, which gave me many
    hours of free head aches.
    Lucky you, me and a million of other users had problems with SB Live (I bought my first SBLive some 7yrs ago). The drivers were so bad that people actualy made open source drivers for SBLive familiy. It was especialy bad on the AMD platform.
    Quote
    About your problem, try to get and use a propper PSU for it. Your board MAY BE needing it for propper operation ofthe onboard Creative SB Live! 24 Bit chipset. Please see this link.
    Checked the board, I do have the fix, and yeah it was solderd manualy by the looks of it
    Quote
    EDIT: Your SB Live! PCI card may not be working at all. First make sure to disable the onboard SB Live! Audio in the BIOS.
    Then connect your PCI card to your board and try again. If the onboard SB Live! chip is enabled, the O.S. may use it instead
    of the PCI SB Live! card.
    How could that be? Sound coming from the pci card actualy comming from the onboard chip?
    Its working, has drivers loaded, and all the rest, and I can plainly see where the cable to the amp is connected.
    Quote
    Before buying anything, ask a friend to borrow you a 24 Pin PSU. Connect it to your board and pay attention to the sound.
    If the problems you're experiencing dissapears, then your board need a 24 Pin PSU.
    Seeing as a quality PSU costs more than this motherboard it's not something I take lighlty. I am planning to get a new PSU, but ATM this one will have to do, and surely is strong enough to handle the HW I'm using. Check the sig.
    Quote
    If not, check your board and your case and see if there are any unused metal stands or any other metal surface shorting your
    board back face at some place. If there are any, isolate them well, and then try again. See if the problem persist or dissapears.
    Well, I'm fairly sure there is no shorting...
    I was hopeing that someone had symptomps similar to mine to samve time on the troubleshooting but alas, it seems I'm the only one....

  • Audigy 2 ZS - snap, crackle, pop

    I know Creative cards are NOT the ones you want to use for professional audio, but I'm a gamer, too, so I bought this card primarily for gaming purposes.
    I've used multiple Creative drivers and ASIO4ALL with no change in my problem. Samplerates from 512/96000kHz to 1536/48000kHz. Whenever I play a VST, I frequently get crackles in the audio. This work with all output ports, tried with different speakers and headphones. As you can see, I've tried everything basically... The crackles become more frequent and severe when I have multiple VSTs loaded at once. Samples crackle the same as synthesis. I've also used multiple VST hosts with no difference. Nothing seems to help.
    This soundcard has become the biggest headache of my life. Does anyone experience this problem and know how to deal with it, other than simply buying a professional audio card from M-Audio or some other company?
    Edit: I forgot to mention the problem has nothing to do with my other hardware. I have an Athlon 2500@3200 and 1gb pc3200.
    Message Edited by farren on 06-10-2005 11:10 PM
    Message Edited by farren on 06-11-2005 02:47 AM

    When I used Asio4all many moons ago on my SBLive, that's what I remember seeing; stereo in - stereo out. That's why I remained unimpressed with it. I found the kx drivers more to my liking because of the routing options and flexibility it offered.
    Recently, I experimented with WDM on my 1820 to find out exactly how many ins and outs I would get out of WDM. Of course, stereo in only, but I was surprised to find that it now offered 8 outs! Since Asio4all is merely a WDM wrapper, the same would appear in your routing options. As a sidenote, I don't use WDM since I also have Cubase SL so pure ASIO is the way to go for me; I never once considered WDM or Asio4all. As someone recording multiple sources, having 2 inputs is severely limiting and since I mix in stereo, I don't really need multiple outs.
    I guess it's my bad for not checking the present version of Asio4all; but then again, I don't need it 'coz the 1.8 drivers for my 1820m have finally been released! Now let's see what this baby can REALLY do!
    My apologies for the confusion.
    Message Edited by KitC on 06-15-2005 09:01 AM

  • Snap, Crackle & Pop :( Audidgy 2 ZS Platinum Pro - Plz H

    Hi all,Im having some serious issue's with my Audidgy 2 ZS Platinum Pro...For the past week my sound card has?been SNAP, CRACKLE & POP with terrible noises thru my KRK?Rokits RP6SE studio monitors. I have tried a full uninstall of the drivers and software then a reboot and then a full re-install of everything that comes on the Audidgy disc and nothing i have tried has fixed the problem, i have not installed anything else on my pc before or after this has happened and no new hardware has been added either.Now i've had this problem many times in the last 2 years since i purchased this crap card but the problem has always gone away within a couple of days and has never been as bad as what it is now. I remember seeing a couple of years back on here about this same issue and it was at least 9 pages long with everyone saying the same thing about this?S/Card?and that Creative were working on this issue,?and i was hoping someone on here could point me in the right direction to rectifying this problem i have as all music production work is now at a stop as the noise im getting is to much to work with... This is the spec of the PC thats running the Audidgy....amd athlon 64bit 3800+ 2.4ghz processor?x maxtor maxline 2 - 300gb HDD x maxtor Diamond 0 - 250gb HDDGigabyte N-force 3 motherboard ( K8 Triton )Soundblaster Audigy 2 zs platinum pro - model SB03602 x pioneer 09 dvd/cdrw X 500watt ATX power supplyIm desparate to get this sorted as there are tracks i need to get finished asap....Any help would be more than apprieciated... ThanksRob Dj Benson...

    Mate so far i have tried my soundcard on every slot in my machine, i have 5 slots and the only slot that will actaully recognise the card is the slot it normally uses, i've uninstalled and reinstalled, i've updated the drivers which was a waste of time, i've even cleaned the card and also where my PC is situated it is in a nice cool place, the room temp is actually cold, my pc is running at 33oC so theres no problem there with 5 fans inside it running it nice and cool. Temparature is not the issue, its these crap drivers that creative have made, my pc health is in very good condition and im running out of idea's on what to try next... i know its not an irq problem as i've checked that aswell so i dont think there is much more to check...
    A reply from Catherine or Dale wouldnt go a miss seeing as they seem to be the know all and end all of creative products, sorry if im sounding like im having a dig here, im just fed up with all the crap that creative are coming out with over this issue and not attending to the real problem and that is a solution to fixing these cards instead of blaming N-Videa all the time.
    This is the first week off work i have had in 5 months and so far i have achieved nothing in terms of studio production, i have spent the last 5 days trying to fix this bloody card and im not a happy bunny... I even signed that petition last night as a result of creatives lack of technical support, and im sure the other 8500+ people who have signed it feel exactly the same way...

  • Audigy SE: Snap, crackle, pop / hardware not fo

    You think you have problems... take a look at mine... all CL relavent... I have a problem that Dell says they can't isolate, and sware they will make Creative's problem if our next course of action doesn't resolve the snap, crackles and pops in games (like Flight simulator 9 and 0, and WoW). Yes,?integrated MB?Sigmatel drivers (merge between CL and another company) and PCI SB cards have the same problems... Snap-crackle-pop and the continual "SCHHHHHH..." sounds. My system is a Dell, which of course, gives me a little support, but not much. Please read... With tech support through Dell from India and Canada, my system, w/o CL cards installed creates snap, crackles and popping sounds in any 3D engine game (like FS 9 and 0, and WoW). Dell has no idea how to solve this problem, after installing drivers for DX, doing and IDE config, reinstalling my onboard Sigmatel drivers, changing the hardware acceleration and sample rates, simply unplugging and plugging back in the input jack leading to the speakers, trying a CL's sound card, like the Audigy SE (with its own problems much like what my onboard integrated Sigmatel drivers do)...etc. Now, to all of you experiencing CL's problems, I have already tried updated drivers, moving the card from one PCI slot to another (through all PCI slots), adjusting volume levels, tried playing a DVD (couldn't hear anything well from the DVD beacuse the volume, though maxed out, wasn't loud enough), tried a SB 5. Dell Digital (same problems), and the list goes on. My system:?OS: Windows Media Center 2005Dell E50 3ghz P4 w/ ATI PCI hypermemory 256 video card(2) free PCI slots available after vidoe and TV out cardSigmatel integrated sound (not a 3D sound engine...they admitted that)2.5 gb DDR2 SDRAM, 400mhz?This isn't top of the line, but the next course of action from Dell is to wipe my system clean of WMC 2005 and install Windows XP Pro, at their cost, not mine (thank God for tech support extended warranty). At least then I will have CL driver's. After reading this post, however, and many on this forum, I find that CL's has not addressed the fundamental "problem". So, I wonder, after all is said and done, CL's hasn't really isolated the problem? What gives? It would appear the OS doesn't matter, so maybe the Chipset does? or is it the 3D sound engine? i am not a tech, and Dell tech support can't figure it out, either. So, any suggestions?

    ... and by the way, the cards won't even install with CL's software from the CD on to the system. The only way to get any of the cards to work, if at all, was to force the driver to work (going in and saying "I want THIS driver installed"). The software on the CD won't run (multiple cards...dell digital, Audigy SE, li've 5., etc) nor will the downloaded drivers EXE file run. When I forced the driver to work I got the "SCHHHH" sound, instead of the advertised "PERFECT UPGRADE FROM THE BASIC MOTHERBOARD AUDIO TO OUTSTANDING MUSIC, MOVIE AND GAME SOUND". In my case, the sound was no-more superior than a fart in space.

  • Crackling/Popping in Rome Total War - Could it be chipset heat? (Audigy 2

    I'm posting this because I have a friend who just got a the same sound-card I have (Audigy 2 ZS) and has crackling/popping in a few games. What is surprising is she has crackling/popping in the same area of Rome Total War as I do. It's when you get in amoungst all the soldiers and the # of sounds and intensity is at its max.
    So is it possible the crackling/popping is due to heat? I don't think it's the conflicting SATA issues I've read about since I have 2 Gig of RAM and my HD's aren't accessed during this part of the game. I also tried changing my PCI latency, but that did not help.
    Thanks to everyone who takes the time discuss this.

    I'm back - with a SOLUTION to the "ripped speaker like" sound problem when playing QUICKTIME! ! !
    And somebody better tell --------- APPLE!!! I think.
    OK - here it is.... I never really liked QUICKTIME anyway.So I went to this site and downloaded for really <EM>FREE</EM> - QUICKTIME ALTERNATIVEhttp://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Video-Players/QuickTime-Alternati've.shtml
    Then before I installed it - I uninstalled Apple's QUICKTIME.
    Then I installed QUICKTIME ALTERNATIVE.
    And guess what? No sound distortion. And quicktime alternati've seems pretty cool.
    So there's a rotten golden apple around - they have to fix there own problem - and CREATIVE should force them.
    Happy? reply to the forum and tell me. :womanhappy:
    Message Edited by joliett on 04-29-2006 04:26 AM

  • Audigy SE newest update 2/16/07 made my crackling/pop issue wo

    im starting to have little faith in that creative is going to be able to fix all these problems with vista and their sound cards. the new driver update that came out yesterday made the crackling/pop issue worse, guess im gonna have to install the older drivers again and just wait for the next update.. sigh

    It says above 2 relevant and 1 correct answere available .............
    I'm new here so could anyone direct me to these answeres?

  • Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Crackle/Stutter During Gamep

    Current System Configuration
    -Intel P4 3E 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB MB L2 Cache
    -MSI PT880 NEO FSR
    -Samsung 52MB DDR400 (X2)
    -Radeon 9550 256MB DDR AGP 8X
    -Sony DL DVD+-R/W
    -Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer (sitting on desk next to computer)
    -Windows XP Home w/ SP2
    So I just dropped $40.00 on an Audigy 2 ZS Gamer LE. It took all of 30 seconds of Half-Life 2 to show me that the crappy onboard 5. audio performed better during gameplay. I found this a bit odd being that the word "Gamer" is actually in the name of this soundcard. Granted the word is only there to coincide with the software package included with the card, but if it comes with games you'd think it would work well in games. Anyway...While playing any game, there is constant (and very LOUD) crackling in the audio and at points it will actually cause the game itself to stutter. The problem is intolerable.
    So far I have tried:
    Using Different Speakers....didn't work (way to easy of a solution anyway)
    Verifying onboard audio is disabled....didn't work (like I'd leave it enabled)
    Updating Creative's drivers/softare....didn't work
    Updating MB drivers/software....didn't work
    Updating MB BIOS....didn't work
    Changing PCI slot....didn't work (IRQ wasn't shared with AGP in the first place)
    Changing PCI Latency....didn't work
    Wiped Creative drivers completely and installed KX drivers....didn't work (although crackle wasn't as loud, the stuttering was worse)
    Verifying DMA Settings....didn't work (DMA Mode was acti've for all dri'ves already)
    The only thing I haven't done at this point is a complete reformat and reinstall. I apologize to the boys and girls at Creative, but there is no way they can convince me to go through the trouble of backing up gigs and gigs of data and reinstalling Windows just to get a soundcard to work. That isn't an option I'll even consider unless they can guarantee that my card will work afterwards. Since it didn't help about 90% of the people I've seen posting on this board that have encountered this same problem, I can't even believe it's still being offered as troubleshooting advice.
    I've read posts concerning an inherent problem when using this Creative card and a motherboard with a VIA chipset. I don't honestly know what's true and what isn't. I've been considering upgrading my mobo anyway, so my questions to all the other members with this card and to the mods are these:
    Is there an issue when using the Audigy 2 or any other Creative card on a motherboard with a VIA chipset (Specifically PT880/VT8237)? Straight up yes or no.
    If so, what socket 478 motherboards are KNOWN to work with the Audigy 2 without the need for hours of configuration or 3rd party drivers?
    Has anyone with a system similar to mine ever gotten an Audigy 2 ZS to work straight out of the box without any problems?
    If so, what is your setup and what motherboard are you using?
    Any help or straight answers would be greatly appreciated.

    I have done everything listed in that link.
    I am a typical PC enthusiast. Have been enjoying Creative cards since SB 8bit packaged with a Hayes 2400baud. They have been deserving of requiring other cards to be 'SB Compatible' up until the Audigy series. However of late, Audigy has been quite terrible for me.
    I use these motherboards, chipsets, processors and memory modules: Asus A8N, Asus A8V, Epox 8rda, Epox 8rda3+, MSI A64 Neo2 Platinum. They either have nForce2, 3 or VIA. Mostly nForce, I've had quite a few memory compatibility issues since PC2700+ with VIA, but that's another story. I use AMD Athlon and A64 processors in the range of XP2500~XP3200, and one A64 3500 939. I use Corsair XMS 3200 series memory as it's affordable enough for me and have had no track record of compatibility problems. I also use Samsung in one machine.
    -- This systems relevant spec:
    Windows 2000 Pro, SP4 all latestEpox 8rda3+, latest bios, latest chipset drivers, latest component drivers [NIC/USB2/etc] (Onboard audio, parallels, serials, floppy, unused NIC disabled), HSF on chipset & bridgesAMD Athlon XP2500+ (66x.0 @ .65V)2x52 Corsair XMS CL3 (3,3,3,8, By SPD (200MHZ -- DC 400MHZ))IDE 20GB 7200 8MB w/ heat seperators, 52X32X52 (DMA, not PIO)AGP -- 8X (BIOS/DirectX verified) -- 9800 Pro 28, Aperture 256MB, AGP FastWrites Enabled (No onboard video to disable), .5VAudigy, Audigy 2 Gamer & Audigy 2 ZS Gamer -- All give same crackling/bogging issue on all motherboards mentioned during 3d games, especially when panning a view or stressing the video card/cpu/ram/nbridge/bus.
    I have sufficient cooling. I have an aluminum TT XaserIII and all fans working properly, with a planned airflow. CPU temperatures rarely exceed 0F at full load with overclocking using a TTV at full speed (ears ring when I shut down). I do not currently overclock since purchasing the Audigy 2 ZS, and it is running 90F to the CPU, 50F inside the case (cold up here). Internal temperature rarely exceeds 60F otherwise. I have a Zalman heatpipe w/ fan on my vid card that pushes air down with a PCI slot fan to suck it out to avoid heat anywhere near the A2ZS. fans total, no leds, 480W Antec to power it sufficiently.
    -- The problem:
    As the original poster suggested, I am also experiencing an audio artifacting that resembles an electrical crackling or popping during playing 3d games. I play Lineage 2, Half-Life 2, Half-Life , Battlefield 942, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament 2004, etc.
    It is most reproducable when I pan my view quickly. It seems that when I stress the general bandwidth of the system while panning my view in 3d, I receive a studder visually as well as an audio crackle or pop. They are present together each time and last for a fraction of a second and happen continually through the entire game. The volume of the crackle/pop is loud, and I am concerned I am destroying my speakers and headphones. It is not something that can be ignored and it ruins my experience in games. It is more present when my FPS is lower and the system is under more stress. I use DirectX and OpenGL alike, both produce this problem during gameplay.
    This problem is identical in visual appearance and sound through the speakers (or far worse, headphones) across the 4 motherboards, 4 processor variations (but same brand) and 2 memory types. All systems use Windows 2000 Pro, latest everything across the board (no, I didn't forget anything, really). On all of the systems, this problem is not present if I use a SB Li've 5., nor Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, nor using Onboard sound on any of the motherboards listed. I do notice visual studder on all of the said systems in one place or another in games but the accompanied popping and crackling is not present on any of the other audio cards.
    This problem is exclusi've to the Audigy, Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 ZS series.
    -- Things mentioned in your post that I have verified:
    General Tips--
    My A2 has always existed in the last 3 PCI slots, farthest away from the AGP/Mem banks/CPU slot.</LI>
    The Audigy 2 has IRQ 6 or 8 in any of the systems, and is never sharing with anything.</LI>
    I have no hardware components in my system that are unused. I have HD, CDROM, Video Card, Sound Card, everything else is disabled or not present in the system.</LI>
    My cables have been tidied and fastened to the frame of the case, away from the CPU, memory and video card. There is nearly 8" between the SB Audigy 2 and anything else. No wires come near it.</LI>
    I used the audio drivers off the CDROM to install initially. I have since been to the auto-update portion of the website and updated EAX Console and EAX Advanced HD. It claims I am up to date. A2 listed in Device Manager shows a Driver Version 5.2..442, Provider is Creative</LI>
    I have installed all latest drivers.</LI>
    Toggle DMA Access--
    This is complete. I have always had audio issues when the CDROM was in use with PIO. This is DMA if Available.</LI>
    Reduce Hardware Acceleration of the graphics card--
    I have lowered this down to the point my games will no longer start. Pushing this down ,2 or 3 notches reduces the audio clicking volume a tad but otherwise appears to only encourage a lower volume popping to happen more often. It does not remove the problem, it creates a different problem. More frequent and lower volume popping.</LI>
    SB 6 Emu/Legacy Device--
    Does not apply to me.</LI>
    Changing ACPI in Windows 2000--
    I am not having resource conflicts, I will not be disabling this. </LI>
    BIOS Settings--
    PCI Streaming, 2. Compliance, Dynamic Bursting and BUS Mastering for PCI Slot are not options my motherboards contain. I assume them to be set to modern industry standard.</LI>
    All options listed to be disabled are either disabled or not present on my BIOS. </LI>
    System performance is set to optimal. Turbo produces instability issues, especially if CPU Interface is set to Aggressi've. </LI>
    VGA Shared Memory Size -- Not applicable to me, disabled onboard.</LI>
    AGP Aperture, again, 256MB</LI>
    Peer Concurrency -- Not available. </LI>
    PCI 2. Support -- Not available.</LI>
    FSP Spread Spectrum is default.</LI>
    PCI Latency Timer -- 32, default.</LI>
    Memory Hole -- Disabled.</LI>
    AGP Fast Writes -- Enabled.</LI>
    BIOS is latest version. Not that it helped anything but memory compatibility with a brand I don't use anyhow.</LI>
    -- Solution?
    I would like to say it is my configuration or an incompatibility with any one system I have, but it persists across too many combinations for this to be a problem with other hardware to me. What other things can I try to resolve this issue? I would like to use the A2, it produces excellent sound outside 3D games, far better than other cards I use as well as onboard by far. But all the sound quality in the world otherwise is meaningless if I cannot play games without destroying my speakers and headphones as well as my gaming experience.

  • I fixed my soundcard snap crackle pop is

    hello, good news i hope for all. ever since i upgraded my system to a 939 chip i experienced the dreaded snap crackle pop. i use to do the restart thing, then the problem would go away. untill recently i formated my ide hardri've in to 2 80gb dri'ves for xp, the other to x64. my free comcast mcafee antivirus would not work for x64 so i deleted x64. i still have the the option in my bios for which os i want to select xp pro or x64. but who cares. i can hit my sleep button or hibernate button and i don't have to restart. no snap crackle pop. my specs are (a8v) motherboard, (x2 4400+ dual core) cpu-oc'd to 2.45, (crucial ballistix tracer) memory 5:3 3-3-3-8 @246 , audigy 2sz platinum. i hope this work for all. i am sure you can resize your hardri've to give you more gb back. i am afraid to mess with it right now. i would like to know if this works for others.

    / Im on an X58 build too, except I run Crossfire, my XtremeGamer XFI PCI shares an IRQ with 2 pci express roots, and 5, and 2 microsoft UAA bus drivers(my cards have HDMI audio controllers) I get the worst crackling in BF242 during orbital strikes...... have you tried to update to INF 9..0.04?Message Edited by Radnsmash on 04-8-2009 2:00 PM

  • 1212M Crackling/Popping - New Drivers

    I'm kind of cranky about this problem. Read on because I actually know exactly what the problem is (at least for most of us and only Creative/EMU can fix it).
    Background
    I have a 1212M with the 0404 I/O card. It's a V1 that have had for five or six years. The quality of the sound is great, the features are great and the price is great. There's just one problem. From the day I got the board all those years ago I've had the crackling/popping problem that many, many other users also have.
    The problem is not my motherboard, BIOS, other hardware, Windows or other applications. Over the years this EMU board has been in many different systems, many different configurations and the evolution from WinXP, Vista and now to Win7. The crackling problem has always been exactly the same. The problem is the board itself, not the system and not the configuration and I can prove it (read on).
    Another thing that frustrates me is all the time that so many users have spent trying to troubleshoot this issue that is completely wasted since, for some of us, the problem is in the EMU hardware/drivers. That's not to say that there aren't some other crackling problems that are related to the system speed, interfering hardware or interfering software. There are actually two different problems that both have the same crackling symptom which makes all this quite confusing. I'll call them "System Related" and "EMU Hardware/Driver Related". If you're having the crackling symptom you should figure out which type of problem you have before spending hours troubleshooting, reinstalling, etc, etc, etc. Here's how:
    If your crackling problem:
    - Doesn't happen on startup. Your audio is fine and the problem only develops after a while. On my system it's between 60 and 90 minutes and resetting the card.
    - Starts with a few minor crackle/pops per second and gradually gets progressively worse over several minutes with nothing else changing in the system (ie not running new software or changing anything).
    - After a while (can be a long while) the crackling can actually go away again and you have clean audio. Then the crackling returns. Once again with no changes in system load in between.
    - You can make the crackling go away instantly and every time by simply resetting the clock on the card. There are several ways to do this. In Patchmix go to the System tab under Session Settings and switch the clock between internal/external (whatever you have it on, go to the other and back again). Another way is the change the ASIO Buffer Latency milliseconds in your host software's ASIO control panel.
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    If these four things aren't true on your system then by all means you should try all the troubleshooting steps because it's likely that you can resolve your crackling problem.
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    Our most senior software engineers banged their heads against this problem for quite a while until they determined what was going wrong in our customer's PC audio hardware. The issue is that the clock on the card is drifting slightly which means it is going a little faster or slower than the current sample rate. That's why the problem only manifests after a while. It's also why the crackling goes away when you reset the clock. The fundamental issue is that the audio data coming from your PC is being written into a buffer. The data is written by the PC driver and read from the buffer by the card and then sent to the card's output. You can think of the buffer as a big circle of memory. There's a write pointer that writes one value of data and then increments one step and "180 degrees" opposite in the circle of memory is a read pointer that reads one value of data and then increments one step.
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    Once we understood the problem, in our next version we modified our software to use a larger buffer. This eliminated the problem for some of our customers whose hardware clock was only very slightly out spec. However, for other customers the problem remained, although by increasing the buffer size it made it take longer for the pointers to reach each other and the crackling to begin. This is the what I suspect EMU has done with the new Win7 beta drivers. With the new drivers my crackling takes longer to appear. In these forums we see reports from some long-time sufferers of the problem that the new driver fixed their problem and from others we hear that they are still having the problem.
    Since we still had unhappy users of our video/audio application software, we kept working on the issue and eventually came up with a fix that solved the problem for all users and all audio hardware. It was hard to implement but this is what EMU/Creative needs to have their driver engineers do to actually fix the problem (short of replacing an enormous amount of hardware).
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    Markran,
    Thank you for the information. I will make sure that it gets routed to the correct people.
    Casey

  • Snap crackle pop noices from iMac 27

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    Hello @mmosher12,
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    I work on behalf of HP
    Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
    Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

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    Thanks.
    Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
    Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom to say “Thanks” for helping!

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