Crackle/Pop issues discussion thr

This is the continuation of the Follow-up: Crackle/Pop issues thread. If you are experiencing crackle/pop issues, feel free to post them here.Message Edited by KokChoy-CL on <span class='local-date'> 0-0-2008<span class='local-time'> 0: AM

Excalibur2008,
It occurs to me that your latest symptom might well be SOD ("Squeal of Death" that is) type 2. That's where something illegal happens on the PCI bus which confuses and consequently hangs the SBX-Fi's PCI interface. If playback is acti've, evidently there is a small buffer between the transfer engine and the playback portion which stops getting new data, which the playback portion then starts playing repeatedly. To this point I've only heard the resulting sound described as a loud squeal, and the buffer only described as "small."? The buffer size would tend to determine the frequency of the tone, so note that 2kHz is 4 samples at 48kHz or 8 samples at 96kHz, and it's likely the buffer is one of those two sizes if that's what this is. 2kHz would be hard for some people to hear, but probably quite obnoxious for those who do. Typically, the waveforms in the left and right channels are similar but not identical, and we would expect such a squeal to usually be similar but not identical in both channels, which is the case in your recording. The loudness of the squeal would be expected to depend on exactly what was being played when the hang occured, so sometimes the squeal would be expected to be louder than others. Your recording doesn't show the same 4 sample values being repeated, but there's additional variability which I'd guess is noise from the ADC being mixed in by the playback engine.
It is a characteristic of SOD type 2 that switching modes can stop it. This makes sense because it's only a portion of the SBX-Fi that has gotten hung, and it's evidently still possible to use the PCI bus to send it commands. Mode switches probably involve instructing the card to reset in a way that stops the playback portion, and may also reinitialize the transfer engine.
(SOD type is where the entire PCI bus gets hung while the card is playing, which quickly freezes the entire system, requiring a system reset to recover from.)
If your overclocking is speeding up the PCI bus clock, you're probably just pushing the SBX-Fi beyond its design limits. A soundcard design could easily be more sensiti've to this than other kinds of devices because it is designed to operate at a precise frequency.
SOD is a hardware issue. Exactly what the card is doing may well influence when/whether it gets triggered, so driver variations might have a slight effect, but they're not the reason for it. Typically it's neither the soundcard nor its software which are at fault.
-Dave
[email protected]

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  • 1212M Crackling/Popping - New Drivers

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    Markran,
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    Casey

  • Itunes crackling, popping sounds...

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  • Sound cutting out/crackling/pops in Windows 7 XFi XtremeGamer

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