Popping and cracking on integrated sound

[chrisk]

Hey guys. Having the following issue so I figured I would see what you guys think;

I have a 5.1 speaker setup on my motherboard's integrated sound (Realtek ALC 889A). I moved to this integrated setup after I installed my second GTX 285 last week. Prior to this I used an Asus Xonar card, but after I installed the second GTX 285, I could not get the Xonar to work (meaning that Vista would not see it at all, and report no device installed). I figured I must have broken or zapped the Xonar, so I tried the integrated sound and it worked. The only issue with the integrated sound was a bit of popping and cracking once, but it went away.

Tonight I do a clean reinstall of Vista. Installed the chipset, lan, and then audio drivers in that order. All drivers from the Gigabyte website. Sound was great on all speakers. Then I installed the nVidia drivers for my gpus, and upon re-boot, the popping and cracking came on the rear speakers (constant).

I tried the following:
1. Uninstall audio drivers, and then re-install latest from Realtek's website.
2. Under the Realtek HD Audio Manager, I can see that the jacks are 'auto sensing'. I told the application that my front speakers (that had no popping), were in fact my rear speakers, and the popping moved to those speakers instead. It seems that whatever speakers I tell the application are the rear ones, pop. The only speakers that pop are the ones I say are rear.

Is this a driver or hardware issue? Any suggestions on how to fix this? Is this related to my Xonar not working you think?

[sswilson]

Did you try forcing the bios to assign new resources? That might re-assign the SLI'd card or on-board audio over to something that isn't conflicting (Might also be why your Xonar card stopped working).

Keep in mind that this will force Windows to re-assign all of your motherboard devices as well so don't be surprised if you need to reboot a couple of times for it to pick up all of the "new" hardware.

[chrisk]

I have not tried the BIOS trick. This is something I will have to try if I have no luck. I don't like Windows having to rediscover everything, but since I just re-formatted there might not be a better time I suppose.

Seems that the cracking/popping only happens when the volume is in certain 'ranges.' If I go higher and lower, I can find places within the volume range where the popping is not as bad or disappears altogether. Does this mean anything?

[chrisk]

Tried resetting the cmos, and reassigned IRQs and it never saw the Xonar (which I put back in).

[KaptCrunch]

Originally Posted by sswilson

Did you try forcing the bios to assign new resources? That might re-assign the SLI'd card or on-board audio over to something that isn't conflicting (Might also be why your Xonar card stopped working).

Keep in mind that this will force Windows to re-assign all of your motherboard devices as well so don't be surprised if you need to reboot a couple of times for it to pick up all of the "new" hardware.

may also be asked by windows for a new key due to major hardware change

chriskwarren may have to set manaul irq's in cmos for the sound card what slot is it in a x1 or x4 slot ?

[chrisk]

When I went into the cmos I only saw IRQ options for the onboard raid and PCI slots. There seemed to be no options for the PCI-E slots. Doing some reading and there is a new interrupt scheme for PCI-E, but I have not been able to find a clear source (or one I can understand lol) on how, or even if, I can manipulate PCI-E interrupts. I tried changing the IRQ channel on the PCI card (in this case the TV Tuner) but it made no difference to the PCI-E sound card, which was still not detected. I guess the next step for me would be to take the PCI-E Xonar and try it in the folding rig.

As for the onboard audio, I am wondering if the second video card is causing interference. The onboard audio chip is really close to the second video card. One thing I noticed was some popping from the rear speaker when I plugged in a monitor to the second video card.

[KaptCrunch]

maybe the HD audio are conflicking with video driver

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by KaptCrunch

maybe the HD audio are conflicking with video driver

When I re-installed Windows this time I tried the speakers before installing the video drivers and it seems I was wrong about the drivers being the issue. I tried the speakers in 5.1 mode and adjusted the volume and the cracking and popping appeared, before the video card drivers were installed.

[KaptCrunch]

what speaker system using ? some came with a 5.1 or direct setting on speaker amp

[chrisk]

Can't find the model of the speakers. Logitech 5.1 THX, but not the digital ones (analog only. They look like the Z5500s, but with no digital). Not on the Logitech site anymore, as these are about years old.. All the speakers are fine, and have always worked. No settings on the woofer..just colour coded jacks for the speakers.