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Getting tired of Soundstorm...time for an Audigy2?

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unwrittenLaw

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2002
Location
San Diego
I have an A7N8X Deluxe v 1.04 and a NF7-S v 2.0. I've used both w/ onboard sound with my Creative 5.1 5200 analog speakers, and while the sound is good for the most part, I'm getting tired of the sound distortion in games, etc.. after 1+ hour of play, the screwed up drivers, and just feel like giving an Audigy 2 a try. Would this be a bad idea? And as far as overclocking, would a PCI sound card hinder my overclock at all compared to the onboard sound? I figured if i got an Audigy 2 and disabled the onboard sound, the chipset wouldn't have as much load on it and I might actually have good sound w/ working EAX and no hissing/popping/cracking/etc.....

Thanks for any suggestions...
 
I have the Asus A7N8X deluxe revision 1.04 and just bought the Audigy2 Platinum model. Don't expect to get a chance to try it out until the weekend. As far as I understand, the PCI lock of this mobo should prevent an O/C from harming a PCI card's performance. And so it seems an Audigy2 card could solve your sound problem. Also, and I'm just guessing when I say this, you're O/C may be affecting your onboard sound. Perhaps adequate cooling of your southbridge would help; it may be getting too hot after an hour or so of gaming.
 
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I don't think the Audigy will limit your overclock. My SB 5.1 Live! is running on a 40MHz PCI speed without any problems.
 
Don't expect better sound! Touch the SB to see whether it's too hot or not. Install drivers 2.03 and check the quality of the sound again.
I have SB Live! Platinum 5.1 with digital AMC speakers and I have sound problems too but the correct driver is fixing everything.
 
I too tired of the distortion in games from the Soundstorm. I put my SB Live! value card in (best PCI card solution I have....:( ) What really prompted me to put it back in was needing a game port for my old, old steering wheel, but it's nice to play UT2003 without the sound acting up anymore....

No difference in the overclock of my rig, with the card in there. Well....no adverse effects anyways...I haven't tried to push it higher since putting it in...who knows?? I doubt it'll help my overclock, but stranger has happened...:D
 
at high fsb.. over 200 and what not the SB gets quite hot which is causing the distortions.. most ppl put a heatsink on the SB solves the problem.. i had those problems playing cs and now they dont occur with a sb heatsink..

another soultion to this problem is dling the drivers from realtek instead of using the nvidia drivers.. i've found that also works as well..

right now im using a combination of the 2 ;d no sound problems at all
 
cherryp00t said:
at high fsb.. over 200 and what not the SB gets quite hot which is causing the distortions.. most ppl put a heatsink on the SB solves the problem.. i had those problems playing cs and now they dont occur with a sb heatsink..

another soultion to this problem is dling the drivers from realtek instead of using the nvidia drivers.. i've found that also works as well..

right now im using a combination of the 2 ;d no sound problems at all

Drivers right from Realtek, eh?? I might just have to look into that myself... Thanks for the tip.

That however, while might perhaps fix my Soundstorm issues, means I'd be pulling the SB Live! value sound card out again, which I need for the game port for that antique steering wheel of mine.

I put an old i486 HSF on my southbridge, but still had the sound issues. I'll try that with the Realtek drivers in the near future....

Cheers!

Brian
 
If you look at my sig I have good cooling throughout...hs/fan on north and south bridge, good case/cpu temps as well. When I touch the SB, its not hot, either is NB. So I dunno if its all related to heat. I've tried different drivers, different HAL's (APIC/ACPI on and off, etc..) I've tried different settings in the Nforce Control Panel, i've tried running at stock fsb, etc...and still encounter problems, although not as often as when I overclock. The only thing I haven't tried is messin around with the PCI latency, which I've heard is a solution to many problems with sound, etc...

The Nforce soundstorm is a good sound setup and offers a lot, but it just seems too buggy and the driver support isnt there..I guess some can get it to work, and others can't. I dunno, I've been trying to get it to work w/o issues, but its just not happening, thats why I'm thinking of getting an Audigy.

About using realtek drivers..I thought that would result in bypassing the soundstorm apu and actually degrading performance...I thought Realtek is only for the non-Soundstorm boards?


Edit: I've also heard that Soundstorm sounds much better with Digital Speakers...which I dont have....and I've heard that the Audigy2 has good sound w/ analog speakers..and since mine are analog, maybe that would also be a good reason to get the Audigy2...
 
I haven't had any issues, why not drop a couple of mhz in your oc and see if sound stability goes up. It sounds to me as you are pushing your oc to far and losing sound, I have had that happen to me. but properly oc'd I haven't had any break up after 6-10 gaming seessions. I even goto all weekend lans and have yet to had problems.
 
Yeah that might help, but I'm really not pushing the OC too far, and my temps are fine so I dunno...its not like I have a 230fsb...but on other boards I could OC the crap out of them and onboard sound was fine. I just think the nforce2 chipset isn't all it could and should be...
Its not like my sound is constantly crappy it sounds good most of the time, but its the little problems that never go away that are bothering me...
 
i had the same problem with mine...i slapped my zalman hs with some as3 and arctic alumina epoxy to secure it...works fine now...but i think im going to put my sblive 5.1 back in...was just too lazy when i replaced board's...
 
I popped an Audigy 2 in mine (PCi-2), and while the sound unquestionably better than the soundstorm/AC97 analog solution, I still have crackling when playing D3D sounds. I've tried everything in the world to stop them. I can't use PCI-3 -> 5 because my Eheim 1250 takes up that space. However, the crackling is so minor and the volume of it so low that it doesn't bother me much at all. The SoundStorms crackling was LOUD and the sound was muddy.
 
i can't believe you people are switching back to things like sb live values. i've had the soundstorm less than 2 weeks and compared to my old sb live it owns. i can run all sound tests in 3dmark and the sound quality is hugely better. also, soundstorm performance is better than audigy2 and everything else out there. put some cooling on your southbridge and all should be fine. i'm using latest drivers and since adding a passive copper hs from my iceberq 4 kit i've had no sound crackling in counterstrike or midnight club 2 where i used to get it.
 
mine was freezing up my whole computer, along with the sound crackling. It was hetsinked, so I just went ahead and bought a turtle beach santa cruz.
 
like cherrypoot said: Put a heatink on your SB and listen to the sound issues dissapear. I love the Soundstorm much more that my old audigy. I know that the recent drivers fix some stuff with audigy cards but it sure had problems back when I bought it. And the soundstorm drivers/program is much more clean and compact than audigy.
 
I already have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz as well, I put it in there for awhile but its an aging card and is better for music I think than d3d/eax gaming, etc...
 
You have to watch out for these people who are clearly not audiophiles, saying that soundstorm is actually better than an audigy. The audigy has excellent analog output. I can't hear any noise from it. However, the soundstorm can output full surround digital, which almost nothing (including audigies) can do. The soundstorm is awful for analog applications. The audigy is the best I have heard. A lot of the "crackling" some hear is the noise from the Soundstorm's DACs! You simply cannot say that the soundstorm is superior in sound quality to an audigy. If you listen to them on headphones, the truth is revealed. I can hear noise from the Soundstorm when I move my mouse! Um, cujo, the sound tests in 3dm2k3 are not quality tests, they are performance tests... If you want to get into sound "tests", get foobar 2000. The audigy will output insane bandwidth and frequencies, while the soundstorm can only do what my mom's hp pavilion laptop can do.

As for overclocking, if the the PCI bus is locked, there will be no difference.

unwrittenLaw, if you have the cash, go for a Audigy (either one is excellent). They are far superior in analog sound, so with your analog speakers (and headphones especially, if you use them) the sound quality is the best. You can even get the kX drivers (free) for the creative cards if you dislike creative's drivers.

I am a full fledged audiophile (as in, "my 'crappy' headphones cost $150"), and I say the audigy owns the soundstorms. They are both fast, and the Soundstorm is excellent for onboard sound, but it cannot stand up to Audigies and even some TB SCs. Crap, i even prefer my Aureal Vortex I. I have an audigy and the Abit, and i used to have the Asus, both soundstorms worked perfectly, neither was anywhere near the audigy. Any questions, unwrittenLaw, feel free to pm me.
 
itim100, which PCI slot do you have your Audigy in? I only ask because I have mine installed in PCI-2 and hear slight crackling only during D3D playback (ex- driver channel test, etc). I can't use PCI-3 -> 5 due to the location of my Eheim 1250. I'm checking tonight whether it's EMI related by turning the pump off.
 
cujo said:
i can't believe you people are switching back to things like sb live values. i've had the soundstorm less than 2 weeks and compared to my old sb live it owns. i can run all sound tests in 3dmark and the sound quality is hugely better. also, soundstorm performance is better than audigy2 and everything else out there. put some cooling on your southbridge and all should be fine. i'm using latest drivers and since adding a passive copper hs from my iceberq 4 kit i've had no sound crackling in counterstrike or midnight club 2 where i used to get it.

I've got a HSF from an old i486 on my southbridge, plus, the lower intake in the case is a 90+ CFM 120mm Nidec fan, blowing right towards it... Cooling isn't an issue in my case.

I'm right at 200FSB, with the chipset voltage only one step higher than the lowest setting. Even with the AC blasting, and an ambiant temp of 17C, I still was getting sound issues.

Half the reason I put the old PCI card in, was I needed a game port for my old steering wheel. I had a choice a couple weeks ago....upgrade that to a Logitech Momo (USB, no need for the sound card), or upgrade my HDD from a 20GB to 160GB drive. (with 8MB cache to boot) for $7 more than the wheel. I opted for the HDD...;)

I think some of these motherboards just have issues, that might not be resolved, even with new drivers. :rolleyes:
 
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