Unique sound problem. PLEASE HELP!!!, it's driving me crazy!

[Mixednutt]

I had this sound problem with my motherboard's onboard sound (Asus A7N8X-X) where loud sounds create a popping and scratching sound. Adjusting the advanced volume controls doesn't seem to help either. Believe me, I've tried every single little slider bar that windows XP pro has to offer. I couldn't find any risk free ways to fix it (Half the people who tried to fix it ended up screwing up their bios), so I installed my old soundblaster Live! card and I uninstalled the drivers from the nforce onboard chip. Same problem. I don't understand how it could have carried over? Does anybody have any idea how this might be fixed? It is making my membrane really quite insane, actually. HELP!

[Turd Furguson]

More than likely your Northbridge is getting too hot. It is a common problem on Nforce 2 boards. You can reach in and touch the chipset yourself and if it is hot to the touch you need to slap a heatsink on there.

[Mixednutt]

It looks like my northbridge has a heatsink on it, just under my processor. I touched it anyway to see if it was hot, and it seemed cool because I have a case fan which blows right on it. Besides, it's a persistent problem. It has never been an off and on type thing, the problem has been consistently present ever since I built the system.

If it's not a software settings problem, and it's not a soundcard problem, that leaves codecs, or some type of crazy motherboard issue which doesn't really make sense. Could my computer still be using bad codecs from my onboard sound processor? Would it be a good idea to delete them, then re-install my soundcard?

[Turd Furguson]

Doh I apologize. Try the southbridge. I am running on a severe lack of sleep right now. The Southbridge controls all IDE and PCI bus data. If there the chip gets hot, degredation in performance is a result.

Also you may want to make sure your DirectX is up to date. DX9 is the latest release. In addition, make sure you are using the newest drivers. If there was a time when you used previous drivers with no issues I would return to them.

[Mixednutt]

Well, I downloaded dx9, but that didn't help... unfortunately. My southbridge is pretty hot, but like I was saying before, this has been a consistent problem. Even when I boot the system up and the southbridge hasn't had enough time to overheat the problem is still present. Wouldn't the problem fluctuate if the source was heat based? I'll give it a try anyway. What is the correct way to apply a heat sink to one of these chips? I can find the heatsink at radioshack, but do I need glue and/or grease? Thanks for your help Mr Turd Sir ^_^

[Col_Loki]

Just as a by the way, what speakers are you using? If your using 2.1 speakers and have them accidently set up for 4.1 or 5.1 etc then this could be causing it.

I had the same problem with my A7N8X and 5.1 sound blaster card and i went mad, simple fix in the end.... scheech. This prob isint it but worth a quick post ...

[Darph]

Originally posted by Col_Loki
Just as a by the way, what speakers are you using? If your using 2.1 speakers and have them accidently set up for 4.1 or 5.1 etc then this could be causing it.

I had the same problem with my A7N8X and 5.1 sound blaster card and i went mad, simple fix in the end.... scheech. This prob isint it but worth a quick post ...

lol - I had the same problem with a card of mine - I had line in 2 turned up full blast and it was a very noisy line,making my speakers sound like they were playing a hissy old record or somthing.

[Col_Loki]

Yea it was dreadfull cause i had 4.1 creative's in it first and they were grand , no problems..... bought 2.1's (its only a second pc) and plugged them in ..... i thought they were the crappiest things ever and was sooo annoyed. Watchin divX with volume up to full and it was hard to make out what was going on between the hissing and the damm volcano 7 @4000rpm.

I was so close to smashing the pc :mad: , brought it home changed the fan, fan the case fans at 7v and finally sorted the sound.......i love it now :)

[edit] Forgot to ask how do you find the Zalman headphones? Was strongly thinkin of gettin a pair but not much of a fan of regular ones when watchin a DVD etc.... are they really that good?