HELP! Strangest Thing w/Sound!

I just upgraded my cpu from an AMD Duron 1Ghz to an XP 1800.
It went in fine, checks out ok. Great!.
Now the sound is really screwed up! I have an Audigy2. All updated drivers.
When I start the PC up the starting sound is lousy. When I play a cd the sound sounds like its being played through a tin can from a 100 year old LP.
Now for the weird thing. When I press the mouse button on the cd player's window's top bar (blue one), it sounds fine. When I let go of the mouse button... *&*&%$###
WHAT THE "F" is with this?
Does anyone out there have any idea what is going on? Please help!

Rest of system:
Win98SE
512 Ram PC133
Nvidia Geforce2 Ti
VIA Tech, Model: VT8363-686
Holco Ent Co Ltd Shuttle Computer VT8363/5 KT133/KM133 System Controller

Tell me something, did u reformat ur HDD when upgrading????

If not then u should, even tho its a CPU upgrade its still best re-format.

Try changing the Sound Card to a different PCI slot aswell before u take the above step

as a rule of thumb (atleast for me) you should reformat and reinstall the OS

also please do check your EAX settings as some of them make your sound go really really bad (with all those effects) i have audigy 2 myself and i am enjoying it, please do yourself a favour and only install drivers don't bother installing any of the creative softwares i think they are really lame

No, I did not reformat the hd. Damn! Does that mean I have to go through all that again?! I just did that about a month ago. Eeek!

I tried switching the soundcard to another slot to no avail. Any other ideas before I go and reformat?

hang on before you go around reformating your system, i am slightly confused you did that system format a month ago AFTER getting the new cpu or before (just want to be clear on that)

also try checking if the card is sharing some irq or is there any conflict, check for updated VIA drivers (even if you have to reinstall as last resort they will come useful)

if nothing works than i am afraid you will have to reinstall the OS, but hey on the bright side you will have a fresh copy of OS

My first guess would be EAX. Second would be win98. The audigy 1 came with a diagnostics program, so I'm assuming the audigy 2 has one. Have you ran that yet???

lol, are you guys joking? in both of my cpu upgrades, ive never reformatted. it doesnt change ANYTHING with the OS..just the speed at which it loads. this solution can work, but is definitely a HUGE hassle, when other options work. it seems to me that this way of thinking is an epidemic around here...people say you should reformat when you install new video drivers, new motherboard, anything...only reason you should need to reformat, is if you have viruses, or you have alot of crap on your hard drive, and the registry is really crapped out, so unless its one of these things, a format isnt needed.

a format is NOT needed, so dont do it. anyway, about the sound. try a different PCI slot, uninstall the drivers, and make sure all traces of them are gone..then reinstall em. the audigy does have settings in which you can change how the sound comes out, winamp has a similar plugin, where you can add scratches to the CD, or make it like a record, bla bla bla. make sure all of the quality options are how they should be....

btw, after you uninstall the drivers, try your onboard sound, and see how it sounds on that.

Pheeeewww! Thanks RangerJ.! I had thought about uninstalling the drivers lastnight but it got too late. Bummer is I have to be at work all day so I can't try anything till tonight!

I reformatted a month ago before the new cpu. I'd hate to loss all my favs again...

Hmmm, in my DeviceM, under USB Controllers, my VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller is using the same IRG as my Audigy2 ...#5. ??? Any ideas?

RangerJoe said:

lol, are you guys joking? in both of my cpu upgrades, ive never reformatted. it doesnt change ANYTHING with the OS..just the speed at which it loads. this solution can work, but is definitely a HUGE hassle, when other options work. it seems to me that this way of thinking is an epidemic around here...people say you should reformat when you install new video drivers, new motherboard, anything...only reason you should need to reformat, is if you have viruses, or you have alot of crap on your hard drive, and the registry is really crapped out, so unless its one of these things, a format isnt needed.

a format is NOT needed, so dont do it. anyway, about the sound. try a different PCI slot, uninstall the drivers, and make sure all traces of them are gone..then reinstall em. the audigy does have settings in which you can change how the sound comes out, winamp has a similar plugin, where you can add scratches to the CD, or make it like a record, bla bla bla. make sure all of the quality options are how they should be....

btw, after you uninstall the drivers, try your onboard sound, and see how it sounds on that.

Click to expand...

I gotta completely agree with that. I work at a computer helpdesk and we never format computers unless we absolutely have to. You'd think that at a computer helpdesk we wouldn't mind since we can image machines really fast but the thing is, the person will be without a PC meanwhile and we have to back-up all their **** and then load it back which is a hassle really.

As a rule of thumb, always check all your device settings if a weird problem happens with one of your devices. RangerJoe's advice about checking plug-ins and EAX settings is really good. Like he said, there are a lot of settings you can turn on with an Audigy (actually with most of the Creative cards including the Live series) that actually make your sounds sound different on purpose. If changing the settings don't work, uninstall the drivers and then re-install them. Most of the time, when you uninstall drivers, some crap will be left in the registry so you have to go into regedit and search for these leftovers. Once you do get rid of these leftovers and re-install the drivers though, your problems get solved most of the time.

Re-installing drivers takes only a very small amount of time so it's definately worth it and if there was a problem with a setting you couldn't find, re-installing the drivers will reset all the settings to their defaults as well.

kj4ta said:

Hmmm, in my DeviceM, under USB Controllers, my VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller is using the same IRG as my Audigy2 ...#5. ??? Any ideas?

Click to expand...

I am sure the problem is not with IRQ's here.

When you install a device to your computer, that device gets assigned an IRQ. If you have too many devices on your computer, some devices might try to use the same IRQ number, thus causing a conflict.

When you DO get an IRQ conflict, you will see a yellow exclamation mark on the device that is causing a conflict under device manager. In your case, I don't think there is such a problem.

Besides, if there was an IRQ problem, then that would mean that the card doesn't have an available resource and hence can't work at all which means that you wouldn't hear any sounds at all.

The fact that you are hearing sounds but just messed up should mean that there is either something wrong with the settings or drivers.

Don't bother with hardware settings.

If you have surround speakers you might want to check that they are connected the right way (sounds obvious I know, but how many times have I wondered that?) Also if your speakers have any setting/software you might want to check that. Other than that the most likely cause is EAX or EQ settings.

On the CPU/Reformatting thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any driver, registry setting or any other form of recording CPU type or speed. Mostly the OS doesnt care what CPU its got in it as long as it accepts the correct instruction set. Of course it will make a difference as to how fast those instructions are carried out.... Reformatting IS recommended when installing a new motherboard - LOTS of new devices there.

The 2 devices of yours with the same IRQ - don't worry about it. IRQ conflicts are virtualy a thing of the past. Most devices can use IRQ sharing nowadays, so that more that oe device can use an IRQ level.

flux said:

On the CPU/Reformatting thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any driver, registry setting or any other form of recording CPU type or speed. Mostly the OS doesnt care what CPU its got in it as long as it accepts the correct instruction set. Of course it will make a difference as to how fast those instructions are carried out.... Reformatting IS recommended when installing a new motherboard - LOTS of new devices there.

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That's correct. There are no registry entries for a CPU. You should never have to reinstall anything by swapping CPUs. For changing motherboards, you can also get by without formatting. I personally have never formatted when changing motherboards. I have simply uninstalled all the old devices when I did that and never ran into a problem.

flux said:

The 2 devices of yours with the same IRQ - don't worry about it. IRQ conflicts are virtualy a thing of the past. Most devices can use IRQ sharing nowadays, so that more that oe device can use an IRQ level.

Click to expand...

You are right. IRQ sharing has been in existance for many years so that's not really something to worry about and like I said above, IF there was an IRQ conflict, the sound card wouldn't work at all and you could see the conflict under device manager.

kj4ta said:

I reformatted a month ago before the new cpu. I'd hate to loss all my favs again...

Click to expand...

Depending on the OS you have you can save your favourites easily

Windows 95/98
x:\windows\favourites\

where X is the drive your windows installed on e.g. c:\windows\

Windows XP

x:\Documents and Settings\User\Favorites\

Where User is your user name

just copy the favourites folder and copy / backup it and replace it with fresh installation of windows

If you have windows 98 it's normal to reinstall after like 2-3 months since that's the max time i have noticed it to run stable without giving me problems, Windows XP is stable and can run for a longer time without needing a reinstall