Slurring Sound On Xp

[Crushdepth]

I got a fairly new desktop at work (2.4GHz dual core, 2GB RAM, P5K board with on-board 8 channel HD audio, Windows XP). There seems to be some problem with the sound - when playing music the sound will often stutter or slur very badly if I open a new program, or if I'm working on something visually heavy (eg. InDesign). My old desktop (outdated machine) could handle this no problems.

Any idea why sound performance might be so awful or how I can fix it?

[A_Traveller]

Was your outdated machine using a separate sound card?

Regards

Edited May 15, 2008 by A_Traveller

[Crushdepth]

No it had integrated sound and was much more of a budget machine by comparison, even when it was new.

[A_Traveller]

OK was just a thought. this problem is a known one and occurs in Vista as well. The issue is no one has yet come up with 'the fix', at least that I've heard of, though there are suggestions, which work for some. These include:-

• ensuring .Net isn't loaded,
  
• change precedence for audio player,
  
• checking frequency of disk writes {maybe needing a clear out [yes I know it's a new work machine], e.g.: Vista is very chatty}
  
• Use VLC not WMP.
  
• Check BIOS and driver versions and update if required.
  
• Check that sound system is not over configured, i.e. set for 8.1 digital when you're using headphones
  

When this happened with the '04 Macbooks I think they solved it by amending a logging application, but not sure they ever admitted to it )

HTH

Regards

PS Yes know it all a bit straw grasping but that the nature of this beast I'm afraid.

Edited May 15, 2008 by A_Traveller

[Crushdepth]

I also notice when the sound slurs the whole machine nearly grinds to a halt as well. I just defragged the hard drive too. Kind of stumped on this one. Sound is just 2 ch audio and drivers are ok.

How do I change the precedence of the audio player? And check the frequency of disk writes?

[A_Traveller]

Windows Task Manager -> Applications Tab ->Select the player application ->Right-Click ->Go to Process -> Right Click ->Set Priority ->

Regards

PS An easy way to add system data for XP to the screen, is to download Sidebar which has a monitor panel. LINK

Edited May 15, 2008 by A_Traveller

[katana]

I got a fairly new desktop at work (2.4GHz dual core, 2GB RAM, P5K board with on-board 8 channel HD audio, Windows XP). There seems to be some problem with the sound - when playing music the sound will often stutter or slur very badly if I open a new program, or if I'm working on something visually heavy (eg. InDesign). My old desktop (outdated machine) could handle this no problems.

Any idea why sound performance might be so awful or how I can fix it?

I remember the Ausus P5B motherboard had a lot of problems with the on-board sound. Google it for more info.

Maybe the P5K board has similar problems?

Edited May 15, 2008 by katana

[Tywais]

To add to the others, bring up your process screen (in the task manager) and see if anything is using an abnormal amount of CPU time or memory when you are playing a file.

[Crushdepth]

I still haven't been able to fix this, but it seems to be associated with large disk reads. If I'm opening a bit of software, large photos or whatever, the slurring sound coincides exactly with the drive light. Also, when the slurring is happening programs take ages to load. It seems that my fairly new computer can't cope with playing a song and reading a large file(s) off the disk simultaneously.

The weird thing is that I have two drives. Windows/program files are on one physical disk, and my data/music on the second physical disk, so I'm getting problems while trying to read off two physically separate disks simultaneously.

Disks are both 160 gig 7200rpm Sata seagates, freshly defragmented. I've run spinrite on them as well, no apparent problems.

Edited June 16, 2008 by Crushdepth

[Guest Reimar]

I still haven't been able to fix this, but it seems to be associated with large disk reads. If I'm opening a bit of software, large photos or whatever, the slurring sound coincides exactly with the drive light. Also, when the slurring is happening programs take ages to load. It seems that my fairly new computer can't cope with playing a song and reading a large file(s) off the disk simultaneously.

Is there anything that could make my drives run like a dog?

I have two 160 gig 7200rpm Sata seagates, freshly defragmented. Windows/program files are on one physical disk, and my data/music on the second physical disk. I've run spinrite on them as well, no problems.

I had similary problems with Asus MB's and to solve was to use an independent Sound Card and disabled the sound on Board.

And the Seagate drives quite slow. I have on 160 GB Hitatchi nearly the double transfer speed than on 160 GB Seagate. I've just one 160 GB and 2 80 GB Seagate left and use mainly Hitachi. Cloning a Seagate to Seagate 80 GB the transfer speed is about 28 MB/sec while on Hitachi to Hitachi the tranfer speed is 50+ MB/sec on the same computer using HDD Clone. That is a huge difference!

Cheers.

[Tywais]

And the Seagate drives quite slow.

Perhaps you are referring to the particular Seagate drives he is using. I just ran a test using a program called Fastcopy to transfer a multi gigabyte file from one Seagate (10.1 series) to another and at the same time using Foobar to play an album. Transfer rates around 40-45MBps and no stuttering from the on board sound on my ASUS mainboard.

[Crushdepth]

Thanks for the comments. My motherboard is an Asus p5k with (supposedly!) fairly good on board audio.

[Tywais]

I came across these posts with the same symptoms:

Audio stuttering on my system was apparently caused by the Jmicron hard drive controller device driver incorrectly identifying an IDE drive as SCSI. I replaced the Jmicron controller device driver with the Microsoft standard device driver and audio problems went away.

Set your JMicron controller up as IDE instead of SCSI. That way you can ensure that DMA is being used. Sound stuttering is a common symptom of DMA not being enabled.

Go to device manager, right click on the JMicron SCSI devices, select update driver, select let me choose driver, manually install the standard Microsoft IDE driver for the controller.

and another

Now at last after changing the Jmicron to standard MS driver I not only got rid of the stuttering, but also got UDMA4 on my DVD burner.

This is assuming both drives are SATA.

[JetsetBkk]

Here's a work-around:

Associate files normally opened by Windows Media Player with a command file containing this line:

start /AboveNormal C:\"Program Files"\"Windows Media Player"\wmplayer.exe %1 %*

WMP will run at a higher than normal priority so should help if the problem is related to CPU activity. Not sure if it helps if the problem is related to I/O activity.

http://www.tweakxp.com/article37034.aspx

[Crushdepth]

Thanks all. I changed the Jmicron to the microsoft IDE controller as per above and now it *seems* to be working - I just ran the 'Peter Gabriel + photoshop test' and it didn't slur, but then I'm listening to it remotely. Guess I'll find out for sure tomorrow!

Thanks for your help.