Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

[bres6486]

Ever since i built my computer this past May i have been noticing my music sounded worse. to confirm the noise issue, i got a program that played a pure sine wave, and i still heard the noise. The noise comes in patches every 2-5 seconds, and sounds just like static.

I have a Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P motherboard which comes with Realtek onboard audio.

The following are things I have tried to get rid of the noise.

1.) Reinstalled onboard audio drivers from both the Gigabyte cd included with the motherboard, and the realtek website. After resintalling many many times, the problem still persists.

2.) Check if it is speakers, whether i use speakers or headphones i still get the noise.

3.) try disconnecting my front panel audio from the motherboard. still get noise.

4.) Order Creative X-Fi Xtremegamer sound card (PCI). I installed this card today, and sadly i still get noise.

Now the crazy part here is that I am still getting noise!!! This means there has to be something wrong with the motherboard, or something that is so powerful it is interfering with the motherboard. Since the sound card connects to the pci slot, that means the noise is present there. It is also present on my audio jacks which are connected to the onboard sound.

I am feeling angry and dissapointed that my first true computer build (form scratch) has not been 100% successful.

I am running an AMD Phenom II x4 940 in a Cooler Master case. 650 Watt Corsair Powersupply, 4 gigs of gskilll ram, 2 hardrives (both sata), an Ati Radeon 4870 1gig video card. (and now the sound card)

I have also tried playing around with wires in my case, and outside the case, to see if they worsened the noise. No wire seemed to make a particular difference in the somewhat periodic noise.

Is my best option to call gigabyte support, and get a new motherboard? I bought it from newegg.

Any advice is appreciated, its really frustrating to listen to music with static ontop.

Sincerely,
Michael

[profJim]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Some motherboards are susceptible to DPC latency spikes. This has been covered in some forum threads. As I recall, the primary cause is often due to poorly written drivers.

Do an internet search on:
DPC latency spike
DPC latency checker

The latter is a freeware program to run on your computer to see if this is a problem.

Let us know how you make out with resolving your problem.

[bres6486]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

wow, thanks for posting! i downloaded the dpc latency checker, and i saw a bunch of red spikes. im like okay what does that mean? so i found a site and it was saying that the spikes should be relatively small. so i started to close some things running in my system tray.

when i closed this hardware monitor program, i noticed the spikes went away. Sure enough when i played the sinusoid, for a minute, no noise was present!

the program that i had running was one that came on the gigabyte cd, and it monitors the computers hardware for temperature, and all that stuff. i had this program present at startup time, so it would always be running, and thus lagging me. wow...

thanks!!

for everyone else, dont leave a hardware monitor program running all the time, it can give you lots of trouble!

now the question is whether to return the xfi sound card i bought? = /

Thanks Again!!

[profJim]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Glad to hear that your sound issues were solved quickly and easily.
Was the offending program EasyTune? If yes, which version?
There are other excellent freeware monitoring programs, such as HWmonitor and SpeedFan.

Your sound card versus on-board audio boils down to sound quality.
I'm happy with my on-board audio quality with my 5.1 speaker setup.
If you're into gaming or audiophile quality, you might be happier with your sound card.

[Psycho101]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Keep the Xfi. The realtek onboard is ok for playing a CD or an MP3, but it's crap for anything else. It squeeks when I use my scroll wheel, and whines while gaming. Aweful.

[bres6486]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Glad to hear that your sound issues were solved quickly and easily.
Was the offending program EasyTune? If yes, which version?
There are other excellent freeware monitoring programs, such as HWmonitor and SpeedFan.

Easy Tune 6 is the monitoring program that caused all the latency.
Avoid it like the plague!

[KayossZero]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Keep the Xfi. The realtek onboard is ok for playing a CD or an MP3, but it's crap for anything else. It squeeks when I use my scroll wheel, and whines while gaming. Aweful.

Are you using front audio or inputs in the rear? I ask because for my case (Antec 1200) the front audio wires are unshielded and allow noise like what you're describing if I scroll with the wheel etc. however this doesn't happen when I use the rear ports. Using a UD3P here and the Realtek onboard and couldn't be happier after I upgraded from an Nforce2 A7N8X Deluxe's onboard

Pretty much since I'm not an audiophile and I hate creative the only soundcard I'd buy would be AuzenTech/HT | OMEGA but with the prices as they are and my non expertise, onboard with Dolby Pro Logic II is good enough for my 5.1 Headphone needs.

[Psycho101]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

I've tried both. It was the same with my other two Realtek based boards unfortunately. One was an NForce 4 with Realtek AC97, and the other an i680 with HD885.

It could well be interferance, maybe between the sound IC and something else in the case. Alot of soundcards have shielding to prevent this, but as the Realtek chip is just soldered onto the board, I guess it's not as well protected.

[bres6486]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

just want to bump the issue... iv'e had my machine for a while, but still about once every couple weeks i hear the speakers go bezerk as it picks up some kind of noise. I guess occasionally there are some kind of lag spikes. I wish there was a permanent fix. So while getting rid of monitoring programs helps, it doesn't solve it completely.

[profJim]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

Thanks for your update.
Maybe you need to search for a lead lined computer case. ;)

With luck, maybe I'll somehow win a high quality sound card to use with my Z5500 5.1 speaker system someday. I won't hold my breath waiting, as my motherboard's integrated sound setup is superb-a-mundo.

[wazza300]

Re: Audio Nightmare, is a new motherboard my only option?

do you have the c1e enhanced halt state option on your board? ifso disable it under advanced cpu features in the bios,it will eliminate the noise