Since changing my system over from:

AMD AthlonXP Palomino 2100+
Asus A7V333

to:

Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8GHz / 800MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 Deluxe

I am experiencing what I think are "underruns" in DirectSound and ASIO in various applications (foobar included). They are little subtle crackles in the sound, almost like a dirty record.

I realise that there could be a hell of a lot of things contributing to what is going wrong, but does anyone have any suggestions as to what may help me narrow it down?

Thanks

Edit: sound card is M-Audio Audiophile 2496

I have PIV based system (2.6GHz 800MHz HT) and don't experience any problems.
Do you have line-in enabled in your soundcard's mixer? Or do you have set volume for it too high?
If I have enabled it on my sound card (Audigy), I experience background noises in sound during playback.

What os do you have? Did you reinstall it after changing your platform? Is your drivers and BIOS updatet?

Could clipping be the culprit?

Could be that your soundcard is sharing an IRQ with another device, though this usually only affects Creative cards.

How would I check for IRQ conflicts?

Never understood it to be honest.

Cheers

On Windows XP / 2k3:

Start -> All programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Information

System Summary -> Hardware Resources -> Conflicts/Sharing

Make sure that your soundcard does not share IRQ with other devices. You can try to replace your soundcard to other slot.

And, of course, install latest chipset driver.

Hello, I had a similar problem, only I am using an Athlon based system. I could not find out what was causing the breakups and crackling in the sound.

I took everything apart except the video card and the audio card, (Audiophile 2496) and still the problem was there.

Even merely minimizing the FB2K window would set it off, as would opening a browser window, clicking the Start button etc.

Finally I got disgusted and did a clean re-install of XP and that took care of it. No more crackles and breakups since then.

Regards,

K. Wise

Ive just checked my IRQs and my Audiophile is on virtual IRQ 21. Gonna refit it and see if I can get any better performance.

Will reinstall Windows when I get my new HDD

Cheers

Now IRQ 23 (LOL)

I'll give it a chance, it's all good so far though.

It is however, closer to my graphics card which is kind of hot!

Time will tell.

Al

i'm experiencing this too since some weeks, it never happend before
but i dont know the resons
i guess that maybe installing teamspeak and messing around with its config or maybe fragmentation of my hard discs does it
but if i burn these files on a cd and listen to it on the dvd player the crackles are gone
it's weird, i should try a new installation of win xp

It's weird, and f***ing annoying!

Still happening - it only seems to happen if my PC's been on for a while.

I'll get to the bottom of this some day.

You could well have have something conflicting with your sound-card drivers, and additionally you have some 'rogue program' running (poorly coded application which misbehaves and probably has resource leaks etc).

First thing to do is look down the bottom right hand side of your screen, usually near the time. When you start up Windows do lots of little icons appear there?
As a general rule you only really should have programs running when you are actually using them - the rest of the time you would not want them to run. Programs with an icon in that system tray area, are either running or partly running in a 'half readied' state. Check out what those programs are! Look carefully in each of their options. Somewhere should be an option 'not to run at startup' or 'not to run in system tray' or something of that nature.

Anyway, when you have looked through all the programs that were in the system tray, and hopefully stopped some of the unnecassery ones from running at startup, then you should restart Windows

Okay, you should next check for 'ad-applications' that might be running in the background. Ad-applications means little programs that often run in the background and display adverts when you are connected to the internet or use programs that are 'adware sponsored'.
Firstly, I am not saying delete all ad-applications because you might have agreed to install some, but anyway, to get rid of them try running Adaware - do a search for it on the internet, it is by Lavasoft.
Run it and delete anything it finds that you do not want to keep.
After you have deleted the annoying and pesky little ad-applications then restart Windows.

Okay , now you should Try and see if your sound is any better.

If it is still not then I would check in the BIOS. You should check your user manual or look on the internet for help with any settings, but often 'Turbo' or wrong 'optimal' settings can show up as problems when the system takes on a higher load - this can show up when the PC has been on for a while, especially as resources are used up and not freed again and the system gets hotter. You might want to try SAFE DEFAULTS if you have that option in your BIOS.

After trying that, if still problems then shutdown and turn off your PC. If you are confident and have made sure of reading up on it first, then try moving the cards in your case to different slots - each being spaced apart if possible. Make especially sure to route your soundcard lead away from anything that will get very hot and away from trailing directly on the motherboard or near fan blades
When you replace them and have then turned your PC back on you might have resolved some conflicts, or if you have one of the poorer motherboards, any PCI contention problems or interference may have been resolved.

Now this time when Windows is loaded check if you can play music okay.

If STILL problems, then there are two things to check first (in this order)
(1)uninstall anything like Foobar, Winamp, LAME & XviD.
(2)Install the appropriate version of DirectX from Microsoft (probably latest 9.x version)

THEN Restart Windows, run Windows Update. It is up to you what to install from the list if any choices, but do take critical & driver updates unless you know you have a reason not to.

Then restart Windows again

OK, now UPDATE Both (1)Motherboard (sometimes called mainboard) drivers, i.e. chipset drivers like the VIA Hyperion drivers from www.via.com.tw if you have a VIA board that can use these for example, & then reboot
and then Get latest (2) Your soundcard drivers.

If you install these make sure you have restarted each time afterwards.

Finally! get the latest (or whatever version you prefer) and reinstall XViD, LAME, other audio codecs you want, FooBar2000, etc - it was important to do this after redoing DirectX

Restart Windows

Now everything will hopefully be alright, I dislike Creative Soundcards by the way and Windows because of staticcy interference problems from sloppy coding and conflicts.