Hi, my first post for a while - did a search with no luck so i thought ild ask the xperts...

i have a mobo with onboard 5.1 sound (C-Media Xear3D) with Creative Inspire T7900 speakers.

the speakers are set to 'Direct' via a switch on the sub ('5.1 > 7.1' has the same effect), and in the C-Media control pannel the config is set to 6 speakers (5 + sub). Volume slider is set to 1/2 and the mic is muted.

my issue is that when scrolling (in explorer/word/etc), or even moving the mouse sometimes, a noise can be heard from the speakers, almost like a hissing/feedback sound - it gets louder as i turn up the volume. theres also a constant hissing sound from the speakers. ive checked the cabling and it seems ok -

i was really wondering if anyone had the same speakers and/or onboard sound chip and if buying a 7.1 pci soundcard would have much diffence!!

many thanks,
Matt

These are the usual symptoms of bad quality onboard audio. It's not so much that they use a bad audio codec chip, it's more the implementation on the board itself: If the audio lines on the board are not electrically "decoupled" well enough, i.e. routed far enough away and shielded from other noisemakers, that noise will bleed into the audio signal. If you buy a seperate soundcard, there will definitely be a big improvement.

Onboard sound problem; get a soundcard.

Speaker problem (internal amplification); get new speakers preferably with a separate amp if you have the space.

Why would you want so many speakers?

thanks for the replies, my pc kinda blu up so havent been able to reply...

i ended up getting the creative xfi gaming card cheap - put it in and it works perfect - all problems solved!

i guessed it was to do with the onboard sound - do newer mobos have the same problems? im tihnking of building a micro atx pc using a mobo with onboard hd sound, that will be linked to an amp via the optical out socket - is there a possibility of having the problem again?

many thanks!
Matt

edit: got the speakers cheap last december but ur right i only use 5 of them! not 7....but i got the 7.1 card was only a bit more than a good 5.1 one

Optical out should not be affected by bad mobo design. However you could still pick up noise from activity on the PCI bus.

many thanks - when you say pci bus 'noise', is that when using a pci card or even when using just the mobo?