Hi..

Have been plagued with annoying `pops' and `snaps' during the playback of WAV, MP3, and OGG files in Winamp 2.81 and finally got it resolved. First it was thought that DirectX9 was not the most compatible with Win2K/SP3 and the Creative SBLive / drivers. Had LOTS of trouble installing the SBLive drivers dated 7-22-02 from Creative.

Also had IRQ conflicts with SBLive on the same interrupt as the Ethernet card. Adding to the mix-of-problems was two SCSI CD drives on the secondary integrated bus.. one of which is a HP CD-Writer with DLA (direct RW acces). It turns out that installing Adaptec 4.71 ASPI driver.sys causes SERIOUS pops and snaps because the SBLive shares IRQ 17 with the integrated SCSI buses. The CD-RW works ok though.

So.. now the question.. is DirectX9 ok for this system (DirectX8.1 is recommended by the browser-based Windows Update utility). Am currently at DX8.1, also.. is ASPI necessary for correct CD-ROM and CD-RW operation on the same bus?


Cheers.. finally got `pure' music with no `snaps'.. { smile }

The SB Live is the culprit. Both drivers and hardware have some serious bugs, or let's call them "design flaws". I also had an SB Live, and crackling was quite normal (even when no audio was played). Never heard it with four other, different soundcards.

DirectX 9.0 is okay, even if you have a DX7/8 card.

As for the ASPI driver: Try deinstalling it and using ASAPI (works in EAC and probably elsewhere, too).

Thanks for the reply..

After uninstalling the Adapted ASPI layer.. the pops and snaps went away. Now Winamp2.81 plays fine even in the background with lots of browsing activity.. even when streaming MP3 files over the LAN.


Have read about SBLive shortcomings in the Winamp forum as well. The Kx drivers were recommended by that forum but I found them too complex.


Cheers..


p.s. all going well with DirectX 8.1 on Win2K

After uninstalling the Adapted ASPI layer.. the pops and snaps went away. Now Winamp2.81 plays fine even in the background with lots of browsing activity.. even when streaming MP3 files over the LAN.
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How did you unnistalled?. Thanks in advace.

Very weird. Is true!!. I even have a more stable and faster system now. Music sounds cleaner. I just removed wnaspi32.dll, aspi32.sys, winaspi.dll and wowpost.exe and voila! Ummm. Very weird.

I'm glad you have a download link for it , I've looked for over two weeks after re-doing my system.

ASAPI is great in that once it is installed there won't be anymore startup problems in EAC if something goes wrong with the Adaptec ASPI driver.

I am wondering though is it possible to put the ASAPI driver files in the EAC folder. thus making EAC ignore the Adaptec APSI driver altogether, or does Adaptec's APSI driver have to be installed just to get EAC to open so that one can switch which APSI interface is the preferred one?

I've come to the conclusion that updating the Adaptec ASPI driver past 4.60 (1021) is a futile attempt, at least on Win98 since anything over 4.60 (1021) doesn't seem to install correctly. Even Adaptec's ASPI check program "aspichk.exe" lies about it being installed correctly when in fact it isn't.

The uninstall is easy .. and is described in the Adaptec readme.txt file:


Quote:

3) Windows 2000 Only:

aspi32.sys (aspi2k.sy_ before install) remains a non-Plug-and-Play driver in Windows 2000. Once loaded, aspi32.sys will not unload. To get aspi32.sys unloaded, delete the file: \winnt\system32\drivers\aspi32.sys and reboot PC.


End Quote


I simply moved it to a sub-folder: \uninstall ASPI



p.s. nice babe's butt.. dude!!