Soundblaster Live! Digital Audio Dropouts (1 Viewer)

[James Luke]

I was going to use my Soundblaster Live card for my HTPC, but I keep experiencing a dropout of sound using the SPDIF out going to my Denon AVR 3200. It isn't consistant, nor regular. it happend sometimes quickly,and sometimes taking minutes between occurances. I have this problem with whatever I try using for sound (ie: WinDVD, Musicmatch Jukebox, Games, Winamp) and have had the problem with every OS I have tried (Win 98SE, ME, 2K, XP Pro) If this is a hardware failure on the part of the SBLive, I am afrade it was a waisted investment and may have to use my SB Audigy.

any input would be helpfull.

j

HTPC Specs:

Epox EP8KTA

AMD T-Bird 900

384 Megs PC-100 SDRAM

GF2MX400

Soundblaster Live

WinXP Pro

Latest drivers from Creative website

 

[Hugh M]

Hi,

are you using ACPI? in otherwords if you go into the device manager and view by resources connection, and look under IRQs.....how many devices are sharing one IRQ if any?

also you could try going into the control panel, and "sounds and audio" and mess with the sliders that are available under "advanced"/"performance" I believe. The acceleration one could be taken back a bit, and maybe that would help.

third thing to try would be disabling the pagefile just for kicks....go into system, and then go to performance, advanced, and look for virtual memory settings... disable any pagefiles that are set up..

after changing any of these settings you need to reboot.

once you figure if you are using ACPI or not, and then get off of it, then maybe you can decide which PCI slot ios best for your sound card.

Your problem sounds serious though, because I haven't seen that problem with Music applications and/or games(PCM)...usually only with DTS/DD(AC3) tracks during DVD playback.

 

[Chad Ellinger]

Try to isolate the cable from other electronics and make sure it is well-insulated. I had similar problems with dropouts from my Soundblaster Live! in my dorm room two years ago. Of course, being in a dorm room, the digital cable was susceptible to a lot of interference from both computer and A/V wiring.

Now that I'm in an apartment, I use a nice thick RG6 cable running from the SBLive in my bedroom to my receiver in my living room, and dropouts occur less frequently.

 

[Jon Hancock]

When you say you have a Sound Blaster Live, do you mean a Platinum, with the true buffered SPDIF output, or one of the single card setups- value edition, etc? which don't conform as closely to the SPDIF voltage format.

IRQ usage can be a big issue for audio stability, as the others note above. Another point is to be sure you have the latest VIA 4in1 drivers- the 4.37 version fixes a lot of issues with some of the older versions- it's been a must for me on any late model Athlon boards (I only use Athlon's at home).

If you're currently using WIN98 or ME, check what the IRQ assignments on your PCI slots are, and try not to use one that shares an IRQ with video or disk controller.

ACPI is used by WIN2K and XP exclusively UNLESS you modify the install process to bypass ACPI. It usually works quite well; I've got two HTPC 's working well with XP. I don't consider ACPI the culprit; and to handle a wide range of haredware, and I/O, it's essentially mandatory. (for example, my main desktop, with SCSI, USB2, USB1, Firewire, video, audio, and NIC. It plays DVDs just fine).

Good luck getting it sorted out.

If you give up on you SB, I've found the Philips Acoustic Edge to work nicely with a lot of hardware and software- it's a lot less fussy than my SB Live boards have been.

Regards,

Jon