Horrible sound crackling

[Mogul]

OK, so I got my new hdd -- 200 gb. Nice. It has taken days to get everything reinstalled/config'd, etc, but I've noticed something horrible.

I'm not sure if it's the hdd, or just one of those random computer problems that no one really knows for sure the cause of it -- but my games, ESPECIALLY QuakeWorld -- all suffer from a split-second lockup accompanied by a crackling sound. I was trying to just live with it, but today, for some unknown reason, it got MUCH WORSE in some games (not all, apparently). Sometimes the crackling can last several seconds long and just won't let go.

It's extremely annoying as I'm sure pretty much all of you can understand.

It should also be noted that the problem never happens when watching demos in games. It should also be noted that non-GL games still suffer from the same problems. I really don't know the cause of it, yet I can't bare to try to play these games that I love with this problem.

Here are my system specs:

Windows XP SP2
nVidia nForce mainboard (hence, Soundstorm for my soundcard) (latest drivers)
Barton 3000+
512 RAM
Seagate 200gb hdd (two partitions)

On a final word, it should be noted that the problems only happen in games. Videos, mp3s, etc, all seem fine.

I REALLY don't want to have to resort to reformatting again, because in the last week, I've put almost 50 gb of stuff on this thing, and I'd hate to have to go through that again just to test to see if it'd fix this problem.

Does anyone have ANY help at all?

[Spike]

And you're posting this here because...?

Perhaps you should be looking at a hardware forum in some dusty corner of the 'net?

[Fletcher`]

Spike said:

Perhaps you should be looking at a hardware forum in some dusty corner of the 'net?

Because most of them are filled with garbage and idiots.

...oh wait

[Mogul]

Lots of gamers are at Doomworld (obviously :D) and this is the most appropriate place in these forums to post such a thing.

[Szymanski]

Are you using 5.1 sound in games? and is the motherboard nforce2? if so it's the nforce boards limited bandwidth. Try running with 2 channel audio or reducing video quality.

[david_a]

I agree with Spike; I think you would have much better luck posting on Ars Technica or some other similar site.

[Mogul]

Szymanski said:

Are you using 5.1 sound in games? and is the motherboard nforce2? if so it's the nforce boards limited bandwidth. Try running with 2 channel audio or reducing video quality.

I'm not using 5.1, but I am using an nforce2 mainboard.

The weird thing is, I had this exact same system setup when I was using my 40 gb hdd a week ago, and had no problems like this.

So the hardware is pretty much the same.

[Colusio]

If it was my system, I would put the old hdd in it and see if the problem remains.
Before that I would resize my virtual memory slightly and see if it has any effects. Maybe there's a seek time penalty .

[Use]

I dont think the hdd has anything to do with it, but you could try opening nvmixer and turning down the bass, sometimes games will distort the artifical bass and make a crackling sound. also, try turning down hardware acceleration and see if that helps.

[leileilol]

Funny, I have the same problem, and it's on my k6 433 laptop with onboard AC'97 audio. Updating the drivers, hardware accelleration disabling, anything didn't work, hell it happens in DOS games even. It sounds fine, then you'll get crackle a little later(a short pause before that), then the sound will completely space-out in loud volumes unexpectedly, sounding totally fubar.

Often, turning up the sound buffer length to around 100ms solves some of the crackling problem. Also manually restarting the game's sound system (depends on how the game allows you to do it) will "refresh" the sounds again.

[Use]

Another thought I had when I had a crackling problem with a machine with onboard sound was when I turned my master and game volumes to just under 100%, and the crackling was gone.

[Mogul]

Problem (99%) solved.

There's no way I could have ever guessed the solution I got from this guy.

Control panel --> system --> hardware --> device manager --> then expand Computer. The ACPI's (or whatever it's called) driver just needed to be upgraded to the Advanced blah blah blah version.

The problem seems to be gone in almost every case. A very minor version of the problem occurs once ever 5-10 minutes apparently, but it is NOTHING like it used to be.