Audio over (USB) souncard produces a poping / ticking sound

I've tried unsuccessfully to get a USB Soundblaster MP3
external soundcard to run on my Avertec 3150 notebook
without significant distortion. Testing has shown that
playing a regular CD creates a constant annoying
ticking/clicking sound from the USB soundcard. The
problem is greater when Windows Media Player is reduced as
to the system tray, and lessened (but still present) when
WMP is viewable. The bug apears identical to

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;307271
Patch Available for USB Isochronous Data Transfers Issues
SYMPTOMS: You may experience one or more of the following
problems in Windows XP: When you are listening to audio
over Universal Serial Bus (USB) speakers, you may hear a
pop. This may occur from every few seconds to every few
minutes.

The problem is the error (differences) between the output
and input sounds. Different things I've tried to
eliminate the noise are:
- running it on it's battery and no external
connections
- tried with disabled built in sound card- tried
with disabled voice modem
- tried both 44.1 and 48KHz sampling
- with and without CreativeLabs soundcard drivers
- no other USB devices plugged in to the machine
- with and without a powered USB hub

But it always produces the similar results... . I've
installed all the newest drivers / bios from Averatec (the
laptop's manufacturer). Windows has also been updated
using "auto-update" and has all the latest updates
incuding SP1. The device manager indicates 500mA as the
power required by my USB soundcard and shows no error.

I don't believe there is anything physically wrong with
the soundcard... but rather something with it's
settings/drivers compatibility with the portable. The SAME
soundcard and software produce excellent results on my
desktop.

Thanks...
Robert


PS: I also tested the Sound using a room acoustic software
(ETF demo). When I "Analyse Sound Card Result"...
Basically the test I'm using does the following:

1) I connected the soundcard's line-input directly to its
line-output
2) the computer generates a WAV sound and feeds this to
the sound card's output
3) the computer then records the input file and compares
it to the output it just produced

The impulse response curve has more than one large peak
and a there is constant oscillation (±5%) regardless of
time. This would indicate excessive system noise.

No one has had a similar problem recently?

>-----Original Message-----
>I've tried unsuccessfully to get a USB Soundblaster MP3
>external soundcard to run on my Avertec 3150 notebook
>without significant distortion. Testing has shown that
>playing a regular CD creates a constant annoying
>ticking/clicking sound from the USB soundcard. The
>problem is greater when Windows Media Player is reduced
as
>to the system tray, and lessened (but still present) when
>WMP is viewable. The bug apears identical to
>
>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
>us;307271
>Patch Available for USB Isochronous Data Transfers Issues
>SYMPTOMS: You may experience one or more of the
following
>problems in Windows XP: When you are listening to audio
>over Universal Serial Bus (USB) speakers, you may hear a
>pop. This may occur from every few seconds to every few
>minutes.
>
>The problem is the error (differences) between the output
>and input sounds. Different things I've tried to
>eliminate the noise are:
>- running it on it's battery and no external
>connections
>- tried with disabled built in sound card- tried
>with disabled voice modem
>- tried both 44.1 and 48KHz sampling
>- with and without CreativeLabs soundcard drivers
>- no other USB devices plugged in to the machine
>- with and without a powered USB hub
>
>But it always produces the similar results... . I've
>installed all the newest drivers / bios from Averatec
(the
>laptop's manufacturer). Windows has also been updated
>using "auto-update" and has all the latest updates
>incuding SP1. The device manager indicates 500mA as the
>power required by my USB soundcard and shows no error.
>
>I don't believe there is anything physically wrong with
>the soundcard... but rather something with it's
>settings/drivers compatibility with the portable. The
SAME
>soundcard and software produce excellent results on my
>desktop.
>
>Thanks...
>Robert
>
>
>PS: I also tested the Sound using a room acoustic
software
>(ETF demo). When I "Analyse Sound Card Result"...
>Basically the test I'm using does the following:
>
>1) I connected the soundcard's line-input directly to its
>line-output
>2) the computer generates a WAV sound and feeds this to
>the sound card's output
>3) the computer then records the input file and compares
>it to the output it just produced
>
>The impulse response curve has more than one large peak
>and a there is constant oscillation (±5%) regardless of
>time. This would indicate excessive system noise.
>
>.
>