http://www.abxzone.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1500.html
masterblaster03-14-2001, 12:18 PM
Thanks to all who have attempted to solve this problem. I am sick of Creative
Labs ignoring this issue. I just e-mailed them the following letter. If I get
any results, I'll post it here.
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Creative Tech Support,
I am experiencing electrical popping noises and white noise at start-up? And
even worse that that, when I'm playing games such as Quake III, many of the
sounds, (like rocket explosion sounds), are ALL DISTORTION. This sounds really
lousy on my speakers. I recently upgraded from a Sounblaster PCI128, and had
never had this problem with that card. I currently have the SB-Live 5.1 MP3+,
and ......
SB-LIVE MP3+ 5.1 sound card
Cambridge Acoustics satellites(2) w/ a subwoofer.
Asus CUSL-2 Motherboard Rev. 1002 BIOS
Pentium III-550E
256 MB of PC133
I've tried disabling the Creative SB16 emulation in the Device Manager, and this
did not help at all. After searching for help on the internet and on Creative's
Online Troubleshooting area, I decided to call Creative Tech Support. I was on
hold for quite some time for this toll call. Once connected with a technical
support agent at Creative, he told me (and I quote) "it's a Microsoft Windows
problem, not a Soundblaster Live problem"....(he went on to say)...."not to have
a big head, but creative cards are so superior to other sound cards that they
use alot of system resources, and the Windows o/s just can't handle it." I told
him that I felt that this statement was completely ridiculous and unacceptable!
I told him that there are plenty of competitive sound cards to date that are as
good or better that Creative cards, (ie, the Phillips Acoustic Edge, or Hercules
Game Theater XP, etc.), and that Creative Labs claims to be creating sound cards
to operate within the Windows Operating Systems. This IS how they market their
cards anyway, to operate under Windows. If anything, they should be catering to
Windows, not the other way around. This tech support guy would have me believe
that Creative cards are just "too good" for windows. He refused to help me and
made no suggestions at all. Keep in mind that I NEVER once raised my voice, but
simply was honest and straight forward with him.
I've tried countless technical support forums over the last month, including
creative labs' FAQ section, but it proved worthless on the topic. Now I've tried
calling creative tech support, and that proved a waste of MY time and MY money
for the toll call. Many, many people are having this problem. I've seen it on
tons of tech support forums. Why can't I get a straight answer? Soundblaster
Live cards are the most popular cards around! Why is this problem being ignored?
I have my SB card in PCI slot #3 with IRQ #5 reserved in the BIOS. Under the
Device Manager IRQ settings, IRQ #5 is still sharing:
1) ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ Steering
2) Intel USB universal host controller 2444
I've also tried disabling "ACPI", and "Plug and Play O/S." This fix was proposed
on the 3D Sound Surge Forum for Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Cards.
http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000053.html
I am at a loss for how to get my Soundblaster Live working correctly. I really
hope that my e-mail is not ignored, but properly addressed. Creative Labs should
not ignore such a huge problem.
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We'll see if they respond, or continue to ignore.
MB
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masterblaster03-17-2001, 01:33 PM
It seems like too much trouble to screw with anymore. If Creative Labs doesn't
put out new drivers with a fix, then screw it. I'll just get rid of my
SoundBlaster, and get a different sound card, not a Creative product.
MB
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FuNkY03-22-2001, 07:24 PM
Hey Klesk2000...this is the exact same problem I had under Win2k, and it was
poor creative drivers and IRQ sharing with the Live card. This is what actually
pushed me to try the Philips Card which would blue screen instead of cause
distortion.
I spent many hours on this problem and lets just say I escalated it as far as I
can go without utilizing an official channel to do so. I spent several hours
with a debugger and found most of it being caused by a very poorly written
EMU10K1F.SYS file (which is Creative's driver). Most are caused by stressing
their 3D sound functions...even without EAX turned on.
As for why it only happens in games...it's the only place you push EMU10K1F.SYS
to it's limits. You can actually reproduce it under Windows fairly easy by
repeating a CD quality sound very rapidly.
I will be happy to go through a repro on my machine with you, although some off
my components are a little different. Feel free to check out
http://www.funderburks.com/dan/ under Hardware to compare hardware if
interested.
A big caution I would give you is you need to pay very close attention to which
version of drivers you need to use (not always the latest). It will take some
time to get everything done, but I'm sure we can get it fixed for you.
FuNkY
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Klesk200004-08-2001, 05:30 PM
I suggest to all the people getting this poping/clicking sound problem to call
Creative Labs tech support at 1-405-742-6655 and let them know you are getting
it because that is the only way they will get the problem worked on. Right now,
whenever I call, I ask how many other people call about these poping sound
issues. They said quote "next to none". What that means is that they are not
getting enough people calling about this problem which means they are seeing it
as a "isolated" incident. If they think it is isolated, and they can't reproduce
the problem in their labs, they will not fix it because they don't think it is a
"big" enough problem. I know at least 30 other people with popping/clicking
sound problems on a variety of motherboard/CPU/speaker combinations. I have
tried the ASUSTeK K7V, Intel D815EP, and the ASUSTeK CUSL2-C motherboards. I get
the poping sounds with all of them. Personally, I think this is a power supply
issue. I got a question for you guys who are getting this problem, what EXACT
power supply manufacturer and model do you guys have? Also, what hard drive and
memory are you guys using?