Is my LVD cable the source of noise via sound card?

[zephyr]

I have been trying to locate the cause of a very annoying buzzing or
scratching sound that is transmitted through my sound card when ever
there is:

mouse movement
hard disk activity
re-sizing windows

I have an ASUS A7V8X-X mobo with a SCSI LVD hard drive (boot drive)
connected to an Adaptec 2940U2W card with a Tekram cable that is not
in the best shape. The small wires that make up the cable were
originally bound in a clear cellophane -like binding and these small
wires are fraying away from the cable. So I have about 3 or 4 of these
small wires terminated but "stringing" out from the main cable group
throughout the length of the cable. Not a very good cable from Tekram
I think. Anyway, is this the source of this noise?

I have tried:

relocating the card to a different slot
Removing all other cards
Replacing the video card
updating all drivers (sound and video)

I have XP loaded on this SCSI drive.

If you think it's the cable, do you have a good source for a short LVD
cable?

thanks all
z

 

[Al Dykes]

I have been trying to locate the cause of a very annoying buzzing or
scratching sound that is transmitted through my sound card when ever
there is:

mouse movement
hard disk activity
re-sizing windows

I have an ASUS A7V8X-X mobo with a SCSI LVD hard drive (boot drive)
connected to an Adaptec 2940U2W card with a Tekram cable that is not
in the best shape. The small wires that make up the cable were
originally bound in a clear cellophane -like binding and these small
wires are fraying away from the cable. So I have about 3 or 4 of these
small wires terminated but "stringing" out from the main cable group
throughout the length of the cable. Not a very good cable from Tekram
I think. Anyway, is this the source of this noise?

I have tried:

relocating the card to a different slot
Removing all other cards
Replacing the video card
updating all drivers (sound and video)

I have XP loaded on this SCSI drive.

If you think it's the cable, do you have a good source for a short LVD
cable?

thanks all
z

It's not your SCSI cable.

I had a problem that had the sanme description on an older ASUS
mobo. I swapped sound cards and did what you did, and more, with no
luck. Google searching found there was a "known" problem that sounded
like what you and I have that was caused ( I recall) by shared IRQs,
which sort of explains why external events like mouse movements caused
the noise. I recall it was quite reproducable.

It drove me to upgrading my system.

 

[Will Dormann]

I have been trying to locate the cause of a very annoying buzzing or
scratching sound that is transmitted through my sound card when ever
there is:

mouse movement
hard disk activity
re-sizing windows

Have you tried muting various parts of the soundcard to see if that
affects the problem? For example, the Mic, CD-ROM Audio, etc...

 

[zephyr]

Have you tried muting various parts of the soundcard to see if that
affects the problem? For example, the Mic, CD-ROM Audio, etc...

Absolutely tried it. It's a SoundMax control panel, VIA chipset..Sure
fast! Just rebuilt it but as a musician I gotta have decent sound with
no noise. I'm thinking the mobo is reputable enough..I can ghost the
drive to an IDE HDD and seeing if that does it if no one else has any
ideas.

I was really hoping I could have a SCSI based system on the OS and 133
IDE drives for apps/data.

 

[Bryan Hoover]

Absolutely tried it. It's a SoundMax control panel, VIA chipset..Sure
fast! Just rebuilt it but as a musician I gotta have decent sound with
no noise. I'm thinking the mobo is reputable enough..I can ghost the
drive to an IDE HDD and seeing if that does it if no one else has any
ideas.

I was really hoping I could have a SCSI based system on the OS and 133
IDE drives for apps/data.

I've got awful noise in one of my systems like that too. It's only in the
rear channel headphones output though -- front channel output is okay. I
was thinking, a long shot, but you might try updating the card's driver.
I doubt it's the scsi cable. That interrupts suggestion sounded
interesting too.

Bryan

 

[kony]

Absolutely tried it. It's a SoundMax control panel, VIA chipset..Sure
fast! Just rebuilt it but as a musician I gotta have decent sound with
no noise. I'm thinking the mobo is reputable enough..I can ghost the
drive to an IDE HDD and seeing if that does it if no one else has any
ideas.

I was really hoping I could have a SCSI based system on the OS and 133
IDE drives for apps/data.

I'm assuming this is on the analog output?

It's pretty common for analog sound on integrated sound
solutions to be poor. In that regard I've had 8 year old
Ensoniq sound that was far better than the (supposedly best)
nForce2. If you can go all-digital it should help but
otherwise get a sound card. If nothing else the extra
real-estate on a PCI sound card allows for more complex
filtering circuitry.

You might also try newer drivers from ADI.
If you've muted the inputs and it's still not helping enough
you might also unplug any cables, and unplug the speakers,
listen through headphones to see if the noise persists.


In some cases with Via chipsets it helps to increase the PCI
latency in the bios, like around 80-96. You might also try
the "Via Latency Patch" (Google for it, or the latest
version should be @ http://www.viaarena.com).

 

[Al Dykes]

Absolutely tried it. It's a SoundMax control panel, VIA chipset..Sure
fast! Just rebuilt it but as a musician I gotta have decent sound with
no noise. I'm thinking the mobo is reputable enough..I can ghost the
drive to an IDE HDD and seeing if that does it if no one else has any
ideas.

I was really hoping I could have a SCSI based system on the OS and 133
IDE drives for apps/data.

What makes you focus on scsi as the source of the problem ?
Did it start when you added the disk ?

 

[Noozer]

PCI latency... Go to the CMOS settings and see if you have that adjustment.
I believe default is 64. Try 32 or 128 and see what happens.

 

[zephyr]

PCI latency... Go to the CMOS settings and see if you have that adjustment.
I believe default is 64. Try 32 or 128 and see what happens.

Default is 32 so tried 80,96,128 Still get the "sci-fi" buzzing
especially when I drag a window around or there is HDD activity,
Granted I have to turn the volume up max to really hear it but I don't
think it should be there at all.

 

[zephyr]

I'm assuming this is on the analog output? Yes

It's pretty common for analog sound on integrated sound
solutions to be poor. In that regard I've had 8 year old
Ensoniq sound that was far better than the (supposedly best)
nForce2. If you can go all-digital it should help but
otherwise get a sound card. If nothing else the extra
real-estate on a PCI sound card allows for more complex
filtering circuitry.

True but this is the first time I have experienced bad sound on an
ASUS mobo. I was attracted to the 5.1 options etc this sounbd chip has
as well. In principle, I want to find the focus of the problem. I
could throw in a Sound Blaster to see if it persists there..

You might also try newer drivers from ADI.

For what component?

If you've muted the inputs and it's still not helping enough
you might also unplug any cables, and unplug the speakers,
listen through headphones to see if the noise persists.

Yes it does persist in headphones and other speaker systems

In some cases with Via chipsets it helps to increase the PCI
latency in the bios, like around 80-96. You might also try
the "Via Latency Patch" (Google for it, or the latest
version should be @ http://www.viaarena.com).

Found it but doesn't install over XP SP 2

 

[zephyr]

It drove me to upgrading my system.

From what I can tell it is an IRQ issue even thogh I have removed all
cards during testing. It is an upgrade though. This is my
latest/greatest system re-build around an AMD Athlon 2800+ and cannot
find a solution.

 

[zephyr]

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:40:30 -0500, Will Dormann

Absolutely tried all that first..Still sounds like a poilce scanner
whenever there is HDD activity (with volume full)

 

[zephyr]

What makes you focus on scsi as the source of the problem ?
Did it start when you added the disk ?

Well its a complete rebuild that included SCSI as the boot disk. I
just saw this frayed LVD SCSI cable and thought "interference" But
after cloning the disk to an IDE drive, I still get the issue with
SCSI completely out of the system.

 

[zephyr]

update:

Swapped out memory, power supply, even cloned the SCSI disk to an IDE
drive and removed the SCSI periphs, issue still there with volume full
up you can hear static and then when HDD activity begins, louder
police scanner type sounds and static, blips..etc

Pretty much leaves me with motherboard which was just replaced brand
new ASUS A7V8X-X

Is it further IRQ tweaking?

I could put a Sound Blaster in it and see if there's any static
through it...

 

[kony]

True but this is the first time I have experienced bad sound on an
ASUS mobo. I was attracted to the 5.1 options etc this sounbd chip has
as well. In principle, I want to find the focus of the problem. I
could throw in a Sound Blaster to see if it persists there..

I have an Asus A7S333, A7V333, A7N8X-Dlx, all three have
bad onboard sound on analog i/o. The A7N8X-Dlx sounded
passable for awhile then with no config changes, started
making a buzzing and high-pitched sound. If it's audio were
important I'd put a different card in it, but instead I
don't have speakers connected on that box at all.

For what component?

Sound, I'd assumed ADI made the codec since you mentioned
"Soundmax".