SoundMax : P4P800 - Crackling, popping audio : my fix

[Dylan Kucera]

I thought maybe someone else might benefit from the struggle I've already been
through with the onboard audio on the Asus P4P800. Essentially I was getting
a great deal of random pops or crackles, however you want to call it, when
playing MP3's. One of the following 3 things appears to have fixed it. Which
one I'm not sure because I did them all together out of frustration. If
anyone else goes through this and homes in on the real culprit, followup and
explain!

PLEASE, don't e-mail me asking how to do these things, and if you blow
something up (the third one is hacky, proceed at your own risk), don't blame
it on me. These are ideas only, and intended for those technically savy.

1) Flash to the latest BIOS (right now it's 1016).

2) Upgrade WinAMP from 2.91 to 5.03.

The one I think really fixed it though was

3) If you're running Win2k Like I am: Jam the 3713 drivers in for the
SoundMax. ASUS only supports the older 3630 on the P4P800 right now. If you
try to install the 3713 drivers, it will say it can't find your hardware.
What you need to do to fool it:

Go to an ASUS ftp site and into the directory where ASUS has the P4P800 sound
drivers. eg

ftp://ftp.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/pub/mirror/asus/misc/audio/adi/1985/

Get both 1985WDM_3630.zip and 1985WDM_3713.zip. Unzip them to different
locations. Take all the files from SMAXWDM\W2K_XP in the 3713 directory and
copy them to the same relative location in the 3630 directory. Then update
your driver from the (now hacked) 3630 directory.

The onboard SoundMax audio on my P4P800 is actually pretty decent now, IMO,
though it took a lot of fooling around to eliminate the crackle/pop I was
getting. I hope maybe someone else is helped out by this. Good luck.

DK.

 

[Darkfalz]

3) If you're running Win2k Like I am: Jam the 3713 drivers in for the

SoundMax. ASUS only supports the older 3630 on the P4P800 right now. If you
try to install the 3713 drivers, it will say it can't find your hardware.
What you need to do to fool it:

I'm really waiting for ASUS to get off their butts and update the drivers
for the P4*800 series, but I dunno if it will ever happen.

I don't get any pops with WAVE volume set at 50%, unless I play a game which
sets volumes very high (I just turn them down in game).

 

[Dylan Kucera]

I'm really waiting for ASUS to get off their butts and update the drivers
for the P4*800 series, but I dunno if it will ever happen.

I don't get any pops with WAVE volume set at 50%, unless I play a game which
sets volumes very high (I just turn them down in game).

So why not follow my process and fool it into updating your drivers? So far
it works great on my system, and no pops at any volume. It seems it's just a
matter for ASUS to update the .INF file, they don't need to do anything else
to "update" the P4x800 drivers. I recommend you try what I did to get the
3713 drivers installed. Only downside is that your system will still say they
are 3630 because of what's in the .INF file: No big deal.

Good luck.

DK.

 

[Tom G.]

It works great !!!!
Thanks

If


So why not follow my process and fool it into updating your drivers? So far
it works great on my system, and no pops at any volume. It seems it's just a
matter for ASUS to update the .INF file, they don't need to do anything else
to "update" the P4x800 drivers. I recommend you try what I did to get the
3713 drivers installed. Only downside is that your system will still say they
are 3630 because of what's in the .INF file: No big deal.

Good luck.

DK.

 

[Darkfalz]

If


So why not follow my process and fool it into updating your drivers? So far
it works great on my system, and no pops at any volume. It seems it's just a
matter for ASUS to update the .INF file, they don't need to do anything else
to "update" the P4x800 drivers. I recommend you try what I did to get the
3713 drivers installed. Only downside is that your system will still say they
are 3630 because of what's in the .INF file: No big deal.

I looked at this before and actually edited a new INF file. It didn't solve
my popping problem at high volumes, so I decided to go back to the last
"official" drivers.

 

[johto]

I have never had any popping sounds or any other sound bugs on my
P4P800 board...nothing to complain. I have my master volume and wave
etc on ~90%. No clipping whatsoever. I use analog connector which is
hooked to my stereo amp.