System Sound Events cause system to wait till sound finishes...

[VictorLion]

Hi Everybody-


I have actually been seeking resolution of this problem for a year now. I
have installed xp on many, many systems and have never seen this problem
before.

Seems like every sound that is attached to a system event like select, menu
command, and menu popup, causes the operating system to pause till the sound
finishes.

This does not happen each and every time, but often enough to drive one
nuts!

My system was also very unstable while this was happening. Until I turned
off all system event sounds. Now all works fantastic. System very stable.

I have an AMD x2 dual core 4600+. 3gig DDR2 800mhz

Anybody have any suggestions. This must have something to do with whether
the sound runs syncronous or a-syncronous. or perhaps with buffering?

Your insight and help is appriciated. Thanks


VictorLion

 

[V Green]

Actually, it probably has to do with badly
implemented sound hardware or driver.

Try a different version of the driver (doesn't
have to be the newest, just different) and see
if things change.

 

[VictorLion]

Ok I'll give it a try.
Actually, I may NEVER have used the audio drivers that came with the
motherboard.
Realtek High Definition Audio (8 channel surround) ON BOARD
I downloaded the newest drivers first out!

I will install the older, original drivers and see what happens.
Thanks.

 

[V Green]

There was some issue in the last few months with the
HD audio drivers vs. a Windows Update patch on some
Dell (I think?) machines.

Sorry, don't know much more as I don't have that hdwe.

 

[VictorLion]

Well it took me a while to get up the nerve to go back to the old drivers.
But I did it. First off, I set a click sound for the Select Event.
Then I clicked on a desktop icon and......... it disappeared for a second
and reappeared.
Nice try, but no cigar.
I then reinstalled the latest audio drivers again.

It might be noteworthy to mention that before I realized my delay problem
was
related to system event sounds, I was able to create a work around that
worked
fairly well. I changed the priority of explorer.exe to slightly above
normal.
At that point all shell based sounds worked perfectly without a glitch.
But apps other than explorer still suffered when I pulled down a menu etc.

So now I am back as before. My system event sounds are off. But at least
the system is running great. It would be nice to find the problem and
resolve it.

I might also mention that music and all normal audio has always been
and is now excellent.

Perhaps somebody has another idea....

VictorLion
PS Thanks ahead of time!