Bad sound with Soundstorm...

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited February 2004 in Hardware
It's a shame, but the Soundstorm audio in the MCP-T Southbridge on my girlfriend's PC is giving me trouble. It used to crackle horribly, but I installed the nForce drivers from another brand motherboard and the crackle went away in all sounds. However, I still get a pop from the speakers every time Windows initializes, and the volume output by the Soundstorm is WAAAAAY too low.

I'm looking for either:
A) A solution to fix the Soundstorm and make it work right.
B) Recommend a budget-soundcard that's as good as Soundstorm and has an APU built-in (in other words I want 0 CPU load from sound playing).

I've deliberately not identified the brand and model of motherboard because I don't want people blaming the brand for the problem - I've seen reports of this happening on Soundstorm audio in many brands of mobo.

Thanks!

Comments

  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Anybody?

    *crickets chirp*
  • DisvengeanceDisvengeance
    edited February 2004
    Why didnt you install the nforce drivers from nvidia's website? And for new soundcard wise, id have to recomend the OEM audigy 2, which are very cheap on www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com .
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I did install the drivers from the nvidia website - the sound still crackled with them. The only driver that worked was one from a different motherboard.

    Thanks for the suggestion, but the Audigy 2 is outside of my price range. I paid less than that for this motherboard.
  • croc_croc_ New
    edited February 2004
    GHoosdum wrote:
    I did install the drivers from the nvidia website - the sound still crackled with them. The only driver that worked was one from a different motherboard.

    Thanks for the suggestion, but the Audigy 2 is outside of my price range. I paid less than that for this motherboard.

    Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (not sure about APU, but the sound quality is excellent).
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I'm just looking for something with hardware sound decoding like Soundstorm - I want sound playing to produce 0 CPU load... I don't know too much about the details though, so if somebody would like to educate me I'm more than happy to listen, er, read.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited February 2004
    What model/revision is the mobo?
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I intentionally kept that information out of the post because I didn't want this to turn into a bashing thread, but I'll tell you. As long as you promise not to blame the brand, but rather to give some decent advice, since these problems are common to several brands of motherboard that incorporate Soundstorm audio, from what my research has found. That being said... it's an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe V2.0.

    Oh, and I get stuttering audio from my Abit NF7-S 2.0 after a few hours of game playing, so if anyone wants to take a crack at that problem too, let me know! (plus I can preempt the folks who will say scrap the Asus and buy an Abit even after my several cautions to not do so :rant: )
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Put a small passive heatsink on the southbridge.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Of which one? The stuttering or the low volume? Or will it cure both? Do you know where I can get my hands on a correctly-sized passive heatsink? And thanks.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    The stuttering one.

    The low volume one is probably related to some setting in an obscure sound panel.
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