This snap, crackle and pop is bugging the tar out of me!

[Steve A.]

I have an Audigy 2 sound card, with the module that slides into a 5 1/4" drive space, which I plug into the $99 Bose Companion powered speakers (no sub). The right speaker has the volume control and headphone jack, but I prefer to keep that speaker on the left side, which would sometimes get confusing while editing sound files. So one day I decided to just switch the red and white cords coming from my computer and ever since then I keep hearing an intermittent crackle from the right speaker, usually when my computer is accessing my hard drives.

Such much of my audio editing involves removing pops and crackles from vinyl rips, it is really a pain in the neck. So do you think that the noise is coming from the speakers or the sound card???

Yes, it just occurred to me to try switching the two channels again, and if the noise moves to the left speaker then it is probably coming from the sound card. If the noise stays on the right channel then it is probably the speakers...

Just had to vent on this!

Steve Ahola

P.S. I've pulled the card out again to make sure all of the connections were good. And if I didn't mention this, the computer was on when I switched the two RCA cables...

[Don Moose]

Power supply noise that only one cable is adequately shielded against?
Some bend of cable in the crossover cfg that's not present in the straight-thru?

You need 'better' cable (RG-174)?

Maybe it's time to switch to a USB turntable?

[Steve A.]

Google to the rescue! Well, almost...

When I switched the two cables the noise started coming out of the *other* speaker so I figure it is coming from the sound card. There was a great deal on the Creative X-FI Elite Pro card so I thought I'd Google it for reviews and found that some people were getting crackling from these sound cards, and mentioned having similar problems with earlier SB cards (like my Audigy 2).

Most people attributed the noise to either improper drivers or improper latency values in the PCI and AGP busses. Damn, I just remembered that I had to change the video card recently (the fan on the old one gave up the ghost and the card overheated and died). And it was probably about that time that I started noticing the crackling noises... D'oh!

I downloaded a freeware program that allows you to change the latency on the devices on your PCI bus, but I could not access my AGP card (although it supposedly does that too).

So I've been trying different values but the crackling is still there, but maybe not as much as before...

Steve Ahola

EDIT I did find a CPU to AGP setting which I set to 032 and (knock on wood!) it seems to have solved the problem! Here is the file I downloaded:

http://drivers.softpedia.com/progDow...oad-18183.html

I've had this card for many years now and it never did have the crackling problem before so this was boggling my mind a bit...

[dai h.]

I remember once it started crackling on an old motherboard (the audio) after I installed new (version) video card drivers (that's what I traced it to eventually). Now (diff. PC) I have a dedicated sound card (which is a pretty decent Onkyo) and I seem to get noise if the ground connection on the output cable is dirty or not connecting well. Not sure if that is useful, but fwiw anyway. Oh, I faintly recall something about the order of drivers making some difference in noise.

[Steve A.]

I never could get rid of those darned pops so I picked up an OEM version of the Soundblaster Live 24 card for $15 and it works great! I think it even sounds better than that darned Audigy 2 card, but it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles...

Steve Ahola

[tommy d]

I never could completely get rid of those noise until I went off board audio via firewire. I really liked that Audigy too, I had the off-board PCI one and it still made noise but less than most.