Mysterious stutter when playing music while typing

[Speedo]

I have two soundcards installed. One is the built nForce2 built in, and the other is a Terratec EWX2496 music production soundcard.

I find this problem highly mysterious. I have tried everything I can think of (drivers for soundcards and chipset, different players; Winamp, Mediaplayer etc.).

If I do nothing, the audio plays perfectly. But as soon as I start typing, for example a mail, or an URL, the sound starts to stutter, as long as I type. If I hold down a key, it gets really bad (lots of stutter, and the music even slows down). It doesn't seem to be the mp3 decoding that gets interrupted, since the same problem is there when just playing audio CD's. What's really strange, is that it's enough if I just press and hold the shift-button to trigger the problem. It reminds me of the PCI-hogging problem, which was common many years ago with PCI graphics cards and badly written drivers. At that time, the audio stuttered when moving around windows or doing other graphical tasks while playing music in the background.

The problem is not always there. It's mostly there after a cold boot, but often dissapear if I reboot once (but not always).

And before you ask me; No, I haven't tried re-installing windows yet. I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has a better idea first. Also, it could be hardware related, and in that case a reinstall of course wouldn't help.

 

[airfoil]

You have the onboard sound disabled in the BIOS, right?

With that out of the way, you could try another PCI slot for the Terratec and see if that changes anything.

 

[helpmeout]

You don't mention trying a different keyboard. If you're using a PS2 keyboard, try switching to a USB, or vice versa. Don't know that it will make a difference, but hell, it's simple and cheap to do.

 

[Speedo]

No, actually I have both soundcards active. They both have their own IRQ though. This has worked very well for many computers I've built, and for me too in the past. I use the internal soundcard as default output device, and the Terratec is dedicated to Cubase. This way, a system sound in the background could never interfere with Cubase while I'm working. However, I can force winamp to play music on the Terratec, buy chaning output device. I have also tried disabling one of the cards, and the problem persists.

Trying a USB keyboard is an interesting idea. I don't have one available, so I haven't tried that yet. However, even if that works, it sounds more like a workaround than the optimal sollution.

 

[helpmeout]

Not familiar with Cubase, but computers I've seen with both onboard and PCI audio enabled have all had varying audio problems. Try disabling one then the other to see if you can pinpoint the problem to one of the audios.

 

[slayek]

Ha...sounds very familiar to my laptop. I always get noise when I use my scrawl button in my logitech optical mouse. Any idea why?

 

[Speedo]

Originally posted by: slayek
Ha...sounds very familiar to my laptop. I always get noise when I use my scrawl button in my logitech optical mouse. Any idea why?

If it's a slow laptop, I guess it could just be because of CPU resources? But I guess the sound doesnt slowdown and stutter, just because you press the shift button?

 

[firerock]

Try disabling your antivirus and firewall and see if the problem still exists.

 

[slayek]

Nah....there is absolutely no valid reason tjhat I can here my scrawling sound through the sound card and my lappy is pretty fast (2GHz/512 RAM) and I never feel it gets slow down during mouse wheel use. Man thats annoying, I can not listen to music when typing my thesis.

 

[Speedo]

firerock: I have no firewall or antivirus installed.

slayek: Do you get stutter when moving the windows around fast? Try upgrading your VGA and mousedrivers.

 

[cool]

I have the exact same problem and I cannot reproduce it. Sometimes a reboot helps, sometimes not. When playing games everything is fine, though...
I've found an interesting article about this issue:
http://www.geocities.com/phileosophos/tech/pcilatency.html

My system specs:
Athlon XP 2600+
MSI K7N2 Delta-L with official nforce 5.10 drivers
Soundblaster Live! Value (CT4670) with the newest Audigy 2 ZS drivers
(onboard nforce audio disabled)
ATI Radeon 9800 with CAT 5.2
Windows XP Pro SP2
(installed as ACPI Uniprocessor PC, each device has its own IRQ)

 

[helpmeout]

My thinking was if you get this noise when using the onboard audio and PS2 keyboard, it could be a physical problem with the motherboard allowing a "leak" between between the two.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like a possible combination of badly-written drivers somewhere (causing latency), along with an interrupt-sharing issue, possibly with your keyboard or mouse, although the PCI latency/bus-hogging, potentially caused by lot of video-card updates, could be as well.

Have you checked your hardware-acceleration settings for both of your audio devices, as well as your video card?

 

[Speedo]

cool: Yea, sounds exactly like the problem I'm having. However, since games are fine, I'm not sure this is the same problems as described in the article you linked to.

To helpmeout and others who might not understand exactly how the problem really appears:

1. It's not noise. When typing, or even holding down the shift-button, the sound slows down and stutters. You can even hear the sutter is synced to the keyboard repetition speed.

2. What ever I do using the mouse will NOT cause any problems at all. I can scroll webpages, I can even launch photoshop while playing music - No problem! No hickups; smooth as silk.

3. Sometimes a reboot helps, sometimes not. For example, right now I can type this message without any problems at all. Next reboot I might get a slow down every time I press a key.

VirtualLarry: I'm using the A7N8X-Deluxe, WinXP Pro SP2, all updates installed. Latest nForce drivers. So it's a very common setup, and the drivers should be well tested.

The thing is, I think this problem has not been there since the beginning. The problem is, I had a period where I did not often listen to music in the background while doing stuff. During that period, I changed from a GeForce2MX to a Radeon 9800Pro, and also changed PSU. These are the only things that I think could have been changed since it last worked...

 

[cool]

Originally posted by: Speedo
cool: Yea, sounds exactly like the problem I'm having. However, since games are fine, I'm not sure this is the same problems as described in the article you linked to.

Yes but the guy in the article was using a Radeon 9700 Pro which is pretty similar to our cards. And he noticed that it uses a much higher PCI latency value (248) compared to 32 for the Soundblaster Live. Maybe this is what produces the stutter effect...

1. It's not noise. When typing, or even holding down the shift-button, the sound slows down and stutters. You can even hear the sutter is synced to the keyboard repetition speed.

Yes, the same happens to me.

2. What ever I do using the mouse will NOT cause any problems at all. I can scroll webpages, I can even launch photoshop while playing music - No problem! No hickups; smooth as silk.

Yep, me too again. I can move windows around, resize em and sound is fine.

3. Sometimes a reboot helps, sometimes not. For example, right now I can type this message without any problems at all. Next reboot I might get a slow down every time I press a key.

Yep, most of the time I don't have this problem but when it comes it's pretty annoying.
But the worst thing is that I can't reproduce it. It just happens out of the blue...

The thing is, I think this problem has not been there since the beginning. The problem is, I had a period where I did not often listen to music in the background while doing stuff. During that period, I changed from a GeForce2MX to a Radeon 9800Pro, and also changed PSU. These are the only things that I think could have been changed since it last worked...

I've noticed this problem since Dec. 2004. In that month I only updated the sound and video card drivers. As for the sound, I installed Audigy 2 ZS drivers (ver 5.12.10.1042) and the CATALYST 4.12 for my Radeon 9800. Before that I haven't had this problem.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Windows assigns resources on boot. Perhaps re-booting results in different assignments. Can you manually assign settings for the keyboard?

 

[cool]

Windows assigns resources on boot. Perhaps re-booting results in different assignments. Can you manually assign settings for the keyboard?

No. But I've just read that going from a PS/2 to a USB keyboard could solve the problem...
Here's the source:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33965

 

[Speedo]

Cool: Yea, thanks for finding that thread! That's exactly the prob we have. Gotta read thru the whole thing though (saw it was 4 pages). Anyway, I guess you have the A7N8X as well? I have rev2.0 Deluxe....

 

[cool]

Originally posted by: Speedo
Cool: Yea, thanks for finding that thread! That's exactly the prob we have. Gotta read thru the whole thing though (saw it was 4 pages). Anyway, I guess you have the A7N8X as well? I have rev2.0 Deluxe....

No, I have the MSI K7N2 Delta-L.
People were talking about how changing back to "ACPI PC" or "Standard PC" HAL would solve the problem. I'm using the "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" HAL which was installed automatically by windows (I didn't force it during setup). What HAL are you running, Speedo?

Right now I went back to official Live drivers which are 2 years old. Waiting for the problem to pop up...

 

[Speedo]

It says "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" in properties/information tab for "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System" in system devices.

 

[cool]

Status update
Now I'm using the official Live drivers and I have yet to encounter stutter but another problem has popped up: when scrolling with the arrow keys in games or in a browser I can hear a sizzling sound...