Windows 7 and RealTek AC'97 Audio Distortion

[SinxarKnights]

Thanks for starting this thread guys. I got AC'97 on my crappy motherboard also but thankfully I got an X-Fi back when Vista came out and broke my 5.1 Live! card. That was an ordeal trying to fix that and now its the first thing i expect to not work when a new version of Windows is released.

I know this is really helping anyone, but in Vista, the AC'97 drivers from the ECS site (i have ECS motherboard) were the only ones that worked correctly. Then there was an update that completely broke the control panel for it - EQ didn't work at all and the sound was horrible.

I believe its down to the hardware implementation/version of the AC'97 audio chip, which would explain why nothing works for some.

Microsoft should pay for you soundcards, thats a good one. Thats like saying Dodge should pay for new tires since the garage you took it to put ones on that are too small. Its not their fault, its the driver writers fault for not covering all hardware versions properly. Windows Update only gives WHQL cert drivers (as far as I know). if that driver doesn't work, its not their fault. Just make sure you placing the blame on the right people.

I use the X-Fi XtremeGamer currently, it should be really cheap by now and it works with win7 32bit and 64bit for sure, picked mine up for $50 shipped 2 years ago. There is also an ASUS card for PCIe x1 slots that is fairly popular. You would have to look on newegg or something for that.

But for laptop owners that are having problems, I don't know what you could do other than contact Intel directly, or whoever is writing the codec these days.

 

[tphilbri]

Well I don't know if it was clear, but MS had this download that would do a compatibility check. Basically, Nero was the only thing that threw up a red flag. That aside, it told me I was good to go on the upgrade from XP Pro to W7 Pro. It's more to me like buying a Dodge over the internet and being told the dimensions of the seat would accommodate my size (I'm tall). When it arrives, the car or truck is the size of a Jag and I can barely get one leg in the vehicle. I would have made a different decision if the W7 compatibility check told me the sound card wouldn't work.

It's moot anyway. New card to arrive Friday. Later.

 

[SinxarKnights]

What card did you end up ordering?

 

[tphilbri]

Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card with Dolby Digital Live ( XS71DDL )

Took a long time to weigh it all up. Cost is a big one. DDL is important, at least from a compatibility standpoint. I don't think the XS71 is on MS's list. Almost went Creative...

 

[SinxarKnights]

Nice. I almost bought a Diamond card a long time ago, but got the Creative SoundBlaster 5.1 Live! instead (both were at Wal-Mart at the time). Let us know how it works out for you.

 

[tphilbri]

It came last night. I'm an instruction reader/follower in general, so tried to go by the book with the driver install. Pretty sure the instructions were for XP anyway. After popping the card in and turning on the box, I went into the BIOS and disabled the on board AC97. Once logged in and after a long wait, I had no pop ups or notifications of finding new h/w and "please wait while we download some drivers for you..." So there wasn't an auto driver install. I went into device manager and it's a little strange. My card is listed as a Multimedia Audio Device (don't quote me on that... it's close, but I'm not on my home cpu) and isn't under Sounds and Audio Devices. Well, I opened the MAD as it was the only device with the popular yellow question mark, and had it auto update drivers. I think I could have done the same with the CD, but this usually gets me the latest updates. Now I have an interface in my taskbar to play with sounds and settings and here's the part that matters.... I have 5.1 surround that sounds so very beautiful. Tried some 5.1 tests on YouTube and am pretty sure they can only give you two channels. So located a few true 5.1 tests and am very pleased. Bottom line is I have W7 AND sound that is clear and purty.

Good luck to everyone.

 

[peachworm]

I had the problem of audio distortion, clipping and compression after I installed Windows 7. Nothing worked although I properly updated all audio related drives until I stumbled upon new settings interface in Windows 7 which I did not suspect. Here is what I did, which completely solved my audio problems.

Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Playback tab.
Right click on a playback device, and choose Configure Speakers.
The default is set to Stereo. I recommend choosing Quadrophonic if you do not have a subwoofer, and 5.1 Surround if you have a subwoofer connected. Go through the tests and confirm OK. Go through the rest of the playback devices. Finally, re-confirm default playback device (even if it was already set as default device – by choosing a difference device as default first then re-selecting the intended default device).

Give an audio source such as YouTube a try. I was surprised all my distortions, compressions and clipping issues were now completely gone.

 

[Modelworks]

Anyhow, I installed win7 ultimate x64bit version and some of the avi movies has very loud and distorted sound, weird thing is that only few avi movies i get this problems and never had any

Probably not the problem, but open up playback devices and on the properties tab see if anything like DTS, Dolby digital is selected under the supported formats.

Also look on the enhancements tab and disable all enhancements

 

[BethMann]

Rig:
MSI K8N-Neo Platinum 7030
-Realtek AC'97 on board
AMD Athlon Socket 754 3000+
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
2gb ram
Windows 7 32-bit Beta 7000 build, windows experience of 3.0

Problem:
I was running XP for the past 5 years with no audio distortion problems. I installed Windows 7 and now the audio becomes distorted, like it is clipped in bit rate. The drivers for the Realtek AC'97 is v6.0.1.6293 from 9/16/2008 installed from windows update.

I have tested the audio with head phones and speakers with the same effect. The system is using 5% CPU while listening to an mp3 - so I have ruled out an underpowered cpu.

I have played with the levels of the system by turning down the system level out and turning up the speakers amplification. This reduces the audio distortion but does not get rid of it. Doing the opposite - turning up the system out up and the speaker amp down makes the problem worse.

A couple samples of the sound:
Poor Audio Example

Do you think it is a driver problem?

This can be totally fixed by unchecking the "sound enhancements"
Go to the Start menu and search for "sound"
Click on "sound" in the control panel
double click on "speakers"
Go to the "enhancement" tab
Check "disable all enhancements"
FIXED!