Auzentech Prelude X-Fi PROBLEMS (static/beeps/clicks)

[Apathy]

Running vista64 home premium. auzentech prelude x-fi 7.1 sound card.

My pc (rig in sig) has recurring problems with its audio. Pretty much without fail, at least once a day, my sound will cut out immediately following some beeps and ubrupt noises coming from my speakers.

Symptoms:
- No audio from any application.
- If i try to play a song in winamp, the song will not even start, the time on the song wont budge from 0:00, the slider reflecting progress of the song will not move.
- Rarely it will cause my pc to lockup.
- Sometimes after the loud noises / static start, they will go away within 30 seconds, and my sound will come back.

Solutions tried:
- Restarting pc restores sound, but sometimes the static and 'processing' noises will start before i even get passed the windows login screen.
- I have tried reinstalling audio drivers, no change.
- Attempted switching from "wave" to "direct sound" with teamspeak to see if that was causing the problem since i routinely have teamspeak up and running.


Has anyone had any similar problems to this? It is really annoying me, makes me jump everytime it happens.

**UPDATE*
I have cross posted this from gen hardware in hopes of receiving some help from the audiophiles.

I came across this thread which lead me to trying different bit rates.
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=20544

I have managed to drastically minimize the problems here. After fiddling with bitrates in the control panel -> sound, i have learned that none of the 16bit modes work. So far 24bit 48kHZ (studio) seems to be holding just fine. However winamp still shows as playing in 16bit 44100kHz.

There are still a few clicks and beeps, but about 95% less so far now than there was before.

Any help and/or input is greatly appreciated.

 

[Nenu]

Try a different driver.
Reset your CMOS in case it is corrupt.

If that fails, install Windows on a spare drive and see if its easy to get working.
If so, you know its a software issue.
Whether its solvable is another matter.

 

[Bigbacon]

X-fi cards are known for snap crackle pop across all platforms. It's a hit or miss if you don't get it but things like SLI really seem to add to the troubles. Normally though, the machine needs to be doing something heavy to cause it.

I've been combating it for years and now it's even worse with SLI and certain games.

I'm looking for alternatives but I fear onboard sound a lot.

Look at the Creative labs forums sometime, there are years worth of threads (some closed now) that complain about the SCP issue.

Is your card PCI or PCIe?

 

[phide]

So far 24bit 48kHZ (studio) seems to be holding just fine. However winamp still shows as playing in 16bit 44100kHz.

This is normal. Typically the X-Fi will resample output to 48 kHz anyway, so there's no change here. Changing the wordlenghth has no affect on the audio, so you don't need to be concerned about that either. All the bit depths and sample rates should work, though.

It really seems like a buffer issue. Unless you're using ASIO, the buffers can't be adjusted, so there wouldn't really be anything for you to try and "fix". You might try running a dxdiag test and seeing if it comes up with anything. A failure indicates a driver issue or resource-sharing issue.

X-fi cards are known for snap crackle pop across all platforms.

The Prelude is generally immune to the SCP issue. This seems like a different issue entirely.

 

[Bigbacon]

someone suggested I look at this while playing

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

see if help you at all.

 

[HotShotMedic]

a while back my prelude started to develope some problems as well, after a driver update from auzentechs site. console crashing or not changing from entertainment to game and vice versa, sound disappearing etc. i simply uninstalled the auzentech drivers, ddl, dts from control panel, deleted the auzentech folder and ran driver sweeper 'option creative sound drivers', rebooted and installed latest prelude drivers, 1.1 i believe. all issues resolved, no problems since, crystal clear sound and incredibly stable usage.

 

[Apathy]

the card is pci.
tried cmos reset.
tried clean driver install.
no there is no internal wireless that may interfere with the sound.

i guess im just going to leave it at 24 bit 48kHz, it seems to be working fine now.

any reason not to leave it here?

 

[Nenu]

no there is no internal wireless that may interfere with the sound.

There are tons of things inside a PC transmitting, not because they are supposed to by design, it is a natural side effect of sending electrons down a wire/electrical path.
Inside a PC is a nightmare noisy radio zone!

 

[phide]

any reason not to leave it here?

No reason in particular. It's not hurting anything.

The issues you're having couldn't be attributed to any kind of EMI, so don't worry about that. A lot of EMI might influence the analog outputs, but that'd be a separate issue.

 

[Apathy]

Well, after 2 or 3 days of no issues except a little click here and there, the problems started all over again. I hadn't changed anything. Really pissing me off.

I ripped out the auzentech prelude and dropped in my old m-audio revolution 7.1
did the driver delete, restart, install, restart.

m-audio seems to be working better. initially there was a little pause that seemed to stutter all sound. hasn't done it in a couple hours of use.

the auzentech is sitting under my bed, maybe it'll go in my next build.

lost sound on VLC and windows media player. not sure why. probably just going to reinstall the app's when i get home. sound works fine on winamp/teamspeak/youtube.

if vlc and wmp get fucked without sound, ill be back to ask some more questions.

grr.


just as a final thought, i never updated my motherboard with anything other than the cd it came packaged with at the beginning of 2008 as there was never a need. would that have anything to do with it? (regarding the prelude issues)