New CPU - Audio problems

[moonlander]

Hi, i just got a new CPU off ebay (without original packaging) - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 to replace my old Pentium 4 650.

mobo is Gigabyte G31M-S2C.
RAM is DDR2 4GB 800Mhz.

I'm experiencing clicks and pops (audio) when listening to songs and watching movies. This happens without exceptions - every time, on all audio and video files.
I tried a video game for the test and oddly it was great, way better then before, i could go with high settings as opposed to low with the old CPU, and the audio was fine (?!).
I have two sound cards - an internal PCI Creative and an external firewire interface. It happens with both.
This is a very big problem for me, since this is a recording studio computer! When i try to listen to recordings with my firewire audio interface in my recording software with some VST effects, it's even worse, the recording software freezes and it stops playing, then continues to play and so on.. None of these stuff happened before with my Pentium 4 650.

What should i do? Is the CPU defected? How can i test it to make sure? Maybe i needed to change some settings after replacing the CPU?
I didn't replace the fan, i don't know its model, but its a Zalman, and looks like this. Could be a cooling problem? I did put a good thin layer of thermal compound before mounting the fan over the CPU.

Thank you

 

[Seithennin]

That Heatsink should be just fine for that cpu. it sounds like an interrupt, or driver issue.
Here's a page with some info that might help you, have you also tried reinstalling, or updating your soundcard drivers after installing the new cpu?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/pcmusician_1006.htm

You may also want to check the latency on your mobo, you can do this with DPC Latency checker.
you can get this tool from here..

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

You should also check whether there are any bios updates for your motherboard.

Good luck!

 

[moonlander]

That Heatsink should be just fine for that cpu. it sounds like an interrupt, or driver issue.
Here's a page with some info that might help you, have you also tried reinstalling, or updating your soundcard drivers after installing the new cpu?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/pcmusician_1006.htm

You may also want to check the latency on your mobo, you can do this with DPC Latency checker.
you can get this tool from here..

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

You should also check whether there are any bios updates for your motherboard.

Good luck!

Reinstalled soundcard driver - didn't help.

BIOS is the latest version.

I downloaded the DPC tool, and it says:
"Some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams. To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device Manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time. Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems, internal sound devices, USB host controllers, etc."

But then i think about it, we already know that it must be something with the CPU, because before i changed it it wasn't happening. So maybe some BIOS setting?

i've got nothing..

EDIT: Is my RAM too slow for my CPU or something? i dunno.. a bottleneck, can it cause these issues? am i making any sense at all?

 

[Seithennin]

The ram shouldn't matter,, last time i had an issue with latency, it ended up being the soundcard for me. I also had another board and in that one it was the southbridge driver causing issue.
doubtful it's the cpu.
you may check the pci latency in the bios, and see what it's set to.
if it's set to 32, try increasing the setting to 64 or 128.

 

[moonlander]

The ram shouldn't matter,, last time i had an issue with latency, it ended up being the soundcard for me. I also had another board and in that one it was the southbridge driver causing issue.
doubtful it's the cpu.
you may check the pci latency in the bios, and see what it's set to.
if it's set to 32, try increasing the setting to 64 or 128.

Whats weird is that i'm having the same issue with the PCI creative soundcard and the firewire external interface that is connected to a firewire pci card.

 

[Seithennin]

Definitely your PCI bus latency. As i said, try setting the PCI latency to 32, 64 or 128. and try the latency tool each time you change it to see if the latency spikes get worse or better. try disabling the firewire card, and see if this corrects it also.
Follow the directions that the DPC latency tool gave to narrow down exactly what pci card or hardware is causing this.
Please post your computer specs, and I or someone else may be able to help further.

 

[moonlander]

Definitely your PCI bus latency. As i said, try setting the PCI latency to 32, 64 or 128. and try the latency tool each time you change it to see if the latency spikes get worse or better. try disabling the firewire card, and see if this corrects it also.
Follow the directions that the DPC latency tool gave to narrow down exactly what pci card or hardware is causing this.
Please post your computer specs, and I or someone else may be able to help further.

That's it! i fixed it!!
It was something else, i disabled something called "CPU EIST Function" in the BIOS. It has something to do with managing CPU clock speed in relation to temperature i think. Everything works like a charm!! nevermind how many CPU intensive audio plugins i use simultaneously, it doesn't scratch the CPU usage %, and works fast, and really smooth!! Thats it

By the way, i couldn't find anything regarding PCI latency in my BIOS, but it doesnt matter, its all good. Thanks for all the suggestions.