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soundloop crash problem

M

mec

n00b
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
10
I've tried everything that comes to mind in an attempt to fix this problem that has just seemed to appear overnight on me. My pc that has been built and running perfectly fine for about 4 months now, has decided to start crashing on me while I play a pc game. It only happens while I'm inside of a game, which makes me think it's a heat issue. It runs perfectly fine on the desktop, I can play movies and music. I play BF2 and San Andreas, it happens in both of these games like clockwork.

I can play for a couple of minutes, sometimes only 30 seconds or so, and then I will hear a soundloop over and over, I can still play for maybe 10-20 seconds more while the sound loops and then the PC totally locks up and I have to hardreset it. The only thing in the systemlog that looks suspicious to me is: Warning-ati2mtag-Invalid Pixel format.

I've reinstalled/updated everything that I can think of, including chipset drivers, soundcard drivers, bios, graphics card, wireless nic card. At first I thought it might have something to do with the NIC card and the videocard sharing the IRQ18 slot, but I removed the NIC card and played in singleplayer and the same thing happened. My case has very good circulation, and none of the PCI slot cards are close to each other, it blows cool air out of all sides.

I'd appreciate some advice in order to isolate this problem, thanks in advance.

This pc isn't overclocked.

AMD 64 SD3700+ (used as5)
Venus 12
OCZ Modstream 520W
ABIT Fatal1ty AN8
Seagate 250GB 7200 sata
1GB Corsair XMS3200
Powercolor X800XL PCI-E
Audigy2 ZS
 
Sounds like something is wrong with the sound subsystem, or something like that. Have you got the right DirectX installed on your computer? Try installing/re-installing DirectX 9.0c, that may fix your problem.
 
DirectX 9.0C (4.09.0000.0904) is what I have installed.

I was under the impression that you can't uninstall DirectX, but I'll download it and see if theres a repair option or something.
 
No, you can't uninstall it. Try re-installing it. Make sure your Windows is updated, and everything is up to date (which you have done). Does it happen in any other game? What sort of soundloop does it create? And, does a soundloop occur when listening to music/playing a movie?

Try testing with 3DMark, Prime and MemTest, to see if its a harware issue, or it is heat. Also, if you can, try a different soundcard, that may be causing problems.

While I think of it, go into the BIOS and make sure the PCI latency is set to 64, if it is set to higher than that Audigys can have hissy fits about it. Don't know why, but it just does. If its already set to 64, or 32, don't worry about it.
 
Windows is up to date, everything is up to date. I downloaded DirectX9.0C from Microsoft and ran it, there was no repair option. It just said it was complete immediately, didn't look like it reinstalled anything to me.

The soundloop occurs only in fullscreen games, it never has happened on my desktop. I can play movies, visit flash webpages, let winamp run for days on end with no problems. The soundloop itself is always a repeating sound and occurs in different spots, it's random. Like in BF2, I'll be running through a street and a tank is shooting, it will get stuck on the sound of the tank shooting and just loop over and over again until the PC freezes 10-30 seconds later. Like I said earlier, I can still play the game for 10-30 seconds after the initial soundloop occurs, but I can't alttab out or ctrl+alt+del out either and then it eventually totally locks up.

I have reinstalled both games to see if that fixes it, and it does not.

I have searched the BIOS before this problem occured for PCI latency and other common options that I usually see, and they aren't in this ABIT fatal1ty BIOS. Unless I overlooked the option, it isn't there. As for another soundcard to test, the only other one that I have access to is the one that came with this mobo, it's very weird looking. The BIOS for this mobo claims that my CPU sits at 44/45C, which I find very hard to believe (other people on the ABIT forums have stated that its inaccurate). It has said it was this hot ever since I built the PC, and it ran fine for 3+ months.

I will run 3DMark, because I only have those two games on my PC (BF2 and San Andreas). I've already ran Memtest when I built this pc, and I don't overclock, so I really doubt the condition of my RAM has changed.



*UPDATE* - Ran 3DMark05, it finished without locking up, score was alittle above 5000 I think. There was no sound in any of the tests, only video, which now makes me suspicious of my Audigy. Is it actually possible for a card to break ONLY in games, I would figure if it was my soundcard it would just be completely shot and not work at all. I'll swap the Audigy out tomorrow and put in the soundcard that came with my fatal1ty mobo and see for sure if it's the audigy.
 
Took my audigy out and cleaned all the drivers out, then put this sad excuse for a soundcard in today. Was able to play BF2 for about an hour without any hiccups at all, so I guess the soundcard is shot.
 
Sounds like a sound card issue to me, despite the warning/error message. Since it has been working for 4 months it could be a problem with the card, although it would be weird that you didn't encounter the problem except in certain games.

Most likely it's a driver issue. Do you have the latest drivers for that soundcard? I'd Google or search game forums for BF2/GTA to see if other people are having that same issue. If it really is the soundcard hopefully it is still under the manufacturer's warranty.
 
I'm thinking it's driver based as well...

I'm going to try to reinstall the Audigy before I RMA it. Simply because I can't bring myself to believe it's a complete hardware problem with the card itself, because it works perfectly in everything but games. I'm just glad I atleast have the problem isolated somewhat.

Thanks for your help guys.
 
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