Asus M2N-SLI Series SoundMax: Cracks, Pops, Poor Sound

[CRClarke]

I have an asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe MB W/ SoundMax onboard sound. I've been reading tonnes of related forums all week and i still cannot fix the poor sound quality, cracks, pops and so on, music is poor, sound FX are the worst, and internet sound does not work. I have tried Regedit(wavemapper) already it did not help much. I did a fresh install for the second time this week and still no improvment. When i first assembled my new machine and ran it 6 mths ago everything worked perfectly, so i know it did work before, up until about 2 wks ago. i have already tried most of the generic and basic fixes but still no improvement. everything on my comp works great except my sound, I am trying to avoid a getting new sound card because i do not want one and my case is aready quite full. I am running out of ideas and any help would be appreaciated. THX

OS - XP Home SP1 Fully Updated
MB - M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Prsr - AMD 64 X2 DuCore 4800+
Mem - 2G ddr2
Vid - Radeon X1950
HDD - Segate 320G SATA (x2)

 

[Blind Dragon]

Go to start -> run -> type dxdiag

And post what it says under the audio tab

 

[CRClarke]

there is no audio tab, there is sound or music, i have looked at this before. it does not say anything negative or out of the ordinary, however i used the test button on both and with the music test i do indeed get sound, but on the sound test i get nothing

 

[ShipMaster]

Are you installing the right drivers?

 

[sghiznaneck]

Did you build this comp yourself or is it store bought?? Could be a possibility that Windows is corrupt. Also, try downloading XP Service Pack 2 since it contained many fixes that SP1 did not have. If this doesn't fix the problem, try doing a restore of Windows (clean install).

 

[_FAKE_]

Did you build this comp yourself or is it store bought?? Could be a possibility that Windows is corrupt. Also, try downloading XP Service Pack 2 since it contained many fixes that SP1 did not have. If this doesn't fix the problem, try doing a restore of Windows (clean install).

Doubt it. I have the exact same motherboard. And when I was running XP SP2 I had the same problem. Only way I managed to fix it was by getting a driver update from the Asus website. But after a format it would happen again, so I had to download drivers again.

In Vista there is no need for drivers as Vista automatically detects and installs the correct drivers and makes it so incredibly easy. I love Vista.

 

[CRClarke]

Doubt it. I have the exact same motherboard. And when I was running XP SP2 I had the same problem. Only way I managed to fix it was by getting a driver update from the Asus website. But after a format it would happen again, so I had to download drivers again.

i have the same problem, it use to work great then i formatted and it hassent worked right since, i then reformatted again and still no improvement

*also it sometimes hangs on POSTand the LED blinks twice, not very often, im not sure what this means

 

[Killians1978]

I'm inclined to believe that your problem is not hardware specific, or possibly even OS-specific.

Since May of '07 I have been running my home-built machine (specs at bottom) under Vista 32-bit. Audio has been running beautifully. I have two sound cards (onboard and PCI), as well as a USB headset.

As CRClarke said, everything was running fine up until a few weeks ago, when right around Christmas I noticed that, while playing vids on YouTube, the sound was popping and cracking, like an old LP. I tried plugging in analog earphones, changing sources to both USB and the other sound card with identical results. It happens right from boot. It happens regardless of what sound source I am playing or what I am playing it to.

I have not done any hardware or software changes since November, and the change was minimal (uninstalled/reinstalled Firefox).

Intel Motherboard D945PSN with Sigmatel HD Audio
Intel Pentium D 935
2 GB RAM
Vista 32-Bit
Creative SoundBlaster 24 Bit Audigy 2 ZS Surround PCI
Logitech USB Headset

Contents of DxDiag.txt attached.

-Jerry

 

[Blind Dragon]

look at the following pages for settings info on your card
https://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/audigy2zs/

 

[Killians1978]

As I've said, both the Audigy, the Onboard, and the USB were all working flawlessly until recently. I have not made any changes to any of them or their drivers. ALL outputs produce the same effect, and so it cannot be a setting of any individual output.