sound device conundrum

[Detritus]

Basically, when booting I get four installation windows on the lines of 'High Definiton Audio device detected' and the usual search for drivers options. This is kind of odd since no new device has been installed, still relying on the ole SB X-Fi Xtreme. On device manager however there are indeed four devices marked with question marked, tagged to be part of mobo devices. I don't know where this came from since they've not been there before. The pop-up messages are annoying enough but more seriously the sound is often now crackly and behind video events. Huh wth, says I. What do you say?

[AVGWarhawk]

Sound card is going bad or the mobo is on the way out. Remove the sound card and use you speakers on the mobo plug in for sound. See if this stops.

[danasan]

If it is the sound device on the mainboard, there should be a jumper setting or a bios setting to disable that sound device. If you have your manual or give us the mainboards name, we can easily find out...

[Arclight]

You can try reinstalling the proper driver for the onboard device as well. Seems like Windows isn't detecting it properly and/or doesn't have the proper driver available.

If it's Win7, there's a good chance the driver is listed under optional updates.

[MH]

You should enter bios/setup and disable the device if you are using stand alone(in slot/external) sound card.

[danasan]

You should enter bios/setup and disable the device if you are using stand alone(in slot/external) sound card.

Yes, there is no sense in driving both. And they both would use resources like interrupts etc. One more source of possible problems in a computer...

[Arclight]

I'm running both a Soundblaster and on-board. Card drives the speakers, on-board for the headset. Let's me keep a game and voice-comm separate, quite nice, works a treat too.

But yeah, it can cause problems.

Actually, I remember with my previous Gigabyte motherboard, the sound would get artifacts (popping/scratching) when the power-saving functions of the board were activated. Dynamic Energy Saver they called it. The problem persisted with the program/interface not running, it's really a change that's made to how the board functions on a hardware level. If you have something simillar (a lot of manufacturers are including such utilities nowadays), you might try starting that interface and disabling those features.

[Detritus]

OK, I disabled on-board audio but after booting I still get the installation prompts and a message about '... the device may not work properly' or something like that. Funny thing is the soundcard isn't displayed in the device manager but dxdiag does detect it and it is also mentioned in 'sounds and sound devices'. Uninstalled the soundcard software, cleaned registry and installed the card to different pci-e slot plus software. Nada, same thing again. Then I tried to play Fallout New Vegas (permanently installed, not a new one)for testing purposes with absolutely horrid framerates, don't know the actual figures but the fps was below 10. Forgot to mention that I installed a new powersource and graphicscard (GFX 570 1280MB). Something may have gone a bit wonky but I seriously doubt it- done this plenty of this time before. It pretty much comes down to messed up system, or a busted soundcard/mobo. Why everything otherwise runs OK if occasionally bit sluggishly is beyond me.

[Jan Kyster]

Use the install disc that came with your GPU and let it install all drivers. That will ensure the correct installation for the HDMI system on your graphics card...

[danasan]

OK Jan, I am just writing. It is the HDMI stuff of your video card.

[Detritus]

Yes, danasan was correct. I installed nvidia drivers -again, fourth time,heh- and at least after two reboots the problem seems to have gone away. Performance also is back again to normal. Much appreciated, mate:up: Why it didn't work before is probably just one of those things with these goddamn drivers, never know exactly what's gonna happen.
Detritus out.