SB Live Value, Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 4.1 spkrs, latest SBLive drvs & WinXP

[jonifen]

Whenever I have my speakers turned on (and PC on), I can hear this sound like a bird tweeting in my right back speaker...

I was wondering if anyone knew if this was a driver fault or perhaps a problem elsewhere... apart from this annoying sound in the background always, everything sounds as its meant to.

Anyone else had this or a similar problem? How did you sort it? I was thinking perhaps its something to do with my TV card (well, I thought that just now) but the TV card isnt being used at the min...

Anyway, incase its needed, my spec is below and the cards in my system go as follows

AGP - 2mx
PCI - covered by fan
PCI - SB Live Value
PCI - Realtek NIC
PCI - Hauppauge WinTV Go
ISA - nothing
ISA - nothing

 

[GoNz0]

take the win tv card out and see if it still does it, chances are if your drivers are up to date thats its a conflict, play about with diffrent PCI slots to see if it works.

 

[ignipotentis]

Just to let you know, the SBLive drivers are worthless. Basically, don't bother going to creative... they make good sound hardware, but have no clue how to write a driver for it. I can't believe i ever say this but i do... MS is actually the better solution. Let XP detect the card for you, and use XP's multispeaker settings to take advatage of your card.

 

[jonifen]

ignipotentis: ive tried using MS drivers in the past... couldnt get the 2 back speakers working cuz xp's multispeaker settings dont change anything... and the quality of sound wasnt so hot either... creatives own drivers (the latest ones) for the card is better than MS's offering. I'd sooner put up with the tweeting than with horrible quality sound tbh...

any other ideas?

 

[kreation]

Leave Creative and MS drivers out of it they both suck, the best drivers are from KX, I would never use anything else http://kxproject.spb.ru/down.php?language=en

Enjoy

 

[syn]

actually microsoft drivers suck for sblive sound cards. i have a live! 5.1 and when i play splinter cell, it would go to static whenever a lot of sound in a short period would play...i updated to the latest creative driver and it fixed it no problem. so creative = better than microsoft library for creative drivers

 

[Taurus]

this tweeting noise, jonifen... is it somewhat loud? or only audible when you have the volume turned up? does it happen as much when the computer is completely idle?

i ask because i've heard similar things on various comps... especially my old pentium 70mhz when i had the sound turned up. i would simply move the mouse around and you're hear bird-like sounds. same kind of thing happens on celeron 500mhz that has onboard sound.

well, this is from interference from the motherboard getting into the analog line of the card or wire going to the speaker. check your wires, especially the one going to the rear right speaker. make sure it's not right against any power cables, power strips, coaxial cable lines, etc.

interference can come from anything, but bird-like sounds usually come from the computer somewhere. it's kind of weird that you're experiencing this with a decent sound card, though. unless it is just a driver issue.

 

[ZipTriX]

Originally posted by kreation
Leave Creative and MS drivers out of it they both suck, the best drivers are from KX, I would never use anything else http://kxproject.spb.ru/down.php?language=en

Enjoy

Would these drivers help with game lag?

 

[dreamliner77]

i ask because i've heard similar things on various comps... especially my old pentium 70mhz when i had the sound turned up. i would simply move the mouse around and you're hear bird-like sounds. same kind of thing happens on celeron 500mhz that has onboard sound.

I had the same problem. I found that if I muted the "video" volume in the windows mixer, it stopped. Just had to remember to torn it on when I watched a DVD.

 

[mbunny]

Swap your TV Tuner with your SB.

Last PCI slot is always the best slot for a soundcard.

BTW, whats your opinion of your TV Tuner??? I'm in the market for one.

Try muting some sound channels like someone just mentioned. I used to have this fuzzy noise because of the CD Audio channel whenever the CD spun up. Muted it and it worked a charm.

Mute all the sounds that you don't use and just remember to unmute them if u ever need them. I dunno about you but i use midi once in a blue moon and i use even less of the rest =P

 

[jonifen]

the tweeting noise starts when the pc is turned on... whether or not before windows loads i dont know cuz i always turn the pc on and then go out the room for a drink or something. However, ive been sat down not touching the computer and heard it tweeting.

if i turn the volume right up full, it is noticably louder, but not incredibly loud as would be expected with volume on full.

ive just had a thought that it might be the "line in" volume might be set too high (as there is a link cable to join volume-out on the tv card to the line-in on the sound card).

i've had the main volume slider in windows set to 70% for about a year now since I found it gets crackly when i get bass through it. I've got a lot more travel on the volume on the speakers (so thats ok lol)

originally posted by mbunny:Last PCI slot is always the best slot for a soundcard.

thats a good bit of advice... cheers, i'll definitely try that.

my tv tuner is a really good one imho, but its the cheapest hauppauge one (if the truth be known). i read a lot of good reviews about it and thats why i bought it.
the only faults are:
1. my aerial is crap (not the tv tuners fault - its mine lol)
2. theres no remote (the better ones come with one).

i reckon the hauppauge cards are the better ones as they've been doing them for years... although im sure other people may prefer others.

 

[kreation]

Ziptrx

I have had no probelms with these drivers at all, not sure they'll sort out game lag but purely from an audio side they really cut down the latency.

 

[Taurus]

Originally posted by jonifen
ive just had a thought that it might be the "line in" volume might be set too high (as there is a link cable to join volume-out on the tv card to the line-in on the sound card).

ah, that is suspect to me. it could very well be the tv card or cable connecting the two.

 

[jonifen]

i thought about the volume on the line-in because i remembered having to drop the main volume to around 70% to stop the sound distorting... ill give it a go and let ya know what was wrong (thats if i fix it lol)

 

[jonifen]

fs, i rebuilt the pc ages ago, putting the sound card in slot 4. I've since got a new mobo and cpu etc, and its been great until today. I just moved my base unit onto the floor at side of computer table and the tweeting is back :/

Sound card is in last pci slot on this mobo (as it originally solved the problem... just annoying me now lol - any ideas this time everyone?

 

[Taurus]

lol... i was reading this thread until i saw a post of mine... and didn't recognize it. haha... "oh, this is old.."

is hte tweeting coming out of the same speaker?