Windows 7 Sound Issues/Distortion When Scrolling

[Montana]

Hello, I am having an issue that just appeared. When viewing you tube videos or I tunes, I get a bit of static, if I scroll at all I get major distortion. This is present for all videos I attempt to watch. I have updated Itunes, as well as the latest Flash version, including checking the "enable hardware acceleration" option off and on to no avail.

I have updated my sound card drivers, uninstalled and reverted to a previous version of flash, and updated my video card drivers step by step, but this did not fix the issue.

Initially I was getting distortion while viewing youtube and random system lock ups that required a reboot. Since trying the above, I am not getting lock ups any longer, but the scrolling distortion is present. It may be my imagination, but the system seems very sluggish as well.

Thank you for your thoughts on this, I appreciate them.

 

[Saltgrass]

Do you have USB speakers?

Does the static only happen with the mouse or using the keyboard also?

Does it sound like interference or distortion like the system cannot keep up.

If you open Task Manger and look at the performance tab, what is/are your CPUs doing as far as work load?

Have you loaded any codecs?

 

[Montana]

Hello and thank you for your response! They are connected via jacks in the back of the PC, not via USB ports. I have checked all of the connections, they seem to be secure.

I have experimented and found that they distortion occurs whether I am using the mouse to scroll or using the arrow keys to move up and down on a webpage ( youttube usually) and or Itunes. I guess it sounds like a little of both to be honest, it starts off like interference and then progresses to full out lag and distortion. It does seem to keep pace with the movment, as I scroll faster the distortion increases.

Yes, the CPU does peak when the distortion occurs, even seems a bit lagged as it occurs, but it drops down to normal as soon as I stop scrolling. I have not loaded any codecs yet, not sure where to get them to be honest.

Thank you again.

 

[Saltgrass]

In Task Manger, watch the processes page and click the CPU column so the highest usage shows up at the top. Maybe you can notice something using the power.. Make sure and select processes from all users.

If you can get where you can duplicate the events reliability, it might be easier to catch. I do not know if updating the Mouse driver would help, but who knows.

 

[Montana]

Ok, thank you, when trying that, the system idle processes ends up on the top of the CPU usuage at anywhere from 80-99, it also hangs there afterward it seems. The second item on the list was something called audiodg.exe at around 08. I did switch back and forth to look at the performance tab to see the spikes. Not sure what to make of that though. I didnt think about the mouse, but I will try to update that in any case to make sure.

Thank you.

 

[Montana]

Ok, mouse does not seem to be the issue.

It's also probably worth mentioning that earlier this week I had several hard lock ups resulting from the latest flash issues, I got it sorted out. I did have to literally unhook the sata cable and HD power cable from the HD after the hard lock to get it to boot again though. I went back to an older version of flash to see if that would help, but it didn't. Is there a chance that that earlier episode effected the BIOS settings ?

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, it would not seem that flash would interfere with your bios, but there may be some way it could.

Do you know why you were having the flash issue? Could it have been a virus or malware/adware?

System Idle process is what the system is not doing, so it normally runs high or whatever something else is not using. When I say overloading your processor, I would expect something to show at 50% or more of your processor time. Or some install is corrupted and working extra hard to do the job..

 

[Montana]

Yes, I also dont think flash would have done that, it just seemed odd that I had to disconnect and reconnect the sata and power cables to the HD to boot, it wasn't recognizing it apparently ( from what I could tell from the the boot screens)

My best guess for the flas issue would have the recent windows update, everything was fine intil after the updates, I was watching a youtube video and I got a hard lock, that required a reboot. I got another soon after that and I started searching for issues, starting with updating the flash program. That and even going back to older version fixed the hard lock issue, but thenthe static and distortion started appearing. I have ran several malware programs and virus programs and have found nothing so far.

I understand about the processes, that is why i am at such a loss to what has happened. I not sure at what else to try, I have an email out to the sound card folks, as I figure that the recent windows updates ( there were several in a row) caused an issue or something, but I don't hold out much hope for that .

I have surfed around looking for similar issues, its terribly vague and frustrating lol. Some mentioned ata controllers as a potential fix, but as best I can tell mine are still set at DMA and not PIO, althought I do seem to have about 8 of them on the list ( ata controllers that is) so not sure about that either.

Thank you again for any thoughts you may have on this, I don;t know what else to do other than the nuclear option of system restore to back before the updates occured.


Also, as a heads up I have run the scannow utility and the memtest utility, but both seem to be ok.

 

[Montana]

Ok, a new development it seems. After being very sluggish last night, I got another hard lock just surfing the web. Upon attempted restart, I got the familiar "windows cannot boot" message and it attempted to repair, this failed. I am guessing it might be another sata cable going bad, as this is what happened last time. I am going to replace it to see if that helps, this is the thried sata cable it has gone through.

Also curiously, when I finally shut it down for the night after the failed windows repair, the powerlight on the box itself remained on, even though it was shutdown. Could that be a power supply issue?

 

[Saltgrass]

Seems like you have narrowed it down to being hardware related, specifically the Hard drive or its controller. Have you loaded any drivers for the EVGA board, and what model is it exactly?

If you are concerned about the Power Supply, I assume you have one large enough to handle the 480 video card.

Be very careful about changing SATA cables with power on your system. Even if it is turned off, there is still power on the motherboard. I always unplug it or turn off the switch on the power supply.

 

[Montana]

Hello, ok I replaced the HD SATA cable, but the stutter/distortion issue remains, and the comp is still very laggy. My motherboard is a EVGA X58 SLI 3 edition Model 131 gt e767. I have not attempted to update the drivers for it yet, as I am not sure how. As far as the power, I know I have enough wattage, just was thinking perhaps it was failing or something. If I update the motherboard drivers would that help do you think? and or will that reset my Bios? I have a slight overclock on it at the moment.

Thank you

Oh and if I need to try to update the board drivers, which ones do I use lol, there seems to be quite a few on the download list, Chipset, network, SATA etc. thank you

 

[Saltgrass]

Two of the things you mentioned are easy to do, stop the overclock and reset the bios to it's defaults.

I will assume you are not using the SATA III ports (Red) for your hard drive, unless it is a Sata III (6 GB/s) drive? Do you run the drive with the IDE or AHCI controller?

The onboard SATA controllers are part of the chipset. Updating those drivers might help.

Check the bios to see if a later one is available that might address your problem.

There are all kinds of drivers available for the board, if I am looking at the correct one. Sata III firmware and drivers, Chipset, Audio... You can check and make a decision about which one to use. I will normally load the manufacturer's drivers for a motherboard, if they have a Windows 7 drivers available. Then not allow Windows to load another driver until I approve, so I will know what might have happeded if the driver is bad.

 

[Montana]

Ok, thank you, unfortunately I am not experienced enough to completely uderstand what you are asking about the ports. The HD is plugged into the side of the motherboard with all of of the other sata cables all on one side of the board. The HD is a 1 TB WD regular drive, not a SSD if that helps. Not sure about the IDE versus AHCI part, assuming that I could check the BIOS to see though.

I see both chipset drivers and SATA6 drivers present on the download list for the motherboard page, are those them? I have an Intel chip, would those work with that? I am sorry for all of the questions on this, I am just smart enough about computers to get into trouble lol

 

[Saltgrass]

You have 8 SATA connections on your motherboard (and 2 SATA 6 on the back). Two are Sata III (or SATA 6) to be used for Sata 6 devices, but are backward compatible with SATA II (SATA 3) type devices.

If you just use the standard (black) 6 SATA3 ports, the chipset drivers should handle that controller. If you want to use the SATA 6 ports with SATA 6 devices you will need the SATA 6 drivers. I do not know for sure what condition the 2 SATA 6 ports are in if you do not load the Sata 6 drivers.

The SATA setups can be very confusing. Having 3 different controllers with 3 different drivers makes it a little complicated.

Anyway, your hard drive should be connected to one of the black SATA ports. Port 0 is the bottom one next to the Red connectors. Page 22 of the owners manual shows this.

Maybe the drive is acting up because it is plugged into the wrong port, or the driver is not there to support it.

 

[Montana]

Alright thank you, I will take that into account, I will have to take the machine part again to see, I thought the HD was aon the first set of SATA, but I can't tell what color they are because the 480 is in the way. I just plugged the HD SATA into a black one, as it was easuer to get to without as much disassembly. I will check it out and check back, thank you again for your help.

 

[Montana]

Alright, turns out the HD SATA was plugged into the red port after all, I saw this after removing the 450. After another restart I ran another CPU-Z and noticed that the timings were off for the memory, I must have missed it last time I ran it. So I rebooted again, went into BIOS and somehow it had reverted back to the defualt settings ( or some combination thereof) . I went in and reloaded and saved my saved profile and voila! everything works just fine now, the lag is gone and the stuttering in youtube and Itunes was gone when scrolling. I don't know how in the world the BIOS got changed, as I know I didn't modify it and no one else usses this comp.

So thank you for your help and patience in helping me along the way, any ideas as to what could have caused the BIOS to get askew? I have never seen that happen before.

 

[Saltgrass]

Glad you got it working. I don't know how something on your bios might have been changed, but I do not know all the details of the new bios chips and what can be written to it from another source. Maybe some type of fault caused it to revert.

 

[Montana]

Yes, me too, thank you again for all of your help, I appreciate it.