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Getting a Sound Card, need some help.

Started by SirLuthor Oct 8, 2006 at 7:43 AM 3 replies 1.3k views

Original Post

Oct 8, 2006 at 7:43 AM

Heya folks, long time no speak. As always, I shall start my post with the backstory, and then cut to the chase. Basically, my computer periodically (as often as once per hour) freezes up while gaming (particularly World of Warcraft, CS:Source and UT2004). It doesn't just freeze, it spams the sound buffer at you like a broken record, and has to be rebooted by ye olde restart button. Now, I've been looking into this, and it seems this is supposably a problem with my onboard sound. To solve this, I plan to buy a sound card. [... Cut to chase ...] I need some advice on what to steer clear of, etc. When buying this sound card, I will need it to be able to run games and voice communications programs (Teamspeak or Ventrilo, with microphone usage) at the same time, as well as possibly WinAMP as well. I've never messed around with, or bought, soundcards before, so I don't really know what I'm looking for. Help would be appreciated in a timely manner, as I reckon I'll go out to get it later today if possible. Thanks!

deffer

Oct 8, 2006 at 8:23 AM

Wait! You don't just go and but a new equipment just to check if the current one is broken. You gotta do the check first - borrow a card from a friend or from work, or so.

To answer your original question:
SB Audigy 4
+ got all the features you'll 3v4r need
+ reasonable price
- drivers don't work on Vista beta2 nor RC1

But seriously, if you were getting away with using your onboard crap all this time, I think you don't need any fancy card now either. Am I wrong?

VHL

Oct 8, 2006 at 8:46 AM

Quote:
Original post by SirLuthorBasically, my computer periodically (as often as once per hour) freezes up while gaming (particularly World of Warcraft, CS:Source and UT2004). It doesn't just freeze, it spams the sound buffer at you like a broken record, and has to be rebooted by ye olde restart button. To solve this, I plan to buy a sound card.

To me that sounds more like a software problem than hardware one, or it could be hardware problem but it doesn't really sound like it would be the soundchip problem.

If I understood correctly your system totally freezes up now and then and your speakers/headphones continue to playback small sound clip on and on, is that right? What you hear is current content of audio playback buffer being played, without new content being feeded into buffer. I had the same problem about three years ago. After two weeks my Matrox harddrive blow off...

Anyways all I'm saying that it might not be the soundchip... It might very well be some other component, or just a bad software causing system hang up. You might want to verify this before spending your money.

krikkit

Oct 8, 2006 at 10:57 AM

Onboard sound is a HUGE culprit for all sorts of freezes, glitches, pops, lost syncs, etc.

With that said, basically, any sound card you find in the store will suit your purposes. Consumer sound cards have reached a pretty good level, whereas a few years ago I would have had to explicity instruct you to look for a "full duplex" card for in+out functionality (game + vent), and other such things, but pretty much things are up to speed nowadays. Basically, you cant really go wrong.

That said, Creative cards will never really do you wrong for the consumer end of things, and you dont even need the hewest ones. Many, many people are still happy with an SB Live! Platinum card, which you might be able to eBay up. Any of the Audigy line is also good.

ranakor

Oct 8, 2006 at 12:44 PM

i doubt this has anything to do with the soundcard (when the comp freeze is a sound was playing usually it will keep playing what was in the buffer i assume it is like in "started" mode & continuously reads the buffer so since there's no program running to stop it & the buffer doesn't change it just keeps playing) i'd say the fact sounds still play prolly is unrelated to the problem

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