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Inspiron 531: Years of unsolved poor audio quality
Soon after getting my Inspiron 531 in 2007, I noticed that the audio quality was poor relative to other devices I listen on.
The most prevalent feature is slight static or shakiness in the frequency extremes. I notice the issue most in music, particularly at the frequency extremes (high and low). It sounds as if I'm listening through a very low quality MP3 regardless of what quality of music I'm listening to (including FLAC). Yet if I listen to the same file on my 2005 XP laptop or even iPhone the sound quality is dramatically improved.
The static is present regardless of speakers/headphones plugged directly to card, regardless of audio program being used (foobar2000, VLC, itunes)
Steps I have taken to solve:
1) Reinstalled/upgraded realtek ALC888 drivers. Disabled all audio enhancements. Tweaked all audio setting, bit rates, frequencies, programs etc... Tried alternative drivers, tried windows default drivers.
At that point, after many many hours wasted, I thought it had to be poor onboard audio, so I upgraded to SB X-Fi Xtreme audio (which I now know was not much of a step up if any at all)
2) Disabled realtek ALC888 in bios, installed SB Xfi card and installed latest SB drivers
To my demise, there was no change in the audio quality after hours and hours.
3) Reinstalled SB drivers, rolled back drivers, altered all windows/program/hardware settings regarding audio enhancements, bit rates, etc…
I searched through SB forums and found no solution. Still nothing, so I thought it might be a Vista problem.
4) I installed ASIO4all to bypass all of windows kernels and stream from foobar2000 directly to the soundcard through ASIO in vista. Tweaked all the buffers, latency compensation, resample …
Nothing! No improvement, many hours wasted.
I can make the problem worse by changing the frequencies and bit rates such that they are different between the sound card and windows. (ex. windows 16 bit 43K Hz, Card 24 bit 96K Hz).
My only thoughts is it could be a compatibility issue with my TV tuner card or Nvidia drivers…. But I have no idea.
I am now considering upgrading to HT Omega Striker, but I’m not sure even this will solve my audio problems. Has anyone run into a similar problem before or has any advice on where to go from here?
Inspiron 531
Vista Home Premium
AMD 64 5600+
4GB DDR2
NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS 128MB
Realtek ALC888 HD 7.1 Onboard Audio → SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio
ATI Theater 650 Pro Combo Analog/Digital TV Tuner
Audio related processes/servies that are running
- Audiodg.exe (windows audio device graph Isolation)
- AudioEndPointBuilider (windows service)
- Audiosrv (windows Audio)
- I have permanently disabled AERTFilters (Andrea RT Filters service) whatever that is, and all windows media player services and applications.
Device Manager
- Sound, Video and game controllers
- -DVB-T/ATSC Hybrid MiniCard (TV tuner Card)
- -SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio (5.12.1.2018)
- Display adapters
- -NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS
- System Devices
- -NVIDIA nForce PCI system Management
fireberd
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33.3K Posts
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March 10th, 2010 08:00
Static can be caused by the Video or a shared IRQ with the audio card, but can also have other issues.
I have a Striker 7.1 and it's a very good card but no better than what you have now. If you are getting static or whatever with the SoundBlaster you will get the same thing with the Striker.
As the high frequency distortion is present in both the on board and the SoundBlasster that elminates any sound "card" causing the problems. The sound card is just converting whatever digital is audio that is sent to it into analog audio for speakers or if you have an S/PDIF link to a surround system then it's not even converting since it's a digital signal.
What speakers do you have? That can be the "weak link" in sound reproduction. I have a small computer based recording studio and do quite a bit with sound.
UberMD
8 Posts
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March 10th, 2010 12:00
Speakers make no difference either. I have the same effect when I use headphones hooked directly into the soundcard or with speakers (3 different sets I've tried).
I'm afraid that I am going to end up with the same poor audio with the striker too.
Thanks for the suggestion about the shared IRQ, I will look into it and will report back anything I find.
UberMD
8 Posts
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March 13th, 2010 07:00
Well, I SOLVED my audio problem. I had all but given up.
I checked my IRQ adresses and saw that my PCI wireless shared an IRQ with the sound card.
So I ripped out my PCI wireless and just for the hell of it my PCI Tv Tuner. Then I moved the sound card to a different slot. (yes, a shotgun approach)
After that I deleted device drivers and did a clean sweep (I also found that cleansweep located my onboard sound card drivers and I got rid of them, I can't be certain this wasn't the issued but it was disabled in BIOS and I had removed it from device manager).
After that, there is a noticeable improvement! 2 YEARS!
I never thought it could be and IRQ issue because it was the same problem I had with onboard audio, but nonetheless...
Thank you for the recommendation!
fireberd
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March 13th, 2010 14:00
Audio is considered a "low priority" device and the Operating System usually will put it on a shared IRQ with a high priority device and that can cause many problems.
Sometimes, just uninstalling the Audio Device in the Device Manager then restarting the PC and when Windows starts it will "find new hardware" and install it, and sometimes it will install it on a different shared IRQ and fix the problems.
Thanks for the feedback.