Audio Problem and SOLUTION!!

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@ArtPisanski wrote:

There is a popular problem with the audio for Dell's.

I'm not sure HOW this problem came to be but a possible solution is found.

Well, atleast this worked for me and I have been searching for this kind of solution for about 2 weeks now.

Problem: Audio stuttering, distortion, lagginess, etc. etc.

Solution: (Using Windows XP)

- Right click on My Computer > Properties > Hardware Tab > Device Manager

- Extend the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers group

- Right click on Primary IDE and hit Uninstall

- Reboot the computer, the Primary IDE drivers will re-install themselves after you reboot.

- Go back to the Device Manager and extend the same group again.

- Right click on Primary IDE Channel and go to Properties > Advanced Settings tab.

- Make sure that both Device's Modes are on "DMA if available".

- Anyways, by this time, my sound was working flawlessly.

Quoted Alebrewmeister:

"In addition to changin the Bios Acoustic to Suggested, make sure that you have selected DMA if available for the slave under hardware device manager primary ide channel advanced properties then reboot and it should kick the drive into DMA and resolve the problem. At least that is what resolved my problem. Also make sure you exited the Bios setup with the exit and save changes option. If this does not wqork try uninstalling the primary ide channel by right clicking on it and selecting uninstall then rebooting, then select DMA from device manager for primary ide channel and reboot again.
DMA if available should be selected for both Optical drives (slave and master) and the mode should show as Ultra DMA II for both drives."

Thanks to Alebrewmeister for the solution!!! Hope this works for many of you!!

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Hey Art,

I tried your solution and it works until I log off windows and log back on and then it goes back to the same problem.  Are you having the same problem still?  It appears to me that under the advanced properties of the primary controller, the "current mode transfer" changes to pio mode and I am back to the same old problem.  Any ideas why this would be?  Thanks

On my 3 week old 8400 I am having a similar problem to the previous post (KGizzo).  I tried the suggested skipping/stuttering solution and it seems to work for a while but eventually the skipping returns.  When I check the Primary IDE Channel the Transfer Mode still says DMA if available and the Current Transfer Mode still says Ultra DMA Mode 2. 

Also, on my system the skipping is very intermittent.  Sometimes I can go for several minutes without any skipping, other times it might happen several times within a few seconds.  In an attempt to isolate the cause I make certain no other applications are running.  This doesn't seem to have any effect on occurrence or frequency of the skipping/stuttering.