• Is my soundcard bad?

    Author
    Topic
    #466075

    I was listening to some music on Youtube today and I noticed some intermittent tapping in the background. It sounded like what it used to sound like if you were listening to music in a discman and hit a bump–that skipping sound. I thought it was the quality of the song I was singing and then played some music from a cd that I had burned to my hard drive, and that intermittent skipping was still there. Plugging in my earphones didn’t help, which means it can’t be my computer speakers; it must have been my soundcard that went bad, right?

    Regards,

    JMT

    Viewing 14 reply threads
    Author
    Replies
    • #1206293

      Have any changes been made to your computer just before these symptoms have shown up? Any new hardware or software installed? Is this a new sound card? Do you have a discrete sound card or is you sound device embedded on your motherboard?

      It is possible your sound card driver may have been corrupted. Check for an updated driver from the sound card manufacturer, uninstall the old driver and install the new one to see if the problem clears up.
      There may be some corruption in your audio codecs as well. What software do you use to listen to your CD music?

    • #1206386

      I agree with Gerald. The cheapest attempt to fix this would be drivers/codecs. If the sound card is discrete, another could be exchanged with it, but this does cost. If the sound is integrated in the MB, unless there is a slot available for a card, you may be looking at a significant cost, which, depending on the age of the PC, could be too expensive to keep this PC. This would probably indicate a new PC is in order.

    • #1206741

      I don’t recall having made any changes. I think this problem rather slowly crept up. This is the original sound card that came installed with my laptop. I don’t know if it’s discrete or embedded.

      How do I find the driver? How do I find the manufacturer of the sound card? What is an audio codex? Do you mean Windows Media Player, which I use to listen to music?

    • #1206745

      Obtaining an updated driver to install would be the best place to begin. Go to Device Manager to find the name of your sound card. If you have XP go to Control Panel> System and you can get the information there by clicking on the Device Manager button on the System Properties Hardware tab page. The sound driver will be found under Sound, Video and Game Controllers. In Vista or Windows 7 just click on the Start menu button and type devmgmt.msc in the search field.

      There may be two different sound cards available for your specific laptop model. Identifying the particular one in your laptop is the reason to check the Device Manager. When you find out which card is in your laptop, go to the laptop manufacturer’s support site to check for updated drivers for your laptop model. Choose the latest driver that is meant for your particular device and operating system, and download it to your laptop. You can then install it and hopefully that will remedy the distortions you are hearing. If your laptop has Vista or Windows 7 installed, then you have to determine if you have the 32 bit version (x86) or the 64 bit (x64) version of Windows and then download the version your system requires.

      Programs such as Windows Media Player use codecs (compression/decompression files) to enable the player to play specific sound formats such as MP3, WAV, etc. If a codec is corrupt it will not function as intended, or may not work at all. There are sound codecs as well as video codecs.

    • #1206812

      Go to your laptop’s manufacturer web site, look under support for driver updates. Note the make and model.
      The manufacturer’s web site should have all the info your looking for.
      You may also google the make and model to get more information;
      The google approach alows you to see if there are others who are having similar problems etc.

      It’s more likely that you have on-board audio (built into the mainboard) as opposed to an add on card, especially with a laptop.
      Follow the above advice for drivers and codecs. The next thing to do would be to inspect your connections, cables etc.

    • #1206969

      I have Vista 64 bit. I went to the Device Manager and double-clicked Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221 Properties under “Sound, video and game controllers.” I then went to the Driver tab and clicked “Update Driver…” After a few minutes, I received the message “Windows has successfully updated your driver.” However, the problem persists. Therefore, it is a hardware issue requiring the soundcard to be replaced, right?

    • #1206972

      Not neccessarily the sound card yet………

      Updating the driver in this manner gets the latest driver that MS has on file, but perhaps not the latest driver the manufacturer has. it’s always best to go directly to the manufacturers web site for the latest drivers.

    • #1206973

      jmt356, try listening to your music using the Vista Media Center, which is a 64 bit application. See if it sounds the same as Windows Media Player or if it sounds normal.

      If the music sounds corrupt in Vista Media Center then download and install these Vista codec packages . You should download the 32 bit package first and then the 64 bit package and install them in that order.

      As Ted wrote, the latest driver for your sound chip/card will come from the manufacturer’s web site. I would start with the laptop manufacturer first.

      See if these help.

    • #1207172

      Assuming Vista Media Center is the saem as Windows Media Center, I played the music on it and it did sound better at first, but after 10-15 minutes, that static-like sound returned, but less severe than it does in Windows Media Player.

      So what should I do? Start with laptop manufactuer, soundcard manufacturer, or install Vista codex packages?

    • #1207194

      Getting the latest driver from the manufacturer (On a couple of occassions I found the PC manufactuer did not display the latest driver. Just check the S/W version for the PC manf and the hardware manf and get the latest one.) will prove that you have the newest drivers and codecs. If still bad then it’s a good chance the sound card is bad. I always try to update the S/W that allows hardware to work because if this approach works, you save a few bucks on the purchase of new hardware. If, after ensuring your S/W is the latest, the sound card is probably bad.

    • #1207467

      I couldn’t find the Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221 driver on Conexant’s web site.

      I found it on http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-56160-1&lc=en&cc=us&product=3550028&os=2093&dlc=en&lang=en for the HP Pavilion laptop (my laptop) and compatible with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (my OS), but since the release date is in 2007 and I got my laptop in 2008, it doesn’t seem like it will be very helpful, don’t you think?

      John

    • #1207469

      You may have the latest drivers. You can check the driver version in the device manager. If you do have the latest, I would suspect a bad card.

    • #1208083

      The driver version is 4.36.7.60; the driver date is 3/6/2008. Is this the latest version?

      • #1208137

        The driver version is 4.36.7.60; the driver date is 3/6/2008. Is this the latest version?

        You will have to go to the manufacturer’s site to check if this is the latest version. Just do a google search for the manufacturer, then enter your sound card model number. It sould tell you what the latest version is.

    • #1208787

      Ted, I went to conexant.com and did a search for “conexant high definition smartaudio 221” (is that even the model of my soundcard??), which got me to http://conexant.com/s/sresults.jsp, but neither of those links says anything about my soundcard. Any other suggestions?

      Regards,

      JMT

    • #1208826

      Sound cards are not too expensive, you have already spent a considerable amount of time on this, which is also valuable. At this point, I would suggest buy a new card and replace it. Be sure to get a sound card with the same connector. (Take the old one with you).

    Viewing 14 reply threads
    Reply To: Is my soundcard bad?

    You can use BBCodes to format your content.
    Your account can't use all available BBCodes, they will be stripped before saving.

    Your information: