M-Audio Revo problems

Coroner · Jul 7, 2003, 02:36 PM

I have a M-Audio Revolution and I have probles

The output sounds really good most of the time, but occasionally there is a pop or click which seems to occur some times between audio files in foobar .667. In some games like morrowind sometimes you will get them clicking on menu items and thins in inventory. If i have a video file open and have the focus not on it and another application makes a sound it screeches garbage instead of the sound.

Ravenshield runs absoloutely terrible with it. Even if I disable all 3d sound options it still runs terrible. Pull the card out and uninstall the drivers and it runs fine again.

The sensaura sound is not very good as well quite buggy and very resource hungry. I use my card mostly with nothing on (sensaura or XT) and I still get the noises and problems.

The drivers are terrible.

I was hoping that a hack will be found to run the Prodigy drivers on the Revo soon - I'd upload the eprom data but I don't have a floppy drive.

The Revo has its own irq and I have tried Windows XP ACPI and Windows XP Standard PC modes to no avail. I have even tried removing the DSL modem and that has no effect and I have tried every possible PCI slot there is.

My specs as follows

Pentium 4 willamette 1.8GHz
Gigiabyte 8IEX MB
M-Audio Revo
D-Link DSL 100 Modem PCI
512MB Corsair XMS2400
Seagat Barracuda V 120GB HDD
ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
Windows XP home

I have read that the drivers are pretty terrible and I am inclined to agree. I would like to keep this card as it sounds miles ahead of the creative Audigy 1/2 garbage (i had one bloated drivers and lies about 24bit support and crappy resampling). But if this continues I will have to ditch it

Anyone have any ideas?

Oh and nothing is overclocked in my system.

Necrosis · Jul 7, 2003, 03:18 PM

Odd.

I have one of these and haven't experienced any of the problems you are having. You may just have a defective card. The only thing I could think of that would make it sound that bad would be IRQ sharing but you don't have that problem. I guess the only problem I've had is when you switch between different effects, how the volume goes down.

Coroner · Jul 7, 2003, 03:34 PM

Bugger. I can't understand why its happening and its really annoying. What's really annoying is all week I fix other peoples computers and when I come home I can't fix my own!

Coroner · Jul 7, 2003, 03:36 PM

The sound output is perfect! Just that some times as I outlined doing certain things - like when morrowind is first loading or sometimes switching between audio files in foobar the pop/click occurs. My main trouble is the poor performance in games with the card such as ravenshield.

Necrosis · Jul 7, 2003, 03:58 PM

I've only played the demo for Ravenshield, but I surmise it's sound is similar to Splinter Cell which I do have and is excellent.

I'm not saying I have as superb 3D surround as I would with a A2 but it's still very good, and there is no decrease in performance. Hmm. I've used Foobar before but I prefer Media Jukebox 8, but I have never used the pop's or clicks you have w/ any media player. I even tried to reproduce your video background sound problem, and it came through crystal clear. However, there are two things I do note.

1. In Gaming mode the card sometimes plays background sounds from Trillian halted. What I mean it doesn't play the full wav file of the sound. However, no other anomalies in windows is noted.

2. Switching modes while playing anything with direct sound makes the card go KA KA. You lose sound, and have to restart whatever your playing.

I'm tempted to tell you to try the card in another computer to see if it has the same problems. I mean even in it's basic mode your still noticing dramatic drops in performance in gaming...very weird.

Which drivers are you using?

Coroner · Jul 7, 2003, 04:07 PM

Thanks for taking the time to try a few things out for me Necrosis. I am using the latest M-Audio drivers 1.0.1.5.

Coroner · Jul 7, 2003, 04:08 PM

I can deal with the occasional click noise - which only happens in rare circumstances. So its mainly the performance problem. My P4 is the original type (256Kb ancient pos) maybe it's just too slow?

When I had my SB Audigy I didn't have the problem. Strange hey?

Hmm just realised since I reinstalled XP with Standard PC instead of ACPI the clicks seem to be gone. Unfortunately the poor performance is still there

Necrosis · Jul 8, 2003, 08:05 PM

Dude if your 1.8 GHz P4 is too slow then I definitely shoud be seeing some major performance loss as well. I really don't have a clue what is going on with your system. I mean sometimes you can mix hardware combinations and they just don't like one another. It happens, but I would advise you to do some more experimenting with the card before you give up on it.

RIV@NVX · Jul 9, 2003, 12:37 AM

Pops/clicks at the begining of playback - bug in Windows XP DirectSound implementation on M$'s side.

The other thing - I suspect XP IRQ mapping too (my brother had similar problems when experimenting with my 6fire).

Coroner · Jul 9, 2003, 02:59 AM

Thanks for the continuing help people! I am beginning to think that something in my computer doesn't like the sound card or vice versa. I am going to try the soundcard in another machine soon to check it.

Coroner · Jul 9, 2003, 07:35 AM

I turned sound accelleration down gradual and found with it set to none games run fine - but my sound is lagged out by about 2 seconds. I also found that if I uninstalled the revos drivers and left it as an unknown device everything ran fine.

Coroner · Jul 9, 2003, 07:51 AM

Oh and I have disabled 3d sound in all my games and have the maudio on standard (no sensaura or xt)

Coroner · Jul 9, 2003, 07:52 AM

Oh and have reinstalled winxp 8 times in last week and a half so its not a 'dirty' copy of windows doing it

Coroner · Jul 9, 2003, 02:05 PM

Ok i just reinstalled windows again! nothing but SP1 radeon 9800 drivers (3.5) and maudio drivers and it still runs like crap.

RIV@NVX · Jul 10, 2003, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Coroner
Ok i just reinstalled windows again! nothing but SP1 radeon 9800 drivers (3.5) and maudio drivers and it still runs like crap.

Sounds like a faulty card.

Have you managed to try it somewhere else?

Coroner · Jul 10, 2003, 12:08 PM

That's what i thought - but it seems strange to have a fault like that. I'd like to try it in another pc but i can't for 2 weeks. I have emailed maudio tech supprot as well. Unfortunately if it is a faulty card it is going to be very hard to return as I am in Aus and bought it from US store (heaps cheaper that way half price). Oh well thanks for the advice.

Necrosis · Jul 11, 2003, 01:53 AM

Hopefully they'll give you a better solution than having to ship the thing all the back to the US. I know they have European support, so I don't see why they wouldn't have Aussie support either. It would make a lot more sense to me anyway.

evil_one · Jul 11, 2003, 08:34 PM

Did you try updating the BIOS? Try tampreing with the PCI latency settings. I would recommend trying the card in another (different) motherboard. I've heard similar issues with the Aureon that occur on one system but are not present on another one. Doesn't sound like defective hardware to me.

Coroner · Jul 12, 2003, 03:14 AM

Thanks for the info evil_one I will play with latency settings. I have updated to latest bios for my mobo. I'll try it in another board.

demalion · Jul 27, 2003, 07:13 AM

For myself, I had it working initially, then had problems after updating various items on my computer. This was both with Aureon drivers and trying Prodigy drivers with an EPROM switch. The problem you describe was one I ran into intermittently in between switching drivers, but I had different problems to deal with mainly.

My eventual solution was to do a Win XP repair (clean install would be better than this), update chipset inf files (all except the PCI to AGP bridge...Catalysts seem to have a problem with it), and use the latest Aureon drivers.

Here are the things that might have caused the problems for me, and my thoughts on them:

Something about the updated Prodigy drivers I installed about when this started. This doesn't seem likely, as various methods of switching to other drivers didn't work, but it could just be something the Revo drivers are doing, which I think you're investigating already anyways.

My accidental use of "Automatically search for best drivers" while connected to the Internet. This is something I think could be related to your problems, as it downloads the generic Ensemble drivers (which never even worked for me). Very annoying "feature". When I updated to either Aureon or Prodigy drivers from the Ensemble item in the Dev manager, I had problems similar to yours.

A BIOS update, which may have had the OS change IRQ handling due to some setting I didn't set properly afterwards. However, my main problem was a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN (or something similar...I think stop code "D1") when using the microphone, which you don't seem to have.

IAA (Intel Application Accelerator) 3.5. I haven't tested this theory thoroughly, but it struck me that 3.5 might have some problems, either inherent within it, or when using it with a BIOS supporting up to 3.0 alone. I'd assume backwards compatibility would be part of the design, but it is possible it was not. Anyways, I use it because I have a SATA RAID setup, and maybe you aren't, so I have no idea if this is a possible cause for you. I'm waiting for a non beta BIOS update and I'm going to try 3.5 again with it and see how my system reacts.

Maybe one of these items will spark some helpful thoughts about your problem.

Jul 7, 2003, 02:36 PM	#1
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	M-Audio Revo problems I have a M-Audio Revolution and I have probles The output sounds really good most of the time, but occasionally there is a pop or click which seems to occur some times between audio files in foobar .667. In some games like morrowind sometimes you will get them clicking on menu items and thins in inventory. If i have a video file open and have the focus not on it and another application makes a sound it screeches garbage instead of the sound. Ravenshield runs absoloutely terrible with it. Even if I disable all 3d sound options it still runs terrible. Pull the card out and uninstall the drivers and it runs fine again. The sensaura sound is not very good as well quite buggy and very resource hungry. I use my card mostly with nothing on (sensaura or XT) and I still get the noises and problems. The drivers are terrible. I was hoping that a hack will be found to run the Prodigy drivers on the Revo soon - I'd upload the eprom data but I don't have a floppy drive. The Revo has its own irq and I have tried Windows XP ACPI and Windows XP Standard PC modes to no avail. I have even tried removing the DSL modem and that has no effect and I have tried every possible PCI slot there is. My specs as follows Pentium 4 willamette 1.8GHz Gigiabyte 8IEX MB M-Audio Revo D-Link DSL 100 Modem PCI 512MB Corsair XMS2400 Seagat Barracuda V 120GB HDD ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB Windows XP home I have read that the drivers are pretty terrible and I am inclined to agree. I would like to keep this card as it sounds miles ahead of the creative Audigy 1/2 garbage (i had one bloated drivers and lies about 24bit support and crappy resampling). But if this continues I will have to ditch it Anyone have any ideas? Oh and nothing is overclocked in my system.

Jul 7, 2003, 04:08 PM	Thread Starter #7
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	I can deal with the occasional click noise - which only happens in rare circumstances. So its mainly the performance problem. My P4 is the original type (256Kb ancient pos) maybe it's just too slow? When I had my SB Audigy I didn't have the problem. Strange hey? Hmm just realised since I reinstalled XP with Standard PC instead of ACPI the clicks seem to be gone. Unfortunately the poor performance is still there Last edited by Coroner; Jul 7, 2003 at 04:21 PM.

Jul 9, 2003, 12:37 AM	#9
RIV@NVX Freedom is a feature. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Croatia, Rijeka Posts: 4,476 Rep Power: 67 System Specs	Pops/clicks at the begining of playback - bug in Windows XP DirectSound implementation on M$'s side. The other thing - I suspect XP IRQ mapping too (my brother had similar problems when experimenting with my 6fire). __________________ -- Vedran

Jul 9, 2003, 07:35 AM	Thread Starter #11
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	I turned sound accelleration down gradual and found with it set to none games run fine - but my sound is lagged out by about 2 seconds. I also found that if I uninstalled the revos drivers and left it as an unknown device everything ran fine. Last edited by Coroner; Jul 9, 2003 at 07:57 AM.

Jul 27, 2003, 07:13 AM	#20
demalion ={DH}=demalion Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 0 Rep Power: 0	For myself, I had it working initially, then had problems after updating various items on my computer. This was both with Aureon drivers and trying Prodigy drivers with an EPROM switch. The problem you describe was one I ran into intermittently in between switching drivers, but I had different problems to deal with mainly. My eventual solution was to do a Win XP repair (clean install would be better than this), update chipset inf files (all except the PCI to AGP bridge...Catalysts seem to have a problem with it), and use the latest Aureon drivers. Here are the things that might have caused the problems for me, and my thoughts on them: Something about the updated Prodigy drivers I installed about when this started. This doesn't seem likely, as various methods of switching to other drivers didn't work, but it could just be something the Revo drivers are doing, which I think you're investigating already anyways. My accidental use of "Automatically search for best drivers" while connected to the Internet. This is something I think could be related to your problems, as it downloads the generic Ensemble drivers (which never even worked for me). Very annoying "feature". When I updated to either Aureon or Prodigy drivers from the Ensemble item in the Dev manager, I had problems similar to yours. A BIOS update, which may have had the OS change IRQ handling due to some setting I didn't set properly afterwards. However, my main problem was a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN (or something similar...I think stop code "D1") when using the microphone, which you don't seem to have. IAA (Intel Application Accelerator) 3.5. I haven't tested this theory thoroughly, but it struck me that 3.5 might have some problems, either inherent within it, or when using it with a BIOS supporting up to 3.0 alone. I'd assume backwards compatibility would be part of the design, but it is possible it was not. Anyways, I use it because I have a SATA RAID setup, and maybe you aren't, so I have no idea if this is a possible cause for you. I'm waiting for a non beta BIOS update and I'm going to try 3.5 again with it and see how my system reacts. Maybe one of these items will spark some helpful thoughts about your problem. Last edited by demalion; Jul 27, 2003 at 07:29 AM.

Jul 7, 2003, 03:18 PM	#2
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	Odd. I have one of these and haven't experienced any of the problems you are having. You may just have a defective card. The only thing I could think of that would make it sound that bad would be IRQ sharing but you don't have that problem. I guess the only problem I've had is when you switch between different effects, how the volume goes down.

Jul 7, 2003, 03:34 PM	Thread Starter #3
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Bugger. I can't understand why its happening and its really annoying. What's really annoying is all week I fix other peoples computers and when I come home I can't fix my own!

Jul 7, 2003, 03:36 PM	Thread Starter #4
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	The sound output is perfect! Just that some times as I outlined doing certain things - like when morrowind is first loading or sometimes switching between audio files in foobar the pop/click occurs. My main trouble is the poor performance in games with the card such as ravenshield.

Jul 7, 2003, 03:58 PM	#5
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	I've only played the demo for Ravenshield, but I surmise it's sound is similar to Splinter Cell which I do have and is excellent. I'm not saying I have as superb 3D surround as I would with a A2 but it's still very good, and there is no decrease in performance. Hmm. I've used Foobar before but I prefer Media Jukebox 8, but I have never used the pop's or clicks you have w/ any media player. I even tried to reproduce your video background sound problem, and it came through crystal clear. However, there are two things I do note. 1. In Gaming mode the card sometimes plays background sounds from Trillian halted. What I mean it doesn't play the full wav file of the sound. However, no other anomalies in windows is noted. 2. Switching modes while playing anything with direct sound makes the card go KA KA. You lose sound, and have to restart whatever your playing. I'm tempted to tell you to try the card in another computer to see if it has the same problems. I mean even in it's basic mode your still noticing dramatic drops in performance in gaming...very weird. Which drivers are you using?

Jul 7, 2003, 04:07 PM	Thread Starter #6
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Thanks for taking the time to try a few things out for me Necrosis. I am using the latest M-Audio drivers 1.0.1.5.

Jul 8, 2003, 08:05 PM	#8
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	Dude if your 1.8 GHz P4 is too slow then I definitely shoud be seeing some major performance loss as well. I really don't have a clue what is going on with your system. I mean sometimes you can mix hardware combinations and they just don't like one another. It happens, but I would advise you to do some more experimenting with the card before you give up on it.

Jul 9, 2003, 02:59 AM	Thread Starter #10
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Thanks for the continuing help people! I am beginning to think that something in my computer doesn't like the sound card or vice versa. I am going to try the soundcard in another machine soon to check it.

Jul 9, 2003, 07:51 AM	Thread Starter #12
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Oh and I have disabled 3d sound in all my games and have the maudio on standard (no sensaura or xt)

Jul 9, 2003, 07:52 AM	Thread Starter #13
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Oh and have reinstalled winxp 8 times in last week and a half so its not a 'dirty' copy of windows doing it

Jul 9, 2003, 02:05 PM	Thread Starter #14
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Ok i just reinstalled windows again! nothing but SP1 radeon 9800 drivers (3.5) and maudio drivers and it still runs like crap.

Jul 10, 2003, 12:08 PM	Thread Starter #16
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	That's what i thought - but it seems strange to have a fault like that. I'd like to try it in another pc but i can't for 2 weeks. I have emailed maudio tech supprot as well. Unfortunately if it is a faulty card it is going to be very hard to return as I am in Aus and bought it from US store (heaps cheaper that way half price). Oh well thanks for the advice.

Jul 11, 2003, 01:53 AM	#17
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	Hopefully they'll give you a better solution than having to ship the thing all the back to the US. I know they have European support, so I don't see why they wouldn't have Aussie support either. It would make a lot more sense to me anyway.

Jul 11, 2003, 08:34 PM	#18
evil_one DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 109 Rep Power: 0	Did you try updating the BIOS? Try tampreing with the PCI latency settings. I would recommend trying the card in another (different) motherboard. I've heard similar issues with the Aureon that occur on one system but are not present on another one. Doesn't sound like defective hardware to me.

Jul 12, 2003, 03:14 AM	Thread Starter #19
Coroner DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 22 Rep Power: 0	Thanks for the info evil_one I will play with latency settings. I have updated to latest bios for my mobo. I'll try it in another board.