TWidXugA

Just to say that the 32 ms pci latency did it for me, i said it
and i'm saing it again after a couple of weeks of testig.
No more beeps

It must be a system specific bug...

Rox271

TWidXugA,

Thanks for your input. I did try that with no success. Could you please be more specific? Got a few questions:
- How did you configure the PCI latency?
- What other PCI cards do you have and what are their latencies (I wonder if some balancing is required)

Eugene Gavrilov

>> Rox271

btw, have you tried different latencies?
64? 32? 16? 128?

don't forget that the latency setting might get reset after reboot

/Eugene

TWidXugA

Hi again

I changed my latency in my mobo using the bios...
so i guess all my other pci boards are using the same latency (not quite shure about this)
my pci boards are:
hauppage wintv go
network adapter
audigy1 platinum

mobo: asus a7a266
cpu atlhon 1200@1300 fsb 208 mhz
512 mb ddr

hope it helps!

nuppe

Hi guys!

I think I have the bug discussed in this thread.
Sometimes starting to play an audio file, i get beeps/silence instead of sound.
(Sometimes the beep changes frequency, but there's no other sound, and no cracking/popping as with some other bugs i've seen descriptions of).
I've found that playing a midi-file in media player resets something, and the beep goes away.
I stumbled on this by accident, trying to figure if the problem was wave or midi related.
I don't know if this helps in finding the reason for the bug, but it might take some of the annoyance out of it.

Could you try this out and see if it works for you too?
(I'm not sure i have the exact same bug, but it sounds like it)

Also this might be of some interest:

The game "Broken Sword" seems to trigger this behaviour constantly, and also resets it sometimes too!

My config is:

Athlon Thunderbird 1,4GHz
512MB ddr
Epox 8kha+ (via kt266a) (onboard audio disabled)
SBLive 5.1 (SB0060)
Pinnacle PCTV pro
Geforce 2MX (Gainward golden sample)
D-link DFE-530TX

---Hardware / Software configuration---------------
Driver Name:kX Audio Driver (Debug)
Driver Date: Aug 18 2003 18:56:52
Driver Version: 5.10.00.3534 - debug
DB Name:non
SB0060 5.1 [d000]
PCI Information:
Device: 21102 Subsys: 80611102 ChipRev: 7
Card has MPU device
Card model is '5.1'
Card HAS AC97 codec
Codec name: SigmaTel STAC9708
3D Extension: SigmaTel 3D Enhancement
Codec is 2.0 compliant
Capabilities[6940] :
DAC resolutions : -16-bit- -18-bit-
ADC resolutions : -16-bit- -18-bit-
Ext Capabilities [80]: -PCM surround DAC-
Port: d000 Irq: 10
Playback buffer: 20a0
Record buffer: 4000
Number of AC3 buffers: 4
Tank memory: 256 kb
GSIF buffer: 256 samples
OS version: [2 5 1 Service Pack 1; 2 5 1 Service Pack 1; 156 148]
----------------------------------------------------

Also i'm running epox USDM v 3.10 (mobo monitoring)
(Saw someone mentioned mobo monitoring somwhere in the thread as a possible cause)

Hope the midi trick works for someone else too.

Rox271

So far I haven't found any way to fix this issue.
Sometime the 32 run/stop trick do not even work.

I'm just posting this to mention that I found something that may be of some interest.
When the audio is muted or beeping, I can still produce a nice sound using the "Wave Generator" in the kx DSP.
This (to me) means the audio card is neither "crashed" nor in any sort of invalid state.
I definitely think this has something to see with buffer allocations especially if this issue is operating system sensitive.

Eugene, is there any chance to have a button that would kinda reset all buffers and channel allocations? This would be much more convenient than 32 stop/start operations...

Rox271

Ah by the way, since I was talking about buffers...
I saw that there is a buffer setting option but I have no idea about how to use that.
Should we explore some tweaking on buffer settings?

Also I did try to tweak PCI lattency but haven't seen any change.

gigglebok

Hi all,

Well, this is sadly a case of "me too"....

I run Win98SE, and get *exactly* the same continuous beep as everybody else on this thread, after a random amount of winamp/cubase/gaming.

I laughed until I stopped having tried the open/close winamp 16 times as suggested - at least it's marginally quicker than rebooting!

Just wanted to say that it definitely can't be a WIN2K/XP memory issue if WIN98SE does exactly the same thing.

My setup, for what it's worth...

Asus A7V333 KT333 VIA
Athlon 2Ghz
SBLive 5.1 (SB0060)
512MB DDR333

At least I now know it's not defective hardware!

Eugene Gavrilov

>> This (to me) means the audio card is neither "crashed" nor in any sort of invalid state.

it simply means that the DSP part of the card (including the spdif and i2s codecs) isn't affected by the bug
(and this is expected)

the bug is related to PCI<->10kX communication (while the 'wavegen' plugin is running in the DSP)

concerning the buffers:
we've already discovered that the buffers are absolutely the same for 'good' and 'bad' sound
(well, we should have proved that, but one needs a SoftIce or similar kernel-level debugger for that)

so, the present 'theory' of the bug is:
========
either OS, or the driver or the PCI bus fail to provide the 10kX chip with the correct audio data
this causes the audio engine to use incorrect PCI mappings (the discussed above 'MAPA'/'MAPB' registers)
(and, this causes the Loop register to reset to an invalid value)
[that is, instead of the actual audio data located in the RAM (allocated by OS), the 10kX chip uses either 'empty' PCI pages or its internal cache (which is, btw, 18..56 samples long), thus, giving a constant 'noise']
after a full cycle of 64 voices [that is, 16..32 play/pause cycles] the card state is usually restored to normal operation
the bug might depend on the nForce2 chipset features as well as PCI latency
I managed to reproduce the bug only =once= and it was somehow related to Sandra and DMI BIOS utilities...
========

please review the full thread (uff, I doubt I will manage to do that ) and let me know if I have forgotten something (or any corrections)
also, I'm unsure if it was already tested, but please try to check if SoundFont playback (via kX Synth devices) is affected by the bug, too

/Eugene

p.s.
I will probably add a 'reset voices' option for the kxctrl tool

rubber_glove

well. damn. i just read through all 17 (!) pages of this thread, hoping beyond hope that page 17 would have a happy ending on it. oh well. i posted on another thread and Eugene suggested i might be experiencing this same bug... so:

my bug is exactly as described in the thread. a beeeeeeeeeping sound which occurs occaisionally when pressing play or changing from one song to another on various mp3 playing programs. i suppose there also have been extremely loud silent beeps as well, but since those are harder to hear i didn't notice them as much (HA!). usually pressing stop will stop the beep (though it will generally start again when pressing play), but it has happened once while using logic that the beep continued until i reset global settings through the kx mixer. . . .

it is (more) strange, because this problem has only become apparent in the past 2 weeks, after using kxdrivers for over a year. i assume the bug popped up as a result of upgrading to a p4 system 1.5 months ago (thus the bug even hibernated for a month).

as a (possibly unrelated) side issue, i am also currently unable to use the optical output/input of my two livedrives. this (for my purposes) is more frustrating than the beeping because i mainly use the computer for recording as opposed to output... does anyone else with this bug use a livedriveIR? any problems with the optical output/input?

incidentally my (basic) system info is:

win2k
p4 512mb
2 x sblive 5.1
2 x liveDriveIR

i will (fingers crossed) try some pci latency fiddling and post again.

any other info that might be of use?

thanks.

rubber_glove

i am quite happy now.
using powerstrip ('interesting' interface, that) i set my pci latencies to 64 for the sblives

i can't speak to the beeping problem yet, but my optical seems to be back!
this is fantastic news.

i will post more results as they pour in....

rubber_glove

to clarify, i changed the latency setting form 32 to 64 but did not change the value (32) for the livedrives.

Rox271

I have 64 for the soundcard and 32 for all other cards.
Still beeping.
I recently changed my video and cannot see any difference.

Thanks Eugene, though this is a frustrating fix, still that will help.

Eugene Gavrilov

so, anything to add to our present 'theory' part?..

/E

Nappylady

Wait a minute... "reset voices" fixes the beeping? (As in, if I'm experiencing the beeping, I can reset voices and it will resume normal play?)

Detecting beeping is easy; just look at the output from the FXbus and see if it's looping a certain number of samples... then reset voices.

Is this doable, Eugene? Is this maybe how the Creative drivers keep the beep out of regular play?

Also, I was wondering: every time I seek in Winamp, it goes to the next voice on the card... what if it went to the previous voice, or to a random voice? Might this help?

Or maybe that's right, shut me up before I start sucking up all your time.

Thanks again.

Rox271

Well I wish I could give U a theory but I really have little knowledge on how the driver is working
I tend to agree with you when you say the sound is looping; the beep really sounds like a very short loop. Now for a DMA and PCI theory ...
It doesn't seem to be OS dependent (see giggleblok's comment, he has got Win98SE)
The strange thing is the beep ONLY occurs when starting to play. I never had it in the middle of something (as far as I remember). Also ONLY canceled when stopping.

I was just wondering if we wouldn't see the bug more and more cos people would have more and more RAM? I remember we talked about that at the very beginning of the thread. Could this mean higher address values and potential issues on pointers? Well just an idea.

Nappylady

I have had the beep start while it was playing. The reason? I was playing a song on 4/5 and started playing a song on 6/7; when I stopped the song on 6/7, the one on 4/5 suddenly switched to beeping.

Horrible way to run a gig. I think I've lost that customer.

Well.... What does it take, exactly, to compile the drivers? Could I do so myself? Eugene, you seem to be in the minority, as far as people who don't experience the bug. Could you maybe collaborate with someone who has the problem, so someone else can work on it without your intervention so much?

HEY! I HAVE A QUESTION: Do the people who experience this bug use Suspend-To-RAM? I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I use STR and I have the beep.

Let's keep working on this! Let's not give up! This is an awesome project and I don't want to see it fail because of this.

Eugene Gavrilov

so, guys, I suggest we start a new topic called something like 'constant beeping instead of audio playback' and try to re-test all the information we currently have concerning this issue

here: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/showthre...threadid=26491

/E

=================== TOPIC CLOSED ======================