Topic: Audiophile 2496 pops and clicks, system tweaks?

[dueling]

I was having issues getting my Audiophile 2496 card to playback true 24bit audio (see this post.. http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=45757.0 ) with the ASIO plugin .. I had ordered one of the ESI Juli@ cards, but then cancelled that order when I finally got the Auidophile card running with the ASIO plugin.. the .dll version.  My issue now is that I have pops and clicks when playing back audio with my card and doing other tasks in windows.  I even have pops and clicks at times when tracking out a show in CDWave.. even with 16bit files.  Are there any system tweaks that I am missing?  I have tried a couple of these...

http://m-pulse.m-audio.com/articles/january2003/optimization.html

but I really don't want to just start changing all the settings on my computer unless I know they are going to help and not hurt my system.  Does anyone have any suggestions as to which tweaks might be useful, or which I definitely do not need, or should not do?  I have a 2.19GHz processor with 768MB of RAM on Win XP.  I read somewhere that you should have your soundcard on a separate IRQ... and I checked where mine is and it's up at IRQ 15 or maybe even 18.. is that a bad thing?  I am no computer expert and don't want to start messing with that stuff on my own before getting some more info.

Any help or suggestions are appreciated.. i'm now thinking I should have purchased the Juli@.. and still may if I continue to have issues.

thanks

[mhibbs]

I've been through something very similar to this w/ my Audiophile (and any digi soundcard) after rebuilding my system...it had worked fine before, so I knew it wasn't the card.  Most likely, the Audiophile is on the same IRQ as some other resource intensive hardware.  Goto Control Panel>System>Device Manager   then View>Resources By Connection.  Now look at the IRQ tree and see what number the Audiophile is assigned and whether or not other devices are using that same IRQ.  I bet you find that some are.  In WinXP especially, it's a huge pain in the ass to attempt to change the IRQ manually b/c they are automatically assigned.  I looked all over the internet for how to do it, and found a recommendation somewhere to just change PCI slots and reboot as a quicker solution.  I swapped positions of a couple cards including the Audiophile, rebooted, and rechecked the IRQs.  Luckily I only did it once, and the Audiophile got an IRQ all to itself.  Pops, clicks, etc immediately went away.

good luck.

mitch


edit:  damn, should have read your entire post before going down the IRQ path.  IRQ 15 should be fine if the card has it all to itself.  Mine is at 22 and works fine.  If you have other hardware listed on 15, I'd do what I suggested and swap slots.  If it's on 15 all by itself, then I'm not sure what is going on.

[dueling]

thanks for the info Mitch.. I just checked, and my Audiophile is listed at IRQ 18, and is sharing IRQ 18 with Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C7

Is this a bad thing, and can I move the Intel to another IRQ on my own?  In the meantime I have actually ordered a new soundcard.. the ESI Juli@.. so maybe I should just not mess with the IRQ's, uninstall the Audiophile, and then install the Juli@ and see if that fixes my issues.

[dnsacks]

move the audiophile to another pci slot and see if the irq configuration changes.  Sharing an irq with your usb controller doesn't sound like a "good" thing.

[admkrk]

move the audiophile to another pci slot and see if the irq configuration changes.  Sharing an irq with your usb controller doesn't sound like a "good" thing.

i know i'm a little late on this, but...........  seems to me dsnacks is right, at least that's what i was going to say.

i must've got lucky, b/c i never had any troubles w/ my ap24/96.