Topic: Clicks & Pops When Playing Wave Files

[Dutchman1101]

I wasn't sure if it goes under this category or playback but here is my problem. Everytime now I play a wave file from my hardrive I get these pops and clicks. I know 98% are not on the recording because recordings I made a while ago that I know did not have all these clicks and pops all of a sudden have them. My question to you guys is what do you think could be causing this? Thanks in advance.

I have a Dell Dimension 3000 and I'm using Windows Media Player to play the files.


Edit: Spelling

[lazysean]

Weird.  Could be any number of things, really.  Have you tried playing them in any other software besides WMP?  Or a different set of speakers/headphones?   Does the same thing happen when you play mp3's or cds?   Could be:

  (a) either WMP or the drivers for your soundcard have gotten corrupted and need to be reinstalled.
  (b) a bad or loose cable from pc to speakers.
  (c) distortion caused by windows volume too high
  (d) you could get similar artifacts if the computer can't keep up with reading/outputting the file fast enough.  this could be caused by low memory, a badly fragmented hard disk (or bad cdr if that's where your files are), who knows.  this sort of thing really shouldn't be happening on such a recent computer unless something is really wrong.  no other problems besides audio  playback?  no blue-screen crashes or anything?

well, good luck, let us know how it goes...

[ethan]

What sound card? Is there a control pannel for the sound card? Sometimes there's options like setting a buffer ( I have to do this on my AP2496) and/or a setting for high performance (grabs more processing power).

Check disk drive settings two make sure DMA is enabled.

-e

[Dutchman1101]

Thanks guys for the tips. I'm stumped myself. The computer has not had anything bad happen to it. I thought it was a recording I made recently but now a bunch of files have the pops and clicks. I'll have to try some of your suggestions. +T to both of you.

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

While not really on topic I have a question.  Why is it whenever I play flac24's on winamp there's crackling.  Been bugging me for awhile.  And it's not just my version.  My friends' do it too.  Is there a player than can play flac24's perfectly?

[rowjimmy]

Thanks guys for the tips. I'm stumped myself. The computer has not had anything bad happen to it. I thought it was a recording I made recently but now a bunch of files have the pops and clicks. I'll have to try some of your suggestions. +T to both of you.

Has anything good happened to it? Specifically, have you run a defrag?

edit to add:
You may also want to consider another player such as foobar2k (http://www.foobar2000.org/) to reduce memory/processor load...

wicked part about a problem such as yours, it may or may not be fixed by any one of these things (mine and the previous, excellent suggestions) or some combination thereof.

Good luck.

[mnadamsfan]

Sometimes the software that you extract the wave files may be at fault.

[jeromejello]

fwiw, i get this fairly regularly when playing wav files on my box as well... it really doesnt matter the program, but it does mainly occur when using SF 7.0 and CDWAV.  i think it is due in part to the system resources being eaten up my these programs, coupled with large file size, just stresses the buffer...

it did freak me out for a while, but i have just gotten into the habit of burning the show to disc and listening to it before i set up the torrent.  just in case... 

[mhibbs]

I wasn't sure if it goes under this category or playback but here is my problem. Everytime now I play a wave file from my hardrive I get these pops and clicks. I know 98% are not on the recording because recordings I made a while ago that I know did not have all these clicks and pops all of a sudden have them. My question to you guys is what do you think could be causing this? Thanks in advance.

I have a Dell Dimension 3000 and I'm using Windows Media Player to play the files.


Edit: Spelling

I had the exact same issues when I rebuilt my machine and IRQ sharing was the culprit....drove me nuts trying to diagnose the issue.  Check to see if the soundcard is sharing an IRQ.  Ideally you want the soundcard on it's own IRQ or at a minimum, sharing w/ something that doesn't use many resources.  Windows assigns IRQs automatically and attempting to reassign them manually is a hassle.  The easiest thing to do is swap your soundcard to a different PCI slot and boot up the machine again...usually you'll get lucky and it will then end up on an IRQ of it's own.  Go here to check the IRQs.

control panel>system>device manager>view>resources by connection

[mhibbs]

fwiw, i get this fairly regularly when playing wav files on my box as well... it really doesnt matter the program, but it does mainly occur when using SF 7.0 and CDWAV.  i think it is due in part to the system resources being eaten up my these programs, coupled with large file size, just stresses the buffer...

it did freak me out for a while, but i have just gotten into the habit of burning the show to disc and listening to it before i set up the torrent.  just in case... 

That's definitely a possibility too...monitor the system performance in the task manager as well and see how bad you are taxing the system.  If the performance looks ok, I'd bet on the IRQ issue.  Like I said, my was clicking like crazy when sharing an IRQ and I have a MAudio 2496 card in a 2.6 ghz P4 w/ a gig of RAM.