Crackling, Distortion problems NOT fixed with the Prelude

[ranker]

glad you figured out the culprit . On my XtremeMusic, I had to set Wave Volume to 50%, Master Volume to 40% to be free of most crackling, but I never quite got the problem completely solved. I don't think it was a USB device in my case, since I am using the same configuration with my Prelude, yet I don't hear any of the SCP in music or games

Just goes to show you that there's no one easy solution for this since everyones configuration is so different

See, the only thing that makes me feel stupid is now is that I bought this card just to replace my X-Fi Fatality due to the crackling noises. I'm pretty sure that if I place my old Fatality card in, it won't have the same problems anymore. That means I spent $200 for not that large of an upgrade now.

RANKER, Just to note this card has very HOT outputs for line level. This card outputs 5V. Where as "normal" line level for consumer audio devices is usually around 2V. This is not such a big deal aslong as your aware of it and adjust your levels accordingly. Glad you got it figured out. From all sources I have spoke with the Prelude is solid and stable. No real issues to speak of. A USB webcam caused all that? gotta love PC's Is the USB controller on the same IRQ or using the same resources as the Prelude? Should be something along those lines. How do you like the card overall?

I'm not too much of a HT person but I'm guessing that due to the higher output voltage, the sound output can suffer from irregularities at high volume.

The Prelude's sound is better than the X-Fi's when playing music. I'm only an audiophile in training as my brother is the DJ/musician that helps me pick all the differences apart. Whether is worth the $200 price tag for some of us that upgraded from a X-Fi fatality or better is another question. I'm satisfied with the card, but just not with the price nor with the half done drivers.

Nice going!

Guys I'm using a USB Mouse, USB Keyboard, USB Card reader, USB Joystick, USB Printer, and for a time a USB Scanner. My X-Fi has ALWAYS shared resources with one of my USB Controller Hubs. Some Chipsets and even some Manufactures screw this stuff up.

Now just because these don't share on *some *systems, doesn't mean they don't share or play nicely on all of them. All the way back to the i850 Intel Desktop boards have supported APIC, not to be confused with ACPI. Not only is there 24 IRQ's, but these share better when they have to. The problem with the old Chipsets was that 16 IRQs are not enough and these didn't like sharing.

AthlonXP and Pentium 3 or earlier Processors DON'T support APIC. They can only support it on Dual Processor systems. Since i850, Intel has had more time to refine these kinds of features, nVidia hasn't. That DOESN'T mean nVidia sucks LOL!

I've got USB devices up the ying yang as well with camera's, usb sticks, ipods, mice, keyboards, you name it. I believe I went through at least 100 configurations of components before I narrowed it down to just the logitech USB webcam. I don't believe it was an IRQ conflict because I checked and double checked the resources assigned, but something with it definitely caused the problem.