Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 - Microphone Troubles; Popping, Crackling etc.

schmendict · 12-16-2007, 03:15 PM

Hi all, I recently purchased an Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 24bit from eBay in used but apparently "perfect" condition.

It certainly seemed perfect until I tried to use my microphone in a voice chat programme (Ventrilo, if it matters), and I promptly bombarded the rest of my fellow users with horrific cracking noises. I assumed that the microphone was defective, and plugged in my reserve, which has never failed me. Everything seemed fine, the microphone quality was crystal clear and a definite improvement on my previous sound quality. That is, until, I loaded up a mod for a game called Half Life 2, called "Empires 2.0". Ah, the glories of perfect directional sound! During the game, I had used the voice chat feature, and after closing said game, I was dismayed to find that my reserve microphone had taken upon itself this crackly curse!

I quickly took the sound card out and booted up my computer with on-board sound in order to test to see whether both of my microphones were defective. Both seemed to function fine, with the reserve only crackling occasionally.

So here I am, quite puzzled and a bit dissapointed at these events. I cannot think what could be causing these crackly sounds, and I have read and searched many times for a solution. Could it possibly be the game causing it, or is it a defective card? Could the problems be remedied by a new, USB microphone as opposed to the two line-in ones I am using at the moment?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My system specs:

Intel Celeron D 3ghz
1.5gb of RAM
nVidia 8600GT 256mb

~~Wozer~~ · 12-17-2007, 12:08 PM

try moving the card to a different slot, there may be an IRQ conflict...

schmendict · 12-17-2007, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wozer

try moving the card to a different slot, there may be an IRQ conflict...

Thanks for the response, I will try this.

What exactly is an IRQ conflict, and is it typically associated with these kinds of problems?

12-16-2007, 03:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
schmendict Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP	Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 - Microphone Troubles; Popping, Crackling etc. Hi all, I recently purchased an Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 24bit from eBay in used but apparently "perfect" condition. It certainly seemed perfect until I tried to use my microphone in a voice chat programme (Ventrilo, if it matters), and I promptly bombarded the rest of my fellow users with horrific cracking noises. I assumed that the microphone was defective, and plugged in my reserve, which has never failed me. Everything seemed fine, the microphone quality was crystal clear and a definite improvement on my previous sound quality. That is, until, I loaded up a mod for a game called Half Life 2, called "Empires 2.0". Ah, the glories of perfect directional sound! During the game, I had used the voice chat feature, and after closing said game, I was dismayed to find that my reserve microphone had taken upon itself this crackly curse! I quickly took the sound card out and booted up my computer with on-board sound in order to test to see whether both of my microphones were defective. Both seemed to function fine, with the reserve only crackling occasionally. So here I am, quite puzzled and a bit dissapointed at these events. I cannot think what could be causing these crackly sounds, and I have read and searched many times for a solution. Could it possibly be the game causing it, or is it a defective card? Could the problems be remedied by a new, USB microphone as opposed to the two line-in ones I am using at the moment? Any help would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel Celeron D 3ghz 1.5gb of RAM nVidia 8600GT 256mb

12-17-2007, 12:08 PM	#2 (permalink)
~~Wozer~~ Troubled Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 1,038 OS: 2kpro/XP pro/MCE	Re: Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 - Microphone Troubles; Popping, Crackling etc. try moving the card to a different slot, there may be an IRQ conflict...