pwinfield

Hey guys.

Please take a seat and get settled in a for a long thread and a problem that has been plagueing me for a long time now, im going to try and describe this in as much detail as Im capable to try and get to the bottom of it and I have seen many a forum post on this subject but NONE with a decisive solution, lets kick the trend eh?

First of all my PC is a bog standard Packard Bell affair (i had a link to it on their website but maintinence is up so ill update that later). It came with vista which I couldnt stand and my friend gave me a copy of XP to install onto it.

The only reason I even own a computer is I play video games as a hobby of mine, using Ventrilo to talk to my fellow gamers. Now, I have always had a problem of me occasionally turning into a robot. This was always remedied with a quick restart of ventrilo however, and was a minor nuisance to people on the recieveing end.

However one day I went into a robot, and then eventually into nothing but a horrible sound that was deafening my buddies (we later figured out that it was infact all the sounds I was hearing was being played on their end when i pressed my push to talk key only really really loud).

Restarting didnt work at all. Sometimes this has just fixed itself with a good old reset etc but nope, a whole day goes by and still busted.

So my friend advises me to go into the Windows Volume control and mess around there, tweak and test. I did this, and to seemingly no change, infact I probably made matters worse.

Then I decided to reinstall my drivers to try and fix it, i think this was the fatal flaw as I have a sneaking suspicion this is the problem. So anyway, I reinstalled with the latest drivers from realteks website (which is terrible i should add, it makes no sense at all). This didnt work, so I went through a whole range of drivers to attempt to fix it, but nothing at all helped, and it has been busted now for about a month.

Things I have figured out/heard whilst looking for a fix:

- This is all realteks fault and they havent really acknowledged it.
- Some say a USB microphone will fix this, I only just purchased my standard affair and cant afford a new one however.
- I heard AC97 Drivers are more universal, however this is the only driver I tried to install that wont let me due to "windows logo testing", I install anyway but it doesnt work.
- This is all to do with stereo mix, some programmes change your input to stereo mix which causes your sound to play to others. Others say if you just mute stereo mix on windows volume control it fixes it (ive tried, it doesnt, along with plenty of other control panel solutions I have heard about)
- A lot of my windows volume controls are greyed out anyway so I cant change them, i guess this is a driver issue.

Anway, thanks for any help or ideas anyone may have. If someone can give me to the solution to this I will be forever in your debt, it is driving me insane.

Thanks for your time, Pete.

lainchan

Hi, I'm sorry I can't help but I'm just mentioning that I have the exact same problem. I even bought another computer upgrade to get rid of this, but ended up with bloody realtek again >_<

Have you tried a USB mic yourself because I'm tempted to get one... although this means throwing more money into this problem. The greyed out controls on windows are the driver and from what I've found there's nothing you can do to change that. It's as though my PC has an internal mic or something because yesterday when i was using TS, people were screaming in the noise it was making so I unplugged my mic but it was still doing it. Muting myself didnt work so I quickly reached for the push to talk option and was able to hear everyone, although of course I couldn't talk back.

It isn't just TS it does this on though... it has done it on Ventrillo and Skype for me as well, although the awful noise it emits only seems to happen now and again on Skype.

The problem is, somehow our PCs are picking up sound/ interference without even a microphone plugged in... it took me ages to figure this out. I do hope someone knows the answer to this because I've pretty much given up on it.

pwinfield

Havent had time to check this post but I guess no one can help. I sometimes wonder why these support forums exist, as this issue has been brought up on so many of them and they either go ignored or unanswered.

Pauldo

Often times it goes unanswered or ignored because there really isn't a clear answer, unless you count "buy a dedicated sound card" an answer. Most of the problems I see have to do with onboard audio.

Both Ventrillo and Skype have extensive support forums and if questions aren't answered there than there really isn't going to be a fix.

Another problem is that you mention a possible pirated copy of Windows XP which a lot of support forums will shy away from.

Pauldo

cider303

a buddy of mine fixed this by using this post hahaha

he went into the setup options in ventrilo

clicked playback at the bottom
turned line all the way down

and it fixed it

hope this helps