PCI video card causing sound issue?

[rockinup1231]

I have that cruddy GeForce 4 MX PCI video card. I have reason to believe it is causing a static (not feedback, static) in my audio, and degrades audio performance in general on my mobo's on board SiS 7012 wave PCI audio card. I know that it is the cause of the problem since I tried the older Raedon 7000 AGP video card and the sound issues went away.

Is there anyway I can fix this and avoid having to lose the video card? I would just leave that video card in, but it has 64mb as opposed to the already low 128mb amount of memory, and Halo, and many of my other games play like **** on it.

Btw, I have that thing overclocked. The gpu core is at 350 mhz (as opposed to the 275mhz stock) and memory on the card is overclocked at 500mhz (as opposed to the 400mhz stock), so I am really pushing this thing hard just to get decent gameplay useablilty out of it. Would this also be a cause of the problem?

Thanks in advance. Although I am confident that I won't find a solution. I am getting a new motherboard, ram, hard drive, video card (the x1650, can't afford better), and power supply. So after a few months I won't be using this thing.

[leprechaun_40]

Have you tried it without the OC on the video card? I'd start there.

[rockinup1231]

Have you tried it without the OC on the video card? I'd start there.

Yes, I have. It also did this to my last sound card, only worse. But that one was dying anyway, so I thought nothing of it switching to the on board one.

I assume the reason this happens is because agp is dedicated and when you throw a throw something like that video card on there it clogs everything up.

[leprechaun_40]

How bout yer drivers? I mean all of them. Sound, video, mobo, etc.

Also, is the sound card near the video? I try to put the sound card as far from the video card slot wise as possible to prevent EMI. I've seen where having the sound card next to either video or even ethernet cards will cause noise.

[Peter M]

Problem is that the PCI graphics card is hogging the system busses for too long to let the sound keep playing continuously. SiS chipsets try to work around that by having a multi-threaded north/south interconnect, but that doesn't help cure /everything/.

If your system BIOS leaves you a choice on where the sound engine decodes from (PCI or "enhanced", "system" or whatever not-PCI choice there is), put it on the non-PCI setting.

But the ultimate, proper cure is: Don't put the most bandwidth demanding device on the slowest bus in the machine.

[rockinup1231]

I have an American Megatrends BIOS. You wouldn't happen to know what they would call that option (if it has one)?

At the time I had bought that video card, it was better than my other one. I didn't think much of it when I had purchased the card.

My sound card is built in to the motherboard, so I really don't know where the sound card's parts are located on the computer. Well, Yes the jacks are near the top of the tower, but the video card is located near the center.

All my drivers are up to date. I recently downloaded the sound drivers thinking that was where the problem lied, but it wasn't that.

[Peter M]

AMI is just the vendor of the BIOS core code. The porting of that to any given mainboard product is usually done by the mainboard vendor - and it's up to them to expose or hide certain options, and also to put meaningful names to them.

[rockinup1231]

Ok.

I will get around to checking that later. I would now but the new ifsh I bought for my aquarium had ick and killed off my others, and I gotta sterilize my tank. I liked my fish. :(