Atomic Systems

Hi,

Past few days i have noticed an odd issue with sound on my pc.

I often play music when browsing the web but have noticed when viewing web pages, particularly ones that seem to have many images cause my audio to stutter at times.

Initially i put it down to youtube however it does it with music played on Windows Media player aswell. I have also tried using a different browser which does the same.

I usually use chrome but is anyone aware of any major recent changes to software such as flash, chrome etc?

My sound card doesn't seem to need to be updated nor does there appear to be a windows update that would be the cause. Just the usual definition updates, a silverlight security update on the 11th plus a malicious software removal tool on the same date.

Cheers,

There was a version of flash released within the last three months or so that exhibited the symptoms you describe, but it has been superseded by a newer version with that bug fixed. Might be worth checking you have the latest version.

Richard

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the reply, i did have a slight thought that it may be flash as it seems to be connected when loading flash related items though sometimes images can be the cause. As i use chrome, flash automatically updates so unless i'm still using the buggy version i guess i have to wait.

Though that said i did previously install the most recent flash onto firefox which seemed to also still have the problem.

Edit: Seems even after back dating to previous flash players on firefox it does the same, aswell as using an earlier version on chrome. Puzzling.

Cheers,

Hi Kieran - it's very difficult to diagnose at a distance, of course, but you might want to look at this:

http://winhlp.com/node/10

go for solution 1. Might be as well to set a restore point first, I have no experience of this problem, but others have said it works.

If not, try playing a music file with your onboard audio (I assume you have one), my guess is it will be the same, so you can eliminate sound card faults

Good luck

Roger

Thanks,

Will have to have a look into this.

Cheers,

An interesting thing i have noticed with this sound issue is (and i'm not 100% sure) but it seems to be more noticeable when OpenBVE has been used.

Now i assume it isn't BVE itself causing it but could it be the audio program that has to be installed for it to work called OpenAudioLibrary?

I did try uninstalling this program and during the uninstall it mentioned that some files were still in use so a restart was needed which would of course mean the PC is using parts of it which (maybe clutching at straws) could be the culprit to the issue? It would make sense as the issue has been around for as long as i've had BVE and the related programs on this machine.

The problem is i see no way of deactivating OpenAudioLibrary unless i restart. I have found mention of disabling it here http://openarena.wikia.com/wiki/OpenAL but i haven't got the option on setup/system/sound. I also have no idea how you get the 'command console' it makes mention of and it seems an extreme thing to download just to disable an audio system?

I don't suppose anyone knows how to disable this program at all so i can avoid restarting each time i play BVE because i seem to be going round in circles!

Cheers,

Doesn't seem it is this program.

Have to admit i am getting extremely aggravated with this issue as i can't seem to enjoy listening to music when browsing the web at times. I have tried using different flash players, browsers, installing/uninstalling updates etc. but the problem is just as bad.

Richard i've looked at the website again but it seems to reflect on a dvd drive where as the issue i'm having isn't when i'm using the disk drive at all.

I seem to have a high definition on board sound system but i can't fathom out how this sound issue affects both audio being played from the hard drive and music being streamed via youtube on all browsers, it's almost like the computer can't handle music being played and a web page being accessed but i have 4gb of ram so i'd be amazed if this was the case! I have removed anything that has been installed in the last month excluding any BVE routes.

I am utterly stumped and have no idea what i can do to try and solve this issue.

Any more help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Although you say you've uninstalled/installed updates, does this include the sound card drivers? If not, may be worth uninstalling the sound card and re-installing the drivers from scratch.

Regards,

Len

Hi Len,

Thanks for the reply, any ideas how i go about this?

I'm just worried once i uninstall i wont be able to find the updates i need to get it back working again specially when the name of the device is just 'High definition audio device! Or does the computer automatically find it?

The driver date is 2009 anyway so would this be an issue considering it's seemingly quite old? I've tried to update but windows determines i'm using the most recent version.

Cheers,

Not sure which version of Windows you're using but you need to find device manager (normally found under the control panel heading). In device manager you will find "sound" which lists the sound devices you have installed. Here you can uninstall the sound device (which will uninstall the drivers) re-boot and Windows should then re-detect the sound device and install the latest drivers for it.
Regards,

Len

Cheers Len,

Have done this, thought i was onto a winner as it hasn't done it since i turned the PC on at 3. It's just started doing it again when watching youtube

One thing you could try to see if anything is hogging your computer resources is to open say a YouTube video and then open task manager in Windows (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) whilst it is running. This will show you, amongst other things, cpu and memory usage. Look for anything using a high percentage of either.

Regards,

Len

It seems the memory usage stays at around 50% which is mainly chrome (however of course other browsers all have the same noise issue and they use less). However when loading pages that often cause it such as flickr (heavy on images), BBC news or National Preservation (this one puzzles me) the CPU usage jumps from around 10% to up to 40 for that short loading time. Could this sudden jump make the unwanted sounds and if so i'm puzzled as to how this is suddenly an issue now!

Is there anyway to stop these jumps (of course if this is the issue) or limit how much CPU they use?

I had hoped it was flash related but i've even tried loading web pages without flash or java active and it still does the same.

Edit: Just looked into the CPU figures again, loading BBC caused as 47% and even a 67% at one point.

Cheers,

CPU usage will jump when opening apps. etc. but should quickly drop back. I suppose it could affect your sound, but unlikely. Have you tried a system restore back to a point before the problem arose to see if that helps?
There is always the nuclear option, a complete re-install of Windows, but only as a last resort!

Regards,

Len

Hi again,

I'm currently testing out something to see if it has resolved the problem.

For now i have ditched Google chrome and opted for Firefox. In doing so i have removed flash player 11 and installed one of the older 10 versions. (I tried to use older versions with Chrome but it didn't seem to like it and the problem persisted). When i installed the older flash player i made sure both my anti virus & firewall were off (not random, something i found on the web the other day). I don't want to tempt fate but SO FAR.... i haven't had the issue.... I won't know of course until i've spent more time trialling it.

My only guess is when flash player 11.xxxxx (whatever version it is now) was used on chrome for a length of time it must have somehow triggered something that caused issues with sound that also affected all other browsers which wouldn't resolve itself until a restart of the machine was done.

Cheers for the advice,