DescentBB

I'm having some funky problems with sound in my system lately.

While listening to music, or while playing games, all off a sudden, and quite sporadically, my volume will jump ~20-50% in volume.

I dunno if my sound card (SB Audigy Gamer) is going, or if my speakers are going.
Sound cards a few years old, speakers are a couple.

Any ideas?

If the cable isn't plugged in all the way, you will get 1/2 the sound out of both the speakers in mono, when it shifts into place it will shift to stereo and twice the sound. A way to test would be to play something out of the right speaker only and then the left and see if there's a difference (or if one doesn't play anything at all).

Might also be a flaky wire inside the rubber coating, or a bad jack. I had the same thing happen on my TV with RCA plugs.

I'm not getting half the sound.
The sound only gets louder. It just jumps up for a few seconds (it's random actually, sometimes a coupel seconds, sometimes close to a minute).

is it possible to make an audio recording of this?

Also, how close is your sound card to your video card? They should be as far apart as possible, physically.

Could be a driver issue, or memory issue. hard telling. But I'd have to agree with DCrazy, sounds like a bad wire or connection.

Also, take some canned air, and make sure your sound card is free of dust.

Think of turning your volume up for a few seconds, then back to where you had it.
Then up again, for a random amt of time, then again back down.
Rinse, repeat.

I don't see how I could record it as it happens at random intervals. Sometimes not for hours, sometimes every couple of mins.

Here's a pic of my vid card and sound card (Vid's the green thing (GFX 5950U), sound's the black card under it).
http://www.webinfractions.com/misc/pute ... 0_0278.JPG

It may be dusty.

What are you doing when it does it, is it only during a game or when playing music etc?

Your sound card is too close to your video card - at least, that was one of the first things I ever learned, video cards will interfere with sound cards.
I don't think thats the case here but you never know

Hmm well I can tell by looking at that pic you have a Cheiftec based case

Your onboard sound is turned off in the bios right?
Also, are your speakers powered externally? If they are, is the transformer hot? does it do it when you unplug the speakers and use headphones? I'd check these before you move the card to another slot.

Capm, thats only an issue if he had the sound card in the FIRST PCI slot since thats shared with the AGP bus. Any PCI slot after that has its own IRQ.

That being said, try a pair of headphones for a while. If it still happens, then its either a shoddy connection on the card or a software issue.

Ohh thats what that was, lol you're right, I remember now. friggin irq conflicts hehe

It happens when I listen to music and play games.
Pretty much any sustained sound it seems.

Ok, jiggle the plug a little bit and see if it happens. If it does, then its a simple matter of doing a little soldering (or RMA if you don't want to fool with it) either the jack or the plug.

Though if you really want to see if its your speakers doing it, yank out the Audigy and enable your onboard sound and do what you normally do for a day or two.

Odd thing is it hasn't done it in a few days.