sound issue

[MADe]

So I,
1) used the ultimate boot cd and ran a memtest, 1 pass and a cpu stability test. All appears good, no errors, but short test runs. I do not think its heat, my cpu never goes above 70C and cards never above 80C. I can run video benchmarks just fine, no sound with them.

2)I uninstalled vid and sound drivers, got different versions. Nvidia driver, 331.65 game ready and Realtek driver 2.71. Things looked and sounded as good as it gets.

3) altered vid profile to application controlled selections and changed pre-rendered frames from 1, to 2.

4) loaded game and let machine run for an hour without flying. Took off a flew a sorty. Landed, took off again started to head for the party and ran into some b-26's 5 minutes out. Made a pass and hit my com button to warn and machine freezes.
Screen locks up and head phones/speakers start buzzing like a short. I have to use reset button to start machine again, no BSOD, no error codes.

So that's roughly an hour and 30 min game play. I just do not get it. Did not have the issue my 1st 1&1/2 years in AH. Took 1 year off, Come back beginning of 2013 and have this issue. I know that hitting coms has triggered this before. Lasted the longest without incident using just ms drivers for sound. Most of the fall and everytime I use Realtek drivers I freeze up rather consistantly. WTF.

W7 uses DX11, My vid cards use DX10, Realtek says it use Dx11, AH uses DX9. Could this be the problem? I did install DX9 update package, the machine did accept some of those updates with the DX11. But that was to stop the issue which it did not.

I was using vid cards that were DX11, but the fan crapped out in one of them, EVGA GTX 550 TI's, so I put the original set of cards back in, EVGA GTX 260 SSC's, while I was out that 1 year. I also use SP1 now which I did dot in beginning.

It sounds so much better with the Realtek drivers. Internet hints at psu, vid drivers, sound drivers so who the bleep knows.
Gonna drop the Realtek drivers again and use MS drivers. At least I can fly that way.

I pride myself on figuring things out, fixed dam near any issue that's come up, but not this 1. Anybody in the know got anything?

[MADe]

2 hrs game play with MS drivers, no crash. But I swear the game runs better with the Realtek drivers.
arggghhhhhh!

[Bizman]

I don't know whether this ancient trick would work or not any more, but it's worth trying: Drop the sound acceleration one notch down from the slider. While searching for its location in Win7, I learned that the slider is no more available, but for troubleshooting the acceleration can be turned off:
       

        1) Right-click the speaker icon in your Windows system tray and select "Playback Devices." This menu option opens sound cards and speakers on your computer.
        2) Click the sound card you want to set up. At the bottom of the sound card list, click the "Properties" button to open the main sound card information.
        3) Remove the check mark next to "Acceleration" to disable the feature. Click "OK" to save the settings. Reboot the computer for the settings to take effect.

[MADe]

no option available.

Seems that there is a known issue with the MS UAA driver and Realtek drivers. Some state that its not the Realtek driver at all, but the MS UAA interfereing.
You cannot disable UAA, 3rd party sound is dependent on UAA as an interface. If I dump the Realtek, its the UAA that takes over. As I said, I'd swear the game is not right when UAA is primary. Skuzzy has stated this multiple times, now I begin to understand why. Its not that the sound doesn't function, its the fact it takes more resources or something more sinister when it comes to the games execution in my pc.

Found something that states enable the stereo mixer, a hidden device it seems till you select show hidden devices. Did this and enabled it. Not so sure this is an answer tho. It appears to be for plugging things like a Walkman into the system.

Will continue searching, my issue seems to be related to mic input and the games com system. More than once engaging coms has tripped the issue, as I look back at it.

Let me ask this,
Is there a difference between the mic input in the back panel and the one in front of case, other than how it is wired to the board?
The mic I use originally came with software called GameVoice, speech recog software, is it possible there is a driver for it?
It worked without its software installed in beginning but..................

[Bizman]

no option available.

Oh? In that case I've found misleading information. Or, you did use the Windows speaker icon, not the Realtek icon?

Let me ask this,
Is there a difference between the mic input in the back panel and the one in front of case, other than how it is wired to the board?

Shouldn't be. On the other hand, you'll never know. But logically, since there's only one Microphone option in the sound interface unlike speakers having everything from stereo headphones to 7.1 active speakers, it seems there is no difference between front and back panel microphone jacks. If there were, there should be something like "headset mic" and "table mic". It's possible, though, that the front and back jacks don't share the mic boost setting, meaning you have to adjust them individually depending on which one you use.

The mic I use originally came with software called GameVoice, speech recog software, is it possible there is a driver for it?
It worked without its software installed in beginning but..................

The best source is the CD included with the microphone, or the mic manufacturer's support site.

[Chalenge]

You seriously need to clean drivers off your system.

Download the latest drivers and put them on your desktop where you can find.
Completely remove sound and video drivers. Use the uninstall feature from Control Panel where you can. Clean your system of these drivers.
Remove the installer programs from previous installs (c:\Nvidia\DisplayDriver\) should have no folders in it.

Install video drivers. DO NOT install audio drivers for your video card. This means you will have to do a custom install and only install display/graphic drivers.
Install your Realtek drivers.

Reboot.

[MADe]

You seriously need to clean drivers off your system.

Download the latest drivers and put them on your desktop where you can find.
Completely remove sound and video drivers. Use the uninstall feature from Control Panel where you can. Clean your system of these drivers.
Remove the installer programs from previous installs (c:\Nvidia\DisplayDriver\) should have no folders in it.

Install video drivers. DO NOT install audio drivers for your video card. This means you will have to do a custom install and only install display/graphic drivers.
Install your Realtek drivers.

Reboot.

Chalenge,

All good and proper advice. Did it, Done it, its how it is done.
Nvidia offers a clean install option which I use. Only thing I did not do is clean out the Nvidia file you mention. Its done now.
I always dump the sound stuff from the device manager uninstall option, including all related software.

All is the latest and supposed greatest now..

I guess I will dig up the gamevoice disc just in case there are drivers there.

Everything works as it should, mic, speakers always has. Except for AH, and these dern crashes. There is something about the mic execute and the game......................if it happened with other stuff, or loading other software, or boot, I'd guess it was a system issue, but its only the game.

[Chalenge]

No. The only thing the clean install does is remove your old profiles. It does not remove all of the bits and pieces of the old installers, and quite often misses driver files. Unless you do everything in the correct order, and complete the process correctly, then you may very well be creating your own issues.

Then there is the problem of the audio drivers. Nvidia's video card drivers include audio drivers. Some monitors use them, but monitor audio is never very good and the high definition driver will conflict with any other audio driver installed.

This is from experience, but feel free to ignore me. It may not even be your problem, but I think your problem has gone on long enough and it seems so familiar to me that I had to say something.

Carry on.

[MADe]

No. The only thing the clean install does is remove your old profiles. It does not remove all of the bits and pieces of the old installers, and quite often misses driver files. Unless you do everything in the correct order, and complete the process correctly, then you may very well be creating your own issues.

Then there is the problem of the audio drivers. Nvidia's video card drivers include audio drivers. Some monitors use them, but monitor audio is never very good and the high definition driver will conflict with any other audio driver installed.

This is from experience, but feel free to ignore me. It may not even be your problem, but I think your problem has gone on long enough and it seems so familiar to me that I had to say something.

Carry on.

Chalenge why be so combative.
I had already done what you stated. I do not install Nvidia sound drivers, ever. I do install vid drivers in safe mode. I never believed it to be a vid issue anyways. Sound drivers are disabled in safe mode so you cannot even uninstall them. I do use the analog outs to my HDTV speakers, but that's never been an issue. Your right this is an older thread, but I had just uninstalled the Realtek drivers and used MS drivers for a long time. I just started reloading Realtek drivers and got the same issue.

No one is forcing you to comment. I appreciate the effort however. But to assume I'm not taking your advice toot sweet is just wrong. 95% of your advice I was already doing. I built this machine, very intimate with its workings and how to track down issues. This is a tuffy. Asking questions is how I learn, surfing forums and the net is how I learn.

Anyways just flew 2 sorties and had machine running game for the same amount of time as when I get crash's. No screen freeze. I did refuse to engage coms tho. Not once. curious...............

I had uninstalled Realtek 2.71 again last night and flew MS UAA as I said before. No crash.
Today I installed Realtek 2.73, the latest, but I have used 2.70, 2.71, 2.72 without success. Do not believe 2.73 to be that much different. I enabled the stereo mixer device, this is new. I matched the sound MHz frequency all across the audio devices, 16 bit 48000MHz. Something I was already doing but..............I triple checked.
I also updated my chipset drivers to 9.4.0.1026, manually. Made sure all Intel embedded stuff was updated. All 2013 drivers. USB, PCI, chipset.....means nothing to audio.
Did a disc cleaning and tonight I will allow the SSD's a good GC session.
I did try to install the Game Commander software, mic was part of the package, but the software is too old. Its just a regular mic anyways. I only use the mic for the game.........

I tell you the machine really appears to perform better with the Realtek drivers installed. Certainly sounds better. I can hit the target, appears more realtime. Maybe just a placebo affect. Next time I fly game, gonna use the coms................if the crash occurs then its the mic, or the coms button I use.............or something associated with this area???

Bizman, TY as well for your effort to answer queries.

[Skuzzy]

Your CPU is running up to 160F?  That is really too hot, unless you are running a old Prescott core CPU.

[MADe]

Offline, sitting runway, engine hot, approx. 30min

Online, sitting hangar, engine hot. approx. 30min

Online, flyin furball over base, 5 sorties, approx. 45min Over 12 enemy, over 12 friendly, GV and ack ack present. Very populated area, Full bar Dar both sides.
note maximums. note gpu #2 temp and add a few degree. No OC on cards.
If I read Intel data specs for 900 series cpu correctly, 130F operating temp @2.67GHz.

On a summer day, can get around 60C. I switched to F for this test.
I did not engage coms at anytime during the furball online test. No crash or freeze up. Vid driver 331.65 game ready beta, sound driver Realtek 273
Tomorrow I will engage coms. Game does perform better overall with Realtek drivers installed.

Been changing sound settings around in PC, maybe I had some type of conflict. ie: non-matched MHz choices between mic, speakers yada yada????
Never had a heat related issue since putting machine together, over 5 years now.  The mobo thermal stuff is enabled.
Except when the fan died on one of my 550 ti's. The 260 ssc's have always been good. Only reason I upgraded was to get all system at DX11 level, plus the 550's were quite cheap.

Played AH from FA death till 2012, this issue not present. Started AH again earl 2013 till now, issue.

[MADe]

I was able to fly with coms, banging the mic hard in furball. No freeze/lockup. 1 hour fly time.
Day 1 of possible fixed issue.

1) realtek driver 2.73.
2) matched 16 bit 48000MHz, in all sound devices. stereo mixer, mic, speakers, cd and dvd.
3) enabled stereo mixer as default device with mic as default communications device.
4) new chipset driver, 9.4.0.1026, manually installed to all Intel drivers.
5) Nvidia driver 331.65 game ready beta???????????????

If the issue continues to be gone, its 1 of the above changes...................... .....................????????????????????????

[MADe]

Day 2 and I had no issue with freeze/lockups.
 

[MADe]

Well this issue happened again tonight.  
I was riding the button I use for VOX. Maybe its a failing button...................shor ting out...............
Was able to reboot, relog, continue flight and continue sorty

I remapped to another button on controller upon landing. Happens again I will remap to KB. I'm gonna find out what causes this dern it.

I was just thinking, the usb controller I use for my stick is 8 bit, the Realtek HD Audio mic input is set to 16bit, 48000MHz. I use a stick button to transmit vox coms, the mic is front panel jacked into puter.

Could this cause a conflict of some kind?
Dam now that I have this train of thought, I used to use com transmission with a Saitek controller buttons.
It was a 3rd usb device plugged in, when I got back into game, I dropped the Saitek controller and mapped coms to stick button..............

could it be that simple............