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ZiNgA BuRgA · 11/10/2010 03:53 AM

Well, I had a "fun" day fiddling around with this computer.

Some weird things happening with my audio stuffs.

1. Speakers: doesn't happen too often, but sometimes when plugging in headphones on the speakers' remote, after taking them out, I only get sound through the left speaker.  When it first happened, power cycling the speakers fixed it.  Has happened a few times.  When it happened today, power cycling didn't seem to do it.  In fact, I could swap the L/R plugs and get it to come through only the right speaker (that is, left channel sound through right speaker), so the speaker wasn't dead.  From fiddling with the cables, it seems that it's either a cable or subwoofer problem.
I dunno, but after a while, it magically resolved itself.

2. Pops and clicks in sound.  This one I can't figure out.  This happened a while ago, but I didn't really bother looking into it.  Tried to today, but can't really find the reason.  There's some obvious pops & clicks when playing back music.  Tried increasing the buffer length in foobar2000 but to no avail.  Also tried the ASIO driver, but still get it, although seemingly less of it.  Increasing the buffer on the ASIO driver from 512 samples to 1024 samples stopped the issue however.
Anyway, before that, I suspected a possible driver issue, so I went to Creative's site and downloaded the latest driver.  This is where stuff started getting weird.
Firstly, in Firefox, I get a 500 error when I try to visit the page.  Opera worked, so I just pressed on, agreed at the agreement page and downloaded this 83MB driver package (wow).
Installation took a while and it didn't ask me many questions, including where to install it (the driver included on the included CD with the sound card does).  It also looked rather different to the drivers that come on the Creative CDs, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary.
Asked me to reboot after the install, so did so.
First thing I noticed after reboot is that anything requiring UAC elevation failed to open, with a 'cannot find ____' error (I have UAC enabled).  This includes stuff like compmgmt.msc (Computer Management) which don't prompt for UAC elevation.  As this practically stops me from looking into anything, I rebooted into safe mode to take a look (fortunately, I can access everything in safe mode).
Looking at the installed Sound Blaster driver (Device Manager » double-click sound device » Driver tab » Driver Details), I noticed that it installed a whole bunch of weird files, such as:
C:\Windows\Cfg01APR.ini
C:\Windows\Cfg02Hp.ini
(heap of these .ini files in the Windows dir; although .ini is typically a text file, these all contain junk binary data; also, many of these are identical (hashes match))
C:\Windows\ctfile.rfc
C:\Windows\SB0710.reg
C:\Windows\SB1040.reg
(a number of these .reg files too; these appear to be legit though)
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\T3 (hidden file containing random binary data)
C:\Windows\T4 (similar to above, but data different)
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\t3aim64.exe (self extracting CAB archive, does seem to contain stuff related to Creative, but the .ini in this archive also contains random binary data; EXE not signed)
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\t3apstp.exe (this file seems actually legit, plus it's signed by Creative)
C:\Windows\System32\t3.ini (filled with random binary data as opposed to text)

and a bunch of others, but I won't bother listing them.
The "random binary data" is somewhat interesting too.  The first byte always seems to be 0xA4.  In terms of byte distribution, it seems to be fairly evenly distributed, but not have anything lower than 0x80:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/74/clipboard01at.png

Anyway, my first suspicion was a dodgy driver, so I tried rolling it back and uninstall all Creative related stuff.  It seems that the above files weren't deleted though.  So I suspected some virus somehow got into the installer (which is odd, cause it's signed and signature is valid), but sending some suspicious files to VirusTotal didn't reveal anything.  Downloaded and installed Avira free and did a scan over the C: drive, but it found nothing, so I'm somewhat doubting a virus.
But I can't seem to figure out what this is exactly, how to fix it, and it just screams weird.
I've disabled UAC through a registry hack in safe mode, and now I can access everything fine.  Doesn't work with UAC enabled though.

Unfortunately, despite all the above, I still get pops and clicks in my sound (including with the updated driver).  Enabled the onboard audio, plugged speakers into those, but I still get it.
Seems like ASIO is the only thing that works okay, but I don't really like its idea of gaining exclusive control over the sound device, plus it seems to act weird at times and just decide not to work.

EDIT: actually, maybe "pops and clicks" isn't the best way to describe the issue, it probably sounds more like some quick scratch or similar.  Unfortunately, I don't really know the term to describe it.

tldr: Got dodgy sound, tried updating drivers, which made my system really weird.  Rolled back install, but obviously nothing solved.  ASIO doesn't have the issues, but I don't really want to use it.  Spent a whole day on this poo poo and I'm pissed.

Maybe I'll need to do an OS reinstall.  Never have actually had to do one because something stuffed up before >_>

Vegetano1 · 11/10/2010 04:00 AM

only prob i have had were with the filter output settings,. ;p lucky enough,. no need for a clean OS install,. :)

"soundblaster" Hihi

S7* · 11/10/2010 04:26 AM

So much for quality audio stuff... and double you tee eff @ the size of that driver.

ZiNgA BuRgA · 11/10/2010 05:38 AM

Omg, double you tee eff, managed to fix the whacky UAC thing.
For some reason, my C:\Program Files symlink was missing, so I recreated it (I have it pointed to somewhere on the F: drive). Have no idea why that fixes it.
Installed the SB driver from the weird EXE in the SysWOW64 folder, and it seems to install the correct stuff.

Still have the clicking, obviously. It seems to be somewhat based on CPU usage or similar. Sounds seems mainly fine if I don't do anything, but if I, for example, start crazy scrolling the task manager listbox, I start getting clicks.
Weird, I thought buffering was meant to prevent that...

PSPkiller · 11/10/2010 06:03 AM

You're right in increasing the buffer size to try and get rid of the pops and clicks. I was getting a similar problem to you recently where increasing the buffer seemed to do nothing. This was with my Focusrite Saffire Pro audio interface. I was having the same problems except that sometimes the sound would cut out completely for a few seconds and then the computer would BSOD. It turned out that the Saffire was faulty because it's since died completely. I should have a replacement soon.

As for your Soundblaster, Creative have never been any good at drivers. Have a look at the KX Project and see if your card is compatible. They are an alternative set of drivers that allow a huge amount of configuration and are generally more stable than Creatives own drivers. Give them a go.

The left channel not working on your speakers sounds a bit like a dodgy headphone socket. Inside the socket is a little switch that cuts the spekers when you plug in a pair of headphones. Sometimes the switch gets stuck. Plug the headphones in and out a few times quickly and blow hard into the socket. That might free it. If it doesn't work you could try returning them if you still have the receipt.

If I were you I'd do a system resotre to hopefully get your old driver back. Obviously the new driver doesn't work and it's caused all manner of other problems. Uninstalling it didn't get rid of all the mysterious files so maybe a system resotre will. After that I'd recommend installing the KX Project drivers if they're compatible and then sorting out the speakers.

Best of luck.

ZiNgA BuRgA · 11/10/2010 02:56 PM

Awesome, thanks a lot for the info PSPkiller!
I'll try those :)

EDIT: okay, no support: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/general-di...-x-fi.html
Oh well, I'm somewhat doubting the driver to be the issue here anyway.
Thanks for the info anyway!

ZiNgA BuRgA · 15/10/2010 09:08 PM

OMG, after many hours, I finally discovered the problem:
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/1855...saver.html

Damn that app. It seems to work fine for me if I disable CPU throttling though.

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