Interesting little PC problem Ihad

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Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Vanraw - 11-14-2010

Thought I would share. My PC started having some serious random performance issues. Sometimes it was fine, but other times, games and even straight up goog search browsing would just slow to a snails pace.

First thought was a driver issue or nasty malware. After a bunch of trouble shooting I wont go into, however the one thing I noticied was that when I reverted / uninstalled some of the Microslop autoupdate security patches, the problem seem to go away. Searched and noone else was having the same issues.

Later the issues came back. Checking drivers and such I also found they were all compliant. Also loaded origial drivers thinking some update might have hoarked up the driver. No luck.

I noticed that the when the PC was working fine, I intermitently had problems playing mp3s. SO I disabled the on board audio codecs via bios, and the PC is back to brand new.

In the end it looks like I have a hardware issue on the motherboard AC97 chipset. I bought a pcie sound card and the PC is running like a champ again.....

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Zouji - 11-14-2010

Problems with onboard audio are pretty common if you are playing a lot of process intensive games. I have never been a fan of onboard audio. Ever.

Also for audio cards if creative still hasn't gotten their driver problems under control then the ASUS Xonar line of audio cards are a very good alternative.

The ASUS hardware still isn't as "cool" as creatives "I am god so bow before me" line of gaming cards, but at least they provide software drivers to make their crap work.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Diggles - 11-15-2010

Onboard audio *Simpson's Nelson laugh*

I concur with Zouji, I wouldnt buy another creative product. Asus = tech guru's best friend

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Skelas - 11-15-2010

Does onboard audio really suck up that many CPU cycles? when most CPU's were single core i always had a stand alone audio card, but with a CPU like an I7 with 4 smoking fast cores, do you really take a performance hit?

Just curious.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Vanraw - 11-15-2010

Skelas Wrote:Does onboard audio really suck up that many CPU cycles? when most CPU's were single core i always had a stand alone audio card, but with a CPU like an I7 with 4 smoking fast cores, do you really take a performance hit?

Just curious.

It really doesnt anymore. At least as long as the hardware and drivers are working ok. They havent really had CPU drains since the G31 chipsets were introduced by Intel. But people still have old perceptions.

Only reason I shared this was because it wasn't a gaming experience issue. It was a hardware fault. Even standard internet browsing perform, was impacted. Heck just opening the simple Google web page was a chore. It was impacting the entire PC.

FYI I did install a Creative Labs sound card and its working great.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Diggles - 11-15-2010

Vanraw Wrote:
Skelas Wrote:Does onboard audio really suck up that many CPU cycles? when most CPU's were single core i always had a stand alone audio card, but with a CPU like an I7 with 4 smoking fast cores, do you really take a performance hit?

Just curious.

It really doesnt anymore. At least as long as the hardware and drivers are working ok. They havent really had CPU drains since the G31 chipsets were introduced by Intel. But people still have old perceptions.

Only reason I shared this was because it wasn't a gaming experience issue. It was a hardware fault. Even standard internet browsing perform, was impacted. Heck just opening the simple Google web page was a chore. It was impacting the entire PC.

FYI I did install a Creative Labs sound card and its working great.

Wrong, completely wrong. Onboard sound can use as much as 15% CPU. On a faster multicore you can end up around 5%. So if you are running your games in very high video detail and maxing out CPU, your sound & fps will suffer. Because video is higher priority you may experience sound latency meaning the sfx are lagged and not playing exactly when they're supposed to, granted its in milliseconds, but hey..that matters to me. You can gain as much as 5 FPS with a dedicated soundcard, especially if you are like me and run HIGH quality sound + surround.

Sound makes ALL the difference in games, and gives you that much more of an edge. When you hear something happen and can react to it. I cant stand having ppl playing without sound on my team because they are basically fodder.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Vanraw - 11-15-2010

Diggles Wrote:
Vanraw Wrote:
Skelas Wrote:Does onboard audio really suck up that many CPU cycles? when most CPU's were single core i always had a stand alone audio card, but with a CPU like an I7 with 4 smoking fast cores, do you really take a performance hit?

Just curious.

It really doesnt anymore. At least as long as the hardware and drivers are working ok. They havent really had CPU drains since the G31 chipsets were introduced by Intel. But people still have old perceptions.

Only reason I shared this was because it wasn't a gaming experience issue. It was a hardware fault. Even standard internet browsing perform, was impacted. Heck just opening the simple Google web page was a chore. It was impacting the entire PC.

FYI I did install a Creative Labs sound card and its working great.

Wrong, completely wrong. Onboard sound can use as much as 15% CPU. On a faster multicore you can end up around 5%. So if you are running your games in very high video detail and maxing out CPU, your sound & fps will suffer. Because video is higher priority you may experience sound latency meaning the sfx are lagged and not playing exactly when they're supposed to, granted its in milliseconds, but hey..that matters to me. You can gain as much as 5 FPS with a dedicated soundcard, especially if you are like me and run HIGH quality sound + surround.

Sound makes ALL the difference in games, and gives you that much more of an edge. When you hear something happen and can react to it. I cant stand having ppl playing without sound on my team because they are basically fodder.

Yes, if you take your system to the edge, you can see some impacts. I have seen testing results that show 5 FPS hits on difference between on board audio and sound cards. But most CPU benchmarks dont show anywhere near 15%. Agree that if your maxing your system as far as graphic settings and sound quality you would see a bigger difference. For my part, and as long as the hardware is working, I dont see a major difference. At least not one that warrants a $100 plus addon card that takes up yet another PCIe slot on the motherboard.

[Image: quake4-tram1b-fixed-time.gif]

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Diggles - 11-15-2010

All of your charts there are fairly useless and not relevant at all. 90 seconds of comparison? Show me an average FPS after 24 hours of play. Post creative vs realtek @ 64 buffers, which is medium-high quality sound level. Lol 16-32 buffers? Sorry this isnt 2001.

Yes, $100 is alot for 5fps, but this is $100 that will last the entire life of the computer and is less prone to giving you all sorts of shit problems.

Numerous games and programs have problems with onboard audio.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Vanraw - 11-15-2010

3dmark are pretty standard performance test. At least its more then your subjective dribble.

Re: Interesting little PC problem Ihad - Diggles - 11-15-2010

Vanraw Wrote:3dmark are pretty standard performance test. At least its more then your subjective dribble.

Try posting charts that are relavant next time then chief