Question about Reaktek sound issue in Windows 8 Pro x64

[devnulllore]

Hi,

 

I have been having an ongoing problem since I got my new PC. I sunk a lot of money into it so it would run the latest games very well and left room for scalability. I have the Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard and am using the onboard sound, I have the Realtek ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio and a Logitech 5.1 surround speaker system and quite frankly am very happy with it. The problem is Windows defaults the quality to the highest in advanced format, which this system should do fine with. Lately I have been getting minute pauses in my audio. Mostly when playing mp3's. It seems to happen even if I turn the format down to low studio or high dvd quality. I have the latest drivers for my whole system and have nothing taxing running in the background. I have done dozens of Google searches and followed various suggestions like removing the drivers and try the windows default, reinstalling the Realtek driver, in admin mode and out as well as a handful of small things'

 

I have a degenerative condition and my condition seems to be causing my technical abilities to diminish faster than the doctors thought. I have a list of my system specs but cannot remember how to put then in a separate window so please forgive the extra space in this post. I hope someone can help me figure this out.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Summary
  
Operating System - Windows 8 Pro 64-bit

CPU - Intel Core i7 3770K @ 3.50GHz

Chipset - Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 802MHz (10-10-10-27)

Motherboard - ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. SABERTOOTH Z77 (LGA1155)

Monitor - ASUS VH242H (1920x1080@60Hz)

Graphics
2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (EVGA)
2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (EVGA)
ForceWare version: 320.49
SLI Enabled

Hard Drives (All drives are on individual channels)
112GB Samsung SSD 840 Series (SSD) (OS)
233GB Samsung SSD 840 Series (SSD) (Games)
466GB Western Digital Black (SATA III) (Storage Only)
466GB Hitachi HGST Touro Mobile USB 3.0 (External)
LG HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW UH12NS29 (SATA III)(Blu-Ray player DVD+-R/RW)

Audio
Realtek ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio

<More if needed>

[devnulllore]

Still getting it and it seems to happen when something hits my OS SSD. I have the Samsung 840 Pro and Samsung Magic auto optimized for OS.

 

I also get a pop when booting, presumably when the drivers are loading. Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

[devnulllore]

hmm. I guess without restoring my 1st image (which I am ready to do as I did a bit o' tweaking that made some small changes I don't like), I would have to live with this. This was not a problem at the beginning. I do not have the incremental backup down in True Image yet. I just upgraded to the 2014 version and was also wondering which backup is better, full once a week, incremental every other day or so or decremental?

 

My Thanks,

[remixedcat]

Switch the output on your media player app to wave out instead of DirectSound. I have skipping in my songs (On DirectSound mode) even when I have it set to cache to RAM instead of playing from disk.

 

(Note: I use J-River Jukebox and it has the option to play files from memory instead of disk-highly recommended media player!)

 

Also setup the output of other software to use this if you can. I suggest doing the hybrid of my solution above as, I get better performance and less stuttering. 

 

I also got a Samsung 840 SSD as well. I have the pop at boot as well as having Logitech 5.1's and a Realtek sound card. 

[spaceelf]

Switch the output on your media player app to wave out instead of DirectSound. I have skipping in my songs (On DirectSound mode) even when I have it set to cache to RAM instead of playing from disk.

something that uses WASAPI would be better on 8 than either.

[remixedcat]

something that uses WASAPI would be better on 8 than either.

 

Don't think Realtek has that tho?? Does it?

[spaceelf]

Don't think Realtek has that tho?? Does it?

WASAPI is the main sound interface for Vista, 7 and 8.  I don't think either DirectSound or wave out go through the services (I can't remember the exact name) that prevent audio glitching.

[spaceelf]

Operating System - Windows 8 Pro 64-bit

CPU - Intel Core i7 3770K @ 3.50GHz

Chipset - Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 802MHz (10-10-10-27)

Motherboard - ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. SABERTOOTH Z77 (LGA1155)

Monitor - ASUS VH242H (1920x1080@60Hz)

Graphics

2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (EVGA)

2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (EVGA)

ForceWare version: 320.49

SLI Enabled

Hard Drives (All drives are on individual channels)

112GB Samsung SSD 840 Series (SSD) (OS)

233GB Samsung SSD 840 Series (SSD) (Games)

466GB Western Digital Black (SATA III) (Storage Only)

466GB Hitachi HGST Touro Mobile USB 3.0 (External)

LG HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW UH12NS29 (SATA III)(Blu-Ray player DVD+-R/RW)

Audio

Realtek ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio

<More if needed>

You might try the Intel AHCI driver for your system if you haven't.  It's worth a shot.

 

Other than that though, the analog audio support on built in audio has been very hit or miss in the past so I couldn't say if it's fixable.

 

There's this too, but I highly doubt it'll help. http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-327-23-whql-drivers-released

[devnulllore]

Switch the output on your media player app to wave out instead of DirectSound. I have skipping in my songs (On DirectSound mode) even when I have it set to cache to RAM instead of playing from disk.

 

(Note: I use J-River Jukebox and it has the option to play files from memory instead of disk-highly recommended media player!)

 

Also setup the output of other software to use this if you can. I suggest doing the hybrid of my solution above as, I get better performance and less stuttering. 

 

I also got a Samsung 840 SSD as well. I have the pop at boot as well as having Logitech 5.1's and a Realtek sound card. 

Hmm, OK willing to try that, however, I can't see how to do that in Windows Media Player. Perhaps you can recommend another player or tell me where to change that in WMP 12?

 

Thanks,

 

[devnulllore]

something that uses WASAPI would be better on 8 than either.

Sorry to see so ignorant of the facts here but what is WASAPI and can you recommend something that uses it?

 

Thanks,

[remixedcat]

J-River has the options but I don't think WMP does anymore. I think they got rid of it.

[devnulllore]

OK, I will look at that and try it.

 

While I am working on that another thing has been bothering me. I have my Logitech 5.1 analog speakers plugged in to the on-board audio and all the tests, both in windows and the Realtek software, work fine but I never get audio out the rear speakers otherwise. With speaker fill enabled in the Realtek software all I get is an EXTREMELY soft muddy sound out of the rear speaker, almost inaudible. Is there something I should do or know about the Realtek on-board sound with analog 5.1 speakers?

 

Thanks,

[remixedcat]

I have realtek and logi 5.1's and my logis sound really bad as well... not a good combo to have that's for sure!

 

Mine kinda phase in and out sometimes and my sound strains no matter what settings I have. the speakers sound like someone's choking them!

[devnulllore]

I have realtek and logi 5.1's and my logis sound really bad as well... not a good combo to have that's for sure!

 

Mine kinda phase in and out sometimes and my sound strains no matter what settings I have. the speakers sound like someone's choking them!

Yeah, well I guess it's time for me to look for a set of digital speakers. I have read certain reviews that recommend models that work great with Realtek sound.

 

Cheers,

[remixedcat]

Glad to help!

[devnulllore]

Well, I guess my whole perception of how 5.1 is supposed to work with this sound device and my analog speakers was wrong. I am now lead to believe, please correct me if I am wrong, that the only way to get surround (not true 5.1) is to use the software's "surround" option, which actually just bleeds the front channels to the rears with a fraction of delay. The only way to get true 5.1 discrete channels is through the digital out and to digital speakers using a source that is truly 5.1 encoded. Is that right? That would explain a lot. Anyway, with the help I have gotten here I have everything sounding pretty good. I use the EQ in Windows Media Player but understand that there are several better free ones. I will look into that.

 

Thanks for everything 

[Noir Angel]

Have you looked into your event viewer to see if there are any clues? I have an ALC889 on my motherboard, with the save driver version and I get no issues in Windows 8

 

 

OK, I will look at that and try it.

 

While I am working on that another thing has been bothering me. I have my Logitech 5.1 analog speakers plugged in to the on-board audio and all the tests, both in windows and the Realtek software, work fine but I never get audio out the rear speakers otherwise. With speaker fill enabled in the Realtek software all I get is an EXTREMELY soft muddy sound out of the rear speaker, almost inaudible. Is there something I should do or know about the Realtek on-board sound with analog 5.1 speakers?

 

Thanks,

 

The overwhelming majority of music is encoded in stereo, you're unlikely to get much in 5.1 format

[remixedcat]

Try the media player I mentioned it allows you to change output format to 5.1

[p1p3]

Sound like you have a broken driver running on your system. Try measuring your DPC latency using http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon or http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

I'm not 100% sure if it works on Windows 8 as "the implementation of kernel timers has changed in Windows 8" (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml) but it?s it won?t break anything to give it a try.

If it doesn?t work try disabling different hardware to locate the problem.

Some common problems from my own experience are Wireless and Wired network cards and Intel RAID drivers.

Here is a guide that is more for audio production but will go through the steps for finding real time audio issues. http://www.native-instruments.com/knowledge/questions/847/Windows+7+Tuning+Tips+for+Audio+Processing

[devnulllore]

OK, I will try the J river player but I did what was suggested by p1p3 and went into device mangler uh.. I mean manager and found all sorts of audio devices that are not in use such as the HD out from my video cards etc.. I disabled those and the ones I was sure were not in use and the problem went away.

 

Thanks,

[spaceelf]

OK, I will try the J river player but I did what was suggested by p1p3 and went into device mangler uh.. I mean manager and found all sorts of audio devices that are not in use such as the HD out from my video cards etc.. I disabled those and the ones I was sure were not in use and the problem went away.

 

Thanks,

I was wondering about that.  The newest graphics drivers do have an updated HDMI audio driver which I thought had fixed something like that, but I couldn't find the info so :(

 

Glad it's fixed at any rate.