Sound Loop Then Windows Crash

(SwineHund) #1

Anyone else have this problem?
I brought it up in this mornings chat & SD said to email the details to them so for all of you out there who have had this prob please list your sys details here & a description of what happens so I can consolidate & send to etbugs.

For me the following happens.
Start game play a while then the sound starts looping & my PC either reboots with the “this sys has recovered from a serious error” or it just locks up & I have to kill it in taskmanager.

I found a workaround which has helped= by reducing the sound quality to 11khz I still get the sound loop problem but after a few seconds it comes right & I end up in the Limbo menu, not ideal but at least i dont get booted & lose my skills & XP.

My specs as follows
WIN XP Pro(all updates current)
Athlon 700mhz
256k sdRAM
GF 420mx ---->drivers detonator 44.1
Sound blaster Vibra 128---->Sound Blaster PCI (WDM) Drivers V 5.12.01.5017

playing in 800x600
32bit mode
dynamic lighting disabled
no texture compression

Please post your Info.
SwineHund(+)

(Coolhand) #2

I’ve suffered from the “soundloop crash” many times, and have never been able to find the cause for it. But so far it’s only ever happened in vanilla RtCW - it’s never yet happened to me playing ET. Yet.

(SwineHund) #3

hmmm have been really working hard on trying to figure this 1 out, & I think it is related to an irq conflict. I notice that winxp shares loads of devices on the same irq when it is installed on an athlon/via machine on an intel machine it does not…incidently I dont get the soundloop prob on any of my intel boxes.
Does anyone know how to reassign device irq’s under winxp??
I cant work out how to do it:(
Feedback & thoughts as to the IRQ as a possible cause for this issue are welcome.
SwineHund(+)

(MAN-AT-ARMS) #4

I do get this on a Intel box…so I do not believe it is an AMD issue. However it’s only happened to me with Soundblaster sound cards…So I’ve always assumed it’s a Soundblaster issue.

(Hatswitch) #5

Provided your motherboard supports it, Windows XP uses your motherboard’s ACPI function to assign IRQ’s (most will be on the same number). Personally, I disabled it in my BIOS so that I could set the IRQ’s myself. More info here.

(nobody) #6

Here’s a thought: try changing your soundcard on something not made by Creative Labs… see if it helps. I’m not saying that Creative Labs sound cards are bad or anything, but just try it if you can.

(SCDS_reyalP) #7

FWIW, The sound looping thing doesn’t necessarily mean that it is sound card related (of course it could be). What happens is the game tells the sound card ‘loop this sound until i tell you to do something else’. If it crashes or lags before it can tell the sound card to do anything else, then the sound loops.

(Auriel) #8

i too get this problem-

Amd duron processor
800mhz
384 ram
winxp pro
tnt (2?)

computer give to us so i’m not sure of any other settings.

et-
800x600 i think

medium settings.

(personal) #9

i also had this problem in rtcw, upgrading my creative drivers helped a lot
havent seen (yet?) in ET i think

specs
asus A7M266 mobo
amd athlon xp 2100+ (1733mhz)
512 ddr ram
asus gf4 ti4600 44.03 nvidia detonator drivers
creative sb audigy driver 5.12.1.253 12/8/2002
w2k sp3 fully patched
DirectX 9.0a

([DP]c0sm1c) #10

Hey guys… I spent ages trying to get this sorted out - I got it with RTCW when I changed my gfx card… and would occur more on hot days when the ambient temperature is higher.

I’m running a sparkle ti4200 GF4 128mb on a Soyo Dragon Ultra Platinum mobo with AMD XP2000 - 1Gig Nanya DDRAM… on a 450Watt PSU

I found that thermal noise was being introduced to the RAM on the gfx card due to poor ventillation - when this gets too much - Since I added heatsinks to the ram and an extra fan…The problem has gone away entirely.

The thermal noise is similar to the way a processor can mis-behave if allowed to get too hot and Hysteresis occur. ( look up thermal conditions in Field Effect Transistors (FET’s)- as a processor is made up of millions of them)

Also a poor or underpowered powersupply can introduce transient peaks and switching noise on the power rails of the PC - this noise becomes common to every component in the PC and causes lock-up…

The sound repeat is due to the last instruction in the codec being looped and because the processor is no longer available to send the interupt instruction to close the gate on the D/A convertor - hence you hear the last sound continually cycle.

This is more of a hardware issue than a OS - system or software fault.

Hope this helps :beer:

([TV]Weasel) #11

look there !

http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1625