Windows 7 - Windows 7 crashes when playing sound

It's a very annoying problem. If I play any sound (music, videos, games) for about 3 minutes, the system locks up and it makes the most terrible noise, and I have to reset. It runs perfectly in Safe Mode (most likely because Safe Mode doesn't activate the sound hardware), and in standard mode as long as it doesn't play music.

It first happened after I played a game of FEAR 2, I closed the game and the system crashed with a BSoD that disappeared too quickly for me to get any info. I've gotten some "page error in non-paged file" BSoDs, and most recently "driver irql not less or equal than" BSoDs (or something along those lines), but that hasn't happened recently. Usually it just locks up now with the noise.

I'm running Windows 7 on an Asus P5QL-E mobo, Intel C2D E8400 Wolfdale @ 3.00GHz CPU, ATI Radeon HD4850 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and the sound card is the mobo's onboard card.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi IncoherentMoron and welcome to Windows 7 Forums

This sounds (please forgive the pun) like a driver issue. Download the latest driver from here (you will have to accept the disclaimer): Realtek

You might need to follow the instructions in this Tutorial from our sister site in order to update the driver (this is the method that I use): Device Manager - Install Driver - Vista Forums

Hope this helps.

Hey IncoherentMoron


It could also be a graphics driver issue, and not a sound card one...

Have you downloaded the graphics driver updates from Windows Update?
The above is highly recommended, instead of downloading Vista version drivers for your graphics card.

I also suspect it's your video card. If Windows Update doesn't work, try getting your drivers from ATI. (Meaning not the install CD)

I already have the most recent Realtek drivers and most recent ATI drivers, and it still breaks while playing music. Thanks for the suggestions.

Another possibility which has just occured to me - could it possibly be a conflict between your motherboard audio and the audio on your graphics card, seeing that it has its own HD integrated audio controller?
Have you installed ATI HDMI Audio Device from here: Realtek

I just tried that, and it's still crashing. I'm worried that it might be a hardware issue or something requiring expensive parts.

What music app are you running when it crashes?

Do you have an alternative graphics card that you can try, preferably one without the integrated audio capability?

The music app is foobar2000, but it also crashes if I play Youtube videos or play Audiosurf. I don't have another graphics card.