For some reason no matter what driver I use in 7000 the sound plays fine for a while and then it gets really poppy/scratchy hard to explain. Has anyone else had a experience like this?
ok changing sound from Speakers to SPDIF out seems to have fixed the problem
Howdy, I did experience install issues trying several different cards.
First an old 16 Live, it did not want to accept the w7 platform, not the other way around.
I did get a really cheap encore 5.1 (among others) and gave it a try in XP, it did quite well software and all.
But in w7 I had to use the Compatibility tool and tried both vista and xp modes, I found that vista was unstable, but the xp mode blew me away....
If you recall when we first got CD Audio systems, it was major jump in sound reproduction from semi-conductor analog systems to digital. I got that same jump in sound quality.
I used an asus m2a-vm, w/4gb 800 mhz 4x ddr2, amd 5000+, sata drives, xp gave good sound, but when I installed w7 and go the drivers in for the sound, the cards control panel would not load but windows mixer was fine and the sound awesome.
I used the same EXACT cd, and the same EXACT mp3 files to test sound, with xp installed on one hd and w7 on another I could quickly unplug and swap so the systems were truly separate, I was nothing short of impressed, sound quality was easily noticed as superior with w7, same drivers, same media, the mp3's were on a usb mem stick, the cd was a new bluegrass disc from f-meyer...
This may be the key for you, if you tried the compatibility tool and choose vista, then saved the mode before testing, and found it didn't work and tried again and choose xp but did not undo the vista choice, I can see that may cause something like what you describe. Don't quote me, but that maybe worth looking into, I only described my findings of 2 cards, I had other issues with onboard and other updated, stuff, all of which seems to have simple work a-rounds. I hope this can help you get it going right...
I would also check your wires, plugs etc, maybe the card is too old, the contacts in the socket might be slightly sprung, so a rubber band to hold a slight steady pressure on plug in one direction or another may also solve it.... Good Luck...
