Hi. Recently my brother bought the new creative USB external sound card for his laptop. He isntalled it and suddenly divx files started crackling and popping on the sound. Naturally i reinstalled nimo (codec pack of choice) but it didnt fix it. It works normally on his speakers in built to the laptop but the usb soundblaster makes it crackle. Whats more, with no divx codecs installed only the sound plays for the videos, but it is fine. as soon as codecs for divx are installed it all mucks up. DVD's go wrong too. Pretty much all video. I cant think what it could be. Iv tried disableing in built audio drivers etc but nothing works. I even tried different codec packs. Whatever i try i can ot get the sound blaster USB to work with divx files with a clean sound!!
You've probably already guessed this, but it sounds like the Divx codec is working against something at the system level. I've heard of problems with Creative's external device, and crackling sound was one of them. I had a similar problem with the Nimo codec pack, when I installed it, one of my graphics-intensive programs would no longer work. Uninstalling it and cleaning the leftovers out of the computer made everything happy again. Not much help, I know, but I don't know of any workaround....
1. Go here for codecs: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/48608 2. With almost all laptop speakers you do know that you cant ramp the volume control all the way to the top or else there will be massive crackle-edge. Leave all the volumne settings to like 70% max and they should be fine (of course you may further need to adjust this if you have fancy effects running too)
The latest drivers for the sound card doesn't hurt either. Praetor, I bet the time you spent writing that guide up is paying for itself already
