Sound stutter overheat or not

Hi,

Occasionally if I have been running for a long time or have been doing stuff computationally intensive I get sound stutter which I always assumed was due to overheating.

However, I run with the case open, a huge Thermaltake CPU fan and my temperatures never seem to get that high, CPU is always below 50C, GPU normally at 51C whatever I am doing.

Finally there is a third sensor and I am not sure what it is for. When I have the sound stuttering the temperature on that reaches 70C (IMO not THAT high).

The thing that puzzles me though is that once the sound has started to stutter it never gets better until I switch off at the mains. It will still stutter even when the temps drop back to all three sensors being below 50C.

I run XP and linux and I have the same problem in both systems so I think that rules out drivers.

Is it overheating or is it my crappy on board sound?

Cheers

 

I think the problem is onboard sound. if you upgrade to a new card you shouldn't have any trouble.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829111001

 

Okay thanks for your reply. I was thinking of buying a card anyway so I guess I will go ahead with it.

The only thing that made me think it could be overheating was that it only seemed to happen after this 3rd sensor had reached a relatively high temperature but as I said it wasn't that high and I still had the problems when it cooled down.

Cheers.

 

Bought a new sound card. Sound is better but I still get a stutter .

Must be overheating, I don't get it the temperatures shown are not that high. When the stuttering starts it is if the 3rd sensor listed as core0 in linux and System in Windows gets high ~70C.

As I said if it cools down I still have a the problem, even if all temperatures are below 50C.

So what is this 3rd sensor for if it's not the GPU/motherboard. How do I cool it down?

Cheers

 

How many case fans do you have. you might try adding a fan or two to improve air flow. download speed fan in windows and run that. run that and monitor your temps for a while. if you dont know what is what you could hit the configure button and it will tell you what each sensor is. let me know what component is getting hot.

 

I have one case fan at the back but actually I often run with the case open. Right now at idle my temps are pretty low. Also I have a speed control on my thermaltake CPU which I never used to have on full but now I leave it on full all the time.

I will have a look at that Speed Fan program but I am going away for a few weeks. I will let you know when I get back so can you please stay subscribed to this thread?

Can anyone understand why the sound stutter remains even if the temperatures drop back down???

 

I have installed Speed Fan and the highest temperature shown is called Temp1 and is at ~50C. There is a fire symbol next to it but I don't think this is that high.

The Nvidia monitor has the GPU at 50C and the nForce (whatever that is) at 53C. I think the problems begin when the nForce one is high as the GPU is always at 50C.

Remember I have this problem in linux and XP so it is probably hardware. I also had this problem when I was using onboard sound and since I bought an audigy sound card.

What is this nForce temp? how can I cool it down? I don't even know where it is on the mobo!

Cheers

 

Which motherboard do you have? A few boards are prone to sound stuter.

 

It has Nvidia components and I think the model is nForce 430. The board is branded WinFast but I think it is made by Foxxcon.

Yeah just checked it's the N15235.

 

I didn't think the earlier nforces were prone to it, it's the 650i that was the worst. However, the 'System 70C' reading means that the chipset is overheating, and that means you WILL get some lag with sound and/or keyboard/mouse input. The easiest solution for that is to increase your case airflow (do NOT leave your case side open, unless you put an external fan next to the PC that actually makes things worse) or to fit a better heatsink to your motherboard's chipset. What case do you have, how many fans does it have, and how many fans can it hold?

 

i have a case fan at the back, a big CPU fan that keeps the CPU nice and cool. There is another heatsink below the processor that I guess is the system chipset, maybe I can replace that???

There is only one other fan space right at the front by the hard drives. I don't have a fan there so I could try that.

At the moment the case is open with the front open but maybe I should try the front open with the side on?

If the case is closed with the front on then the system actually cuts out!

Cheers

 

1 case fan is a problem, you may want to consider a better case that can hold more fans. The small heatsink below the CPU one, however, IS the one I'm talking about and replacing that, whilst not ideal, will certainly help.

 

I might try another case fan at the front. My CPU fan obviously blows air backwards towards the other case fan which also blows backwards taking the air out.

If I add a case fan at the front should I get it to suck air in or blow air out?

Where can i find heatsinks for the system chipset?

Cheers

 

You should have a front fan blowing in. As for chipset heatsinks, this combination is about the best you can buy, but obviously it's quite pricey:
http://www.ncixus.com/products/25823/HR-05/IFX/THERMALRIGHT/
http://www.ncixus.com/products/11485/80MM-B/Nexus Technology USA/

 

sam give up beating on the 650 coz yours sucked, mine never had any of the issues i had with my older nf4 board.

it is a heat issue from the sound of it but if you can increase the pci latency in your bios to 128, it fixxed it for me on my old board.

 

The link you gave me before only seemed to have a fan and not a heatsink?

Where in the BIOS can I adjust the latency? I looked around in there but couldn't find anything, should it be obvious?

I tried changing the latencies in linux with setpci but it didn't work. However, I'm not convinced they changed because the command

Code:

cat /proc/interrupts

kept showing the same default latencies.

Also, I tried changing the IRQs. I couldn't do this in either system or BIOS but I disconnected the front USBs and my firewire PCI card and this moved the sound card IRQ to 20 and the VGA to 21 whereas they were the other way around but with no effect.

After all that, I am pretty convinced heat is the root cause! I wish I had never bought barebones now, next time I will build from scratch so I can start with a decent case, CPU fan etc.

cheers

Cheers

 

There were two links...

Marsey: It's a known fact that the board you have is a dodgy product and you know it. Some worked well, most didn't, but I've seen these problems affect the EVGA 650i boards as well. That particular issue is not just the fault of the P5N-E SLI, but it's to do with the 650i itself.

 

I got the heatsink and fan. So far it seems to have worked okay. I still had some problems but I think I used to much heatpaste so I scraped some off and tried again. I couldn't fit the fan with the heatsink (no room)so I stuck it on the front of the case.

However... My gfx card won't work anymore! I had to remove it to fit the heatsink and it just gives no signal, not even BIOS.

Here's a rundown:
* on board graphics work
* My gfx card works on my work computer which I tested today.

Does this mean I fucked some part of my mobo up?

I've reseated it 100 times with no luck. I'm a bit worried some of the excess heatpaste may have caused a short or something.

Cheers

 

That could potentially be a possibility, if there was an uncleaned spill after you powered the PC up. You disn't dislodge any of the cables?