Random, choppy, audio stutter. Not just inside MAME.

[vidar77]

Well, sadly this has to be my first post but I hope I can get some advice.

I've googled and found a bit of advice and going to try that stuff out but my problem is just a random choppy audio.  This problem isn't just inside MAME and hyperspin.  I try to play MP3's through winamp, Windows media player or VLC and it will eventually do it in all of them and its not the mp3's because they are fine on my laptop.  Thing is its random, I can listen to 4 songs and not happen, then it will happen, might last 3-4+ mintues(I can't listen after about 3 minutes of it going on) or it might last for only 10 seconds.  It just cuts the audio in and out and makes it like a popping kind of sound.  Honestly like some wires are rubbing together and its just shorting in and out but I've wiggled the wires..

My PC, an old Gateway. 2.8?ghz, 1-2 gig ram, fresh windows XP install, cut to bare minimum stuff at boot.  I am running the Keywiz encoder(which I honestly don't like because I can't shell hyperspin..  =\ ) and I have that set to auto load which sometimes works, sometimes it locks up and I have to get the mouse out, close it and load it again and thats very annoying because thats random too.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

This rig has been working ok and I didn't notice the audio problem until recently and what I did recently I probably should've read up on because it might have caused this and this is why I'm here.  Hopefully someone has electronics experience.  I have old school coin door lights(the old 12v bulbs) that I wired into the 5volt power on the keywiz board.  I put 1 line into the 5v, and 1 line into the ground and the ground I just let hang.  Yes I know, bad wiring but I didn't think it would ---fudgesicle--- anything up.  The lights lit up and everything was working fine for awhile then I tried playing some MP3's and noticed some songs were .. popping.. 

So I unplugged the lights, still did it.
Then unplugged the keywiz board because I thought maybe its something to do with that, still did it.
I tried both speaker jacks on the computer, both still did it.
I unplegged everything, let it sit, unplgged the speakers, plugged it all back in with keywiz unplugged, still did it.
Tomorrow I am going to try new speakers.

After that I don't know.  I could reinstall the audio driver.  I think its one of those RealHD or Realtek or something.

I can hear pops and such from time to time from the speaker if I turn it up loud enough, like its still doing it even if no audio is playing.

Its not a lag issue because I have task manager running and the CPU is only at like 10-20% usage and only like 250 of 2000ram used.  I've played a couple games in MAME and it does the same stuff in there.  Random, choppy and poppy and just random timing.

I do have the computer wired to a toggle switch that I use to turn the system on and off.  The 5v on the keywiz is right next to the ground wires and while hooking up the wiring for the lights I did notice that if I even glanced the two wires together the PC would shut off so I don't know if a live went into the ground and shorted something and how far down it went or what really happened.

I think I may have F'ed the board, but the encoder still works and I can still play games on 1p and 2p and seems setup as it should be but I just get an audio glitch now...

So any thoughts or advice or anything??

[Dermbrian]

If the problem is software or driver related, I expect that you'll see a big problem when you run DPC Latency Checker.

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

I have had problems like you describe, where the only cure was to reinstall my complete system from my vendor's original install disks.  No combination of re-applying drivers or de-installing other stuff would ever fix it.

I'll be curious to see if that program shows problems on your system.


Brian

[vidar77]

Well, I tried out the DCPL thing and everything was green.  I left it run, played some songs, everything was green and the little info box said something along the lines "This PC should have no problems."

Then I tried a new speaker and I found out it was the speakers.

Swapped out speakers a few times and it the same song would be bad, then good on different speakers.  So I'm not sure what the deal is.  I wiggled the wires around and didn't go anything really so I don't think they are frayed inside the sheath.

The thing is and I will test it more tomorrow, only certain songs at certain times make the bad speakers go bad but those times will play good on the good speakers.  Like my bad speakers won't play certain frequences or something now.

Would wiring the coin door lights like I did F the speaker up somehow??

Looking like I will just need to buy new speakers..  =(

[Nacimroc]

The new speakers work perfect? I would have guessed the amp is faulty? When you shorted it to ground it could have broke the amp. Couldn't see how both speakers could be faulty at same frequency at the same time.

[Vigo]

I had a problem like this. What I had to do was go to the manufacturer website and find an updated version of the onboard audio and video drivers. (both were integrated in the motherboard) Once I installed and reset, everything worked smooth as butter.