Sound quality on T400/500 with 64-bit OS

I was just wondering if anyone else using Vista 64 is getting awful sound quality with the conexant audio chipset?

I remember playing music on Vista Basic (32-bit) when I first got it, and I didnt notice any problems. However, after doing a clean install of Vista Business 64 and getting the most recent drivers from System Update, I am noticing some really bad audio quality with frequent static and crackling during music playback.

Im also runnning Fedora 10 64-bit, which is also getting pretty bad audio, but there is no crackling or popping like in windows--however, this is probably a separate issue altogether?

Anyway, after doing a bit of searching, Ive found that conexant has not released any drivers for 64-bit OS's and Im wondering if this has anything do with it (rather than there being a problem with my sound card?).

If anyone is running a 64-bit OS on a T400/500, please let me know how your audio/music playback is working, so I can try to diagnose what is causing this problem.

 

I am using Vista Business 64 and my Realtek sounds roughly the same. There is a huge dent in my X-Fi tho .

 

I have zero issues and am using the Conexant High Definition Smart Audio 221 driver version 4.56.

 

there is no problem on my T500. watched couple of movies and gamed a lot, found no problems with audio. using the latest drivers. i am using vista ultimate x64.


presently waiting for the arrival of creative xmod.

 

In that case I guess Im going to have to try experimenting with a few different music players to see if anything improves. I dont spend much time on windows so im just using the stock windows media player. If that fails, ill have to use the recovery discs to see if it still happens on a default install.

I really dont want to send this thing in, so if anyone has any experience with the issue (crackling and popping during music playback), I would appreciate it if you could shed some light.

Just for reference, if anyone is familiar with audio problems in general, the symptoms are as follows. After playing an mp3 in windows media player for about a minute, a popping noise about as loud as the music begins to occur on one second intervals. There is also a noticeable degree of static on the lower/higher range frequencies. The volume settings are all below 50% and Im using a decent pair of AKG headphones.

 

Do tell...will it work for my XFI Notebook?

 

it will work for any notebook, it is usb

 

Sorry, I meant my EX54 one.

 

so, yes the sound quality is . I noticed, that the speed at which the fan is spinning affects audio. Then there are settings in drivers, where actually you can sort some of the quality questions you mentioned. It is like a preset rock,soft,jaz... the way the codec demodulates the bit stream.

 

I figured out what was causing the problem, so I figured I should post back in case anyone else should stumble across the thread with the same problem.

One of the various windows updates, labeled as either important or recommended, was causing a popping-crackling effect in my audio when using headphones to play music on Vista Business 64. Im fairly certain this is what caused the problem.

While, trying to fix the issue, I uninstalled Vista 64 with plans to try XP to see if that fixed the problem. However, when I tried to install XP, the installation disk would always fail because it refuses to install itself on a computer with linux installed. Well, at that point I just said %^& you XP, !@^# you Microsoft, and decided to reinstall business 64 on a tiny partition just so I could use the various thinkvantage software when necessary (namely power manager for battery levels). The sound quality was at least tolerable in linux (no popping, less static), so I figured I could deal with that.

After reinstalling vista, first thing I did was run a Lenovo System Update, and got most of the important updates, and did a reboot. When I turned it on, I decided to check my email and do some browsing, at which point I decided to try out the music again. Get this--the problem went away. I was listening to music with my headphones for a good half hour straight and not one problem. So I think well gee, this is swell, maybe something just went wrong with my previous install.

Once Im done using my computer, I decide to let it run the windows update for a while (close to an hour maybe?) while im away. When I come back to use the computer, I reboot it so the updates can be applied and windows does the whole configuring updates thing. As soon as it starts up, I turn on the music again and guess what? Thats right, the popping and crackling is back. Great, thanks for the update microsoft.

Im not sure which update in particular it is, since they were installed in a batch of 23. Maybe there's another update somewhere down the line that fixes whatever one decided to ruin my audio, but im not going to take my chances. Im just going to reinstall the piece of crap operating system again, and refuse any or all windows updates this time. I would have done a system restore, but my only restore point includes the windows updates

And there you have it. Hopefully youll find my story either helpful, entertaining, or both. Now if youll excuse me, Im heading back to linux.


EDIT - update: After a bit more testing, it seems likely that the cause was actually the 'Intel Matrix Storage Management' driver from Lenovo's site. Although, I was quick to blame microsoft, Ill have to admit it didnt seem very likely that some sort of security patch or hotfix would have such a direct affect on my audio. It then occurred to me that I had done one more update in addition to the windows updates before the last reboot when the problem started. I had done a manual install for the Intel Storage Matrix Management driver in the device manager, since it doesnt come up with the standard setup.exe installer. Anyway, after doing a rollback on this driver, the sound-popping problem seems to have stopped.

While Im not entirely sure what this driver is supposed to do, it's much more likely that it could have caused the problem since it seems to be related to ports on the motherboard. If youre having audio problems on a 64-bit Windows operating system, I highly recommend you try uninstalling this driver to see if it makes any difference. In the device manager, it's under the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers tab, and should be named something along the lines of "Intel(R) ICH9/M ... "--it's probably the only one with Intel in the name. Doing a rollback on this driver should install the default windows driver, and hopefully solve any issues youre having with your audio.

 

Thanks for the follow-up. Would be interesting if someone went through the pain of doing the updates one at a time to find the culprit.