Al,
Thank you and I know you are very good on this topic.
I will do more testing, but for starters, I just turned on Pandora, which I use with a Pandora One subscription for higher resolution.
And yes, I did immediately unplug the AC adapter, wondering if the battery alone might improve things but it did not.
The "upgrade" was nothing exotic - only to a Lenovo X201 which has a faster 1.66 chip and 8gb of memory, compared to my Lenovo S10 netbook which has an Intel Atom and only 1 gb of memory.
The only obvious difference is Windows 7 and hence my suspicion. As for settings on the computer, thats what I need to figure out.
I did not immediately recognize the audio settings compared to XP where you basically just select the USB audio device you want to use and off you go.
The sound was distorted and also had repeated tics or pops - a skipping sound.
Thanks for any ideas. |
Well it seems I spoke too soon, my stuttering and popping in Windows 7 returned today.
So I opened this thread to review and went to Sound shortcut on the desktop.
Somehow trying to switch between audio devices, I may have deleted something.
Now, on both "Playback" and "Recording" tabs, it says: "No audio devices installed".
Thinking it can't be so easy to delete a critical device, I have rebooted, disabled and enabled anything I could see in Device Manager, but now, nothing - no sound at all.
A quick Google for "no audio devices installed" reveals I am not the first, but weird and wacky suggestions re the BIOS and/or reinstalling Windows and I am in no mood for that.
Can anyone please tell me how to restore the audio - or even better, install more of an audiophile set up as a default?
Thank you.
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Elizabeth,
I like to have everything on one machine, and as a frequent participant in the forums, you should know that "audiophiles" often have a compulsion to buy and configure new hardware whether or not an older device works properly.
In addition, my netbook has been on for 8-16 hours a day for about two years, and dropped in the driveway a couple of times when rushing to work. So overdue for a new machine.
Elevick, yes, I don't even think about internal sound cards - all my audio goes out via USB into my Behringer DEQ2496 and/or an Audio Research DAC 5 at the moment. For headphones, I use a NuForce DAC which sounds pretty good.
As Al points out, however, there are still settings to configure the audio which can affect the sound.
Al - thanks and I will also check the system and power usage settings.
At the moment, the Sound shortcut can see that my playback device is "SPDIF Interface" which I don't think is strictly true since I am using optical out via a Behringer interface box to the Behringer DAC.
But somehow sounds pretty good this morning, so when in doubt: reboot.
Still there are things that bug me. If I right click on the SPDIF Interface icon and choose properties, there is a "Levels" tab which seems to function as a volume control.
This is counterintuitive to me as I am trying to export bits, not levels.
I will post more as I learn if any other Windows 7 users might be interested. |
Al and Davide really helped to solve the puzzle.
As mentioned above, I thought a simple reboot addressed much of the problem, but I finally had time this week to remember and take a closer look at the power and "sleep" settings.
Wow - that made a huge difference and really seems to have eliminated the problem.
Why computers would automatically do that with such bad side effects on performance without disclaiming them makes me crazy.
Why not set a machine for proper performance, and then be able to choose maximum battery life, while understanding that certain functions may suffer?
(But then again, I suppose most of the world thinks MP3 and iPod earbuds sound good.)
Later, I hope to spend more time with the geekier aspects of configuring PCs for audio as described in the DCS article.
IN the meantime, worrying about jitter, RFI and outlet power before changing the sleep settings, was a bit like wondering if I was using the right amount of spice when there was a dead rat in my soup.
Thank you all for expert advice as usual.
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Al,
System restore worked - thank you.
Will continue to work towards a better understanding of audio in Windows 7 and a hopefully a leaner, meaner, audiophile configuration.
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Re "comfortable suburban ride"
Comfort is the enemy of enthusiasm and the root of all mediocrity.
Long live enthusiasts and AUDIOgon,
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Still hard to isolate this problem, but - whatever I do with the power settings - it seems like it is exacerbated when I am using more than one application.
Alternatively, if I close everything down and play just say, Foobar, for example I seem to get less skipping and sputtering.
Does this suggest a "kernel mixer" mixing problem?
I hope it is not too much to ask that I would like clean, clear, sputter free audio, whether I am listening to music or to Windows sounds.
Thanks for any updates.
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Al,
You were right - but I made a mistake when I first tried to implement your fix.
I spent some time changing the power settings and choosing the preset menu for "maximum performance" and making sure that the sleep and hibernate features etc were all disabled.
As I mentiioned, things seemed better. But today was the worst sputtering and popping ever, despite "maximum performnance" power settings.
In the end - and you also mentioned this - the real culprit seems to be not the various sleep and hibernation options, but primarily the "throttling" of the CPU which is only found buried in the "advanced power settings."
So when the CPU options are expanded and set to minimum performance = 100 - that seemed to - at last - solve the problem, at least for now. It was otherwise unlistenable much of the time.
I will be curious to see if changing the CPU setting ONLY, while otherwise allowing the machine to sleep, hibernate etc might also work.
Thanks again and I hope this helps other Windows 7 64 bit users.
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Never thought we could improve upon the expertise of Al, but here is everything you need, in one clear and easy to understand document:
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/downloads/Windows_7_Optimization_Guide.pdf
I am still testing but this has gotten me to the next level of clarity and quiet.
I may have mentioned that my latest notebook is a Lenovo X201 if anyone knows how to get to the BIOS.
The final step in the Sweetwater guide is double checking any CPU power management policies which may be disabled only in the BIOS.
Al thanks again and good luck to everyone who would like better sound from their PC.
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Al and others,
I have not yet had the chance to delve into the BIOS, however, I have noticed another issue which I hope might help Windows 7 users.
My Lenovo X201 seems to revert to certain power saving settings every time it restarts.
By going to
> Control Panel
> Device Manager
> Universal Serial Bus controllers
>
I can then see a tree with "Generic USB Hub" at the top and at the bottom "USB Root Hub"
The challenge seems to be no matter how many times I adjust the power scheme settings, repeat the Sweetwater routine etc....
In the Power Management tab of every "USB Root Hub" item,
the box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"
is checked. This may not be the only, final piece to the puzzle, however, it seems to make a significant difference when I go through that entire tree and uncheck those boxes.
I otherwise love this laptop and Windows 7 has generally been pretty stable for me.
In our increasingly multi media world, however, I find it pretty ridiculous that I have to manually uncheck several boxes every time I dont want popping, stuttering audio?!
Oh...and one last extra credit question for the experts, please:
In the midst of all of this, I have totally lost track of DVD playback.
I sometimes "rip" my own DVDs to the hard drive, which using XP were easy to playback using Windows Media Player Classic and all the same audio settings I used for music.
Since migrating to Windows 7, however, I can now see the movie, but the only audio is a screechy, staticky, digital which somehow hasn't been decoded sound.
Thanks for all ideas and help.
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