IDT Audio issues and Windows XP

[Hawke]

Has anyone experienced any problems with Windows XP and IDT audio?

I have a D5400XS motherboard and the IDT audio subsystem is driving me nuts - sometimes in the past it doesn't work after startup, and I have to uninstall both the IDT audio and KB835221 High Definition Audio Package, switch off the PC, switch it on, login to Windows XP, and re-install it - even with the latest version of the drivers this still happens.

I don't belive it is hardware issues otherwise the audio would not work at all - but recently it has started to do this every time I log into Windows XP (after the computer has shut down, meaning if I want to play a game, I would have to go through the process of uninstalling, switching off and reinstalling.

(I did purchase a Creative Labs PCI Sound Blaster that did not work and I am going to send it back)

Can anyone tell my why my audio driver refuse to work, I even tried to start the audio service through Component Sevices (found in Administrive Tools in the Control Panel) without luck, I had a message that the service started and then stopped

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Can anyone tell my why my audio driver refuse to work, I even tried to start the audio service through Component Sevices (found in Administrive Tools in the Control Panel) without luck, I had a message that the service started and then stopped

Is it correctly enabled in your BIOS?

Are you overclocking heavily? You might be going that one click too far and destabalizing some of the I/O devices FWIW... it's not just CPUs that mess up with too much overclocking. I had one system I couldn't overclock by more than a couple of percent because the disk drives would shut down.

Or... most likely it is a hardware defect that will require replacing the board to fix. Just because it's digital doesn't mean it either works 100% or not at all... the more complex a system becomes the more ways there are for it to fail.

 

[Hawke]

Absolutly nothings overclocked and everything is at their defaults in BIOS and has been since the creation of the system

It has happend at random times in the past, but of recent, it has been happening almost all the time - the audio works after a re-install until the computer switches off and on (not reboot)

Device manager displays nothing wrong and the IDT audio codec is missing - I am guessing that something is corrupting it.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Absolutly nothings overclocked and everything is at their defaults in BIOS and has been since the creation of the system

It has happend at random times in the past, but of recent, it has been happening almost all the time - the audio works after a re-install until the computer switches off and on (not reboot)

Device manager displays nothing wrong and the IDT audio codec is missing - I am guessing that something is corrupting it.

Ok, we're not out of possibilities yet...

It sounds like Plug and Play isn't detecting the chip. There could be lots of reasons for that, including hardware defects, BIOS settings, software problems, CMOS Battery, etc. Lets start with the ones we can go after easily...

In your control panel go to Administrative tools then Event Viewer (logs) and take a look in the System category... are there messages about codecs and services not starting? Although a long way from plain english I find these logs very helpful at times. Also if you are getting popups it would be good to record the error numbers and messages... might help us track things down.

For the moment...

What service level of XP are you using? HDAudio support wasn't added until SP3 and even then only in response to customer demand, half way through the service pack's beta cycle. I have Realtec HDAudio on my system that was useless until I updated to SP3. You can download Service Pack 3 directly from Microsoft Here This is the network install version so there's no reporting back and no validation tests. It would be best if you could do a clean install of XP, followed immedicatly by the Service pack. But if you are working on a live system this version will work although you may have to reinstall video, audio and networking drivers.

The Intel drivers for your board are located Here Doing a little digging I found several forum articles (hundreds, actually) about people having problems with IDT codecs in the latter part of 2008. Apparently the chipset maker was bought out and someone just had to mess with the drivers. The codec on the Intel site is from early 2009 so I'm guessing they got busy and fixed it. Otherwise you might want to consider finding the last set of drivers from the original chip manufacturer, before he was bought out (and good luck with that).

Finally, BIOS defaults are seldom your best setup. The defaults are designed to get you to the BIOS so you can do a proper setup. Basically they're so general the machine can't fail to start. Quite often some features of a motherboard are even disabled to guarantee that first-time startup. You really should cruise the BIOS and customize it for your setup; especially check any setting left on "Auto". If you've never been in the BIOS, it's entirely possible the saved BIOS defaults are not correct (Asus is bad for this)... enter it, save settings and exit... see what happens.

If my suspicions about Plug and Play are correct, increasing the PCI Latency might be your answer. This will give the audio chip more time to respond during P&P detection. In most boards it maxes out at 192 microseconds and there's no harm in setting it to the max. It's only a timeout that prevents I/O boards from locking up your system.

 

[Hawke]

I've looked through the BIOS settings and increased the PCI bus latency to 192 (mine had option upto 240!) and I have checked all possibilities that there is nothing out of place in the BIOS.
The CMOS battery is ok, the clock is at the correct date (I tested this by pulling the plug from the back after the PC had shut down)

I have Windows XP SP3 ever since it was released (I would like to upgrade to Windows 7 when its first service pack comes out) and I have got all the latest Intel drivers (including the IDT one)

I looked at the even log, nothing on system BUT I did find something in Application - a file called STacSV had an error next to it -

"The description for Event ID ( 65535 ) in Source ( STacSV ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Connection to the Storage interface failed."

STacSV.exe is found in the IDT folder in Program Files so a little investigation is needed here on my part.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

I've looked through the BIOS settings and increased the PCI bus latency to 192 (mine had option upto 240!) and I have checked all possibilities that there is nothing out of place in the BIOS.

Ok... so now we see what happens.

The CMOS battery is ok, the clock is at the correct date (I tested this by pulling the plug from the back after the PC had shut down)

Well, that's not a very good test... but it's better than nothing.

I have Windows XP SP3 ever since it was released (I would like to upgrade to Windows 7 when its first service pack comes out) and I have got all the latest Intel drivers (including the IDT one)

Good... BTW, SP3 seems to get updated periodically, which is truly weird... so depending when you last updated...

Also... for the troubleshooting period... you should probably turn off Automatic Updates on your system. It may become necessary to backdate your audio drivers to the ones on the CD that came with the board... we dont' need AU "fixing" them for us.

I looked at the even log, nothing on system BUT I did find something in Application - a file called STacSV had an error next to it -

STACSV.EXE is part of sigmatel's audio drivers. Apparently it monitors your audio jacks to detect the plug configurations (stereo, 2.1, etc.) and informs the IDT package. It should be in the windows/system32 folder.


Perhaps some of the others here will have suggestions I haven't thought about.

However you can take some information from the lack of "Me Too" going on. Also note that any notice of it on the web ended over a year ago. So... it would not appear this is a widespread issue or one where there is no obvious solution. I'm thinking this is a one machine issue... so we still can't rule out hardware defects.

Lets see how the latency adjustment goes... Beyond that about the only remaining suggestion is to wipe it all clean and reinstall everything... beyond that... defective motherboard.

 

[Hawke]

Still having problems with the audio, I do not understan why this all of a sudden has happend - I turned up the latency to absolute MAX

I think I will give up here and purchase a PCI-E audio card (I recently purchased a PCI audio card which is defective- it didn't fit the slot properly, my initial thoughts was that the motherboard was missaligned slightly but the NVidia PCI-E graphics card fitted like a glove and takes up two slots)

You mentioned jacks, one possible reason is that I use sterio speekers, that have been around since I was a kid (first used on my old 486DX66 system) so the fact they are old may be the cause of the problem

Thanks for all your help, very much appreceated

 

[2Tired2Tango]

I think I will give up here and purchase a PCI-E audio card (I recently purchased a PCI audio card which is defective- it didn't fit the slot properly, my initial thoughts was that the motherboard was missaligned slightly but the NVidia PCI-E graphics card fitted like a glove and takes up two slots)

If you want my advice... especially for stereo speakers, head on down to the local computer store and fish a sound card out of their junk bin. Really... unless you have an extreme high end speaker setup, you won't notice much difference and you can claim environmental friendliness in recycling legacy technology.

You mentioned jacks, one possible reason is that I use sterio speekers, that have been around since I was a kid (first used on my old 486DX66 system) so the fact they are old may be the cause of the problem

Thanks for all your help, very much appreceated

If your sound setup auto-detects the connections on it's jacks, it is entirely possible dirt is your culprit here. The jacks and plugs are very easily cleaned with rubbing alcohol.

Dip the audio plug into the alcohol and clean it with a paper towel, working around the plug until it's shiny clean.

Now we do the dip and grip routine on the jacks... dip the plug into alcohol and *while still dripping wet* insert and remove it from the jack... dip and grip several times. Then as a finishing move, dip the jack one last time, instert it and turn it back and forth after the fashion of a volume control while inserted.

That should give you good contacts.

Another possibility is broken wires in the audio leads. This too would prevent proper detection. Happens all the time and more than one perfectly good set of speakers has been tossed out because of it. To check this lead the wire up between your first and second fingers then down through between your third and fourth... Play some music (or a steady test tone if you can) and gently slide the wire slowly through your hand listening for any crackling or dropouts in the sound. Where the drop out occurs is where the wire is broken. Any competent tech can replace the plug for you for just a couple of bucks.

And you know what Hawke... It could be just that simple... I went initially to drivers and codecs assuming everything else was ok... good for you expanding the subject as you did.

 

[Rob Williams]

I don't belive it is hardware issues otherwise the audio would not work at all

I am not so sure I believe the same thing. I have mentioned in that past in other threads that I have the occasional BSOD with Windows 7 (previously Vista), and I'm starting to believe it's related to the on-board audio on my ASUS P5K Premium. Last night, I was playing CoD: Modern Warfare 2 with my headphones (using the discrete audio card), and since my brother came in, I alt-tabbed and changed my sound device to my sound card, so the game audio would then come through there. After about five minutes, BSOD.

Up to this point, I played the game for five hours without a single issue, but as soon as I changed it to the on-board, boom. This wasn't the only incident. Brother and I had some LAN play going, and 10 minutes into a round, yet another BSOD. I ended up just changing the sound output back to the discrete card and didn't have any issues the rest of the night.

I find it highly unfortunate that you've been dealing with so many issues with that motherboard. I admit I haven't touched mine since I wrote that budget Skulltrail article last spring, but after reading about your issues, I'm glad I haven't. I wouldn't have been near as dedicated as you in putting up with it.

Also... for the troubleshooting period... you should probably turn off Automatic Updates on your system. It may become necessary to backdate your audio drivers to the ones on the CD that came with the board... we dont' need AU "fixing" them for us.

As stupid as it sounds, this is a real issue. I've had this on some notebooks, where Automatic Update would download what it thought was a better LAN driver, only to reboot afterwards and have no LAN at all. I won't even touch on the updates that actually fail, and require a revert (resulting in a much longer boot time).

I wish I had more help for you Hawke. I'm doubtful it's Windows XP to blame... it really sounds like more of a hardware issue. Perhaps in the past, heat got to it... I wouldn't put it past that motherboard.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Rob ... Try upping the PCI Latency. With the gains in buss speed and many issues of timing, it's not uncommon for the sound chip to be the slowest bit on the board.

You can quite safely max it out... it's not a speed control. It's a time-out that prevents PCI cards from locking up your system. If you have the latency set to 192 and a card finishes in 12, the buss is released in 12. However, if you have the latency set to 12 and a card needs 87... Guess what, the buss is released in 12, leaving the chip or card unable to complete it's cycle.

If you are getting "IRQ Not less than or equal to" stop errors, it's likely a latency issue.

 

[Hawke]

I find it highly unfortunate that you've been dealing with so many issues with that motherboard. I admit I haven't touched mine since I wrote that budget Skulltrail article last spring, but after reading about your issues, I'm glad I haven't. I wouldn't have been near as dedicated as you in putting up with it.

Actually, it is only the audio chip that has been given me big issues, I did have some heat-related issues in the past (solved with fans) and installing Windows XP when I first got the motherboard (it turns out that I needed to slipstream XP SP2 onto a disk because of issues with ACPI on XP without SP2, and Windows XP has been running ever since)

Rob, give your Skulltrail a quick go to see if you have any audio issues (I noticed you included a sound card as opposed to using the audio subsystem in your build) - as I said, the problems with my audio only have just started and i have done absolutly nothing to the subsystem.

You may be right about the heat (especially earlyer this year), but the highest temprature I'm reading is 56C on Remote2 which is high, but not critically high (the lowest is 39C on my CPU) - I have put an additional fan on the side of my home-made case a few moths ago which has solved quite a few heat issues, even in summer.

EDIT:

I would also not touch Windows 7, I have recently read analysts reports on Windows 7 being awful and a reccomendation of waiting till atleast SP1

 

[Rob Williams]

While I'd love to help, it'd take me hours to get that Skulltrail rig back up and running. I just have a small shelf here that I fill with random parts, and on top of it is the D5400XS with its dual QX9775's... it hasn't moved since last spring, except to clean around it. Yes, that's kind of embarassing to say. I should have put it to good use, but whatever. I have enough issues with the PC I'm running now... I couldn't imagine dealing with all the things you have.

I would also not touch Windows 7, I have recently read analysts reports on Windows 7 being awful and a reccomendation of waiting till atleast SP1

What idiot analyst said that? They're definitely in the minority, I can tell you that much. I haven't heard anything but overwhelming praise for the OS for months.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

What idiot analyst said that? They're definitely in the minority, I can tell you that much. I haven't heard anything but overwhelming praise for the OS for months.

Actually Rob, that might have been me...

I routinely wait until the first service pack before upgrading OSs. This, because I"ve seen a lot of bugs and problems with several Windows versions over the years and I'm just jaded enough after the Vista fiasco that I'm going to play it cautious.

 

[Rob Williams]

Actually Rob, that might have been me...

Haha, that comment made me laugh out loud. But no, it wasn't you. You never said that Windows 7 was awful. You just said you were concerned with jumping on the fresh OS bandwagon at launch, and understandably so. Otherwise, the response to the OS has been extremely good up to this point, so I'm surprised that some analyst out there wants to be a rebel and go against the grain.

Windows 7 sure isn't perfect, and there are still things that bug me about it, but nothing that's a bug... just minor design flaws.

 

[Hawke]

Haha, that comment made me laugh out loud. But no, it wasn't you. You never said that Windows 7 was awful. You just said you were concerned with jumping on the fresh OS bandwagon at launch, and understandably so. Otherwise, the response to the OS has been extremely good up to this point, so I'm surprised that some analyst out there wants to be a rebel and go against the grain.

Windows 7 sure isn't perfect, and there are still things that bug me about it, but nothing that's a bug... just minor design flaws.

I read this in a consumenr magazine called Which.

But on a lighter note, I think my audio issues are OVER since I have now put the ASUS Xonar D2X in the PCI-E slot - the audio is better than the IDT chipset, I have noticed a difference, even on sterio speekers - I will be replacing them in the future but not now.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Haha, that comment made me laugh out loud. But no, it wasn't you. You never said that Windows 7 was awful.

Well... now that you mention it ...

 

[Hawke]

Well... now that you mention it ...

Has anyone seen the new "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" ad?

It seems as if Microsoft is spreading the blame (Ok it has been around for some time)

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Has anyone seen the new "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" ad?
It seems as if Microsoft is spreading the blame (Ok it has been around for some time)

This one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnXVPwLLXHM


You should see the ads on the CTV video site... "I said make it faster and they did. I Rock!" Interesting psychology in those ads. They are using the wild assed complaints about Vista and demands for improvement as a means to inflate Windows 7 users' ego. "Windows 7 makes you powerful beyond your dreams" coupled with "Microsoft cares about you".

The answered demands in that ad are so butt obvious that most of us could make them in our sleep... Faster, Easier, More Stable, Smaller... nothing but common sense, really... but MS turns them around into ego strokes for their customers... and I'm betting that, like usual, people are just taking it all in.

Apple did pretty much the same stunt with their iPod introductions... Rock music, compressed almost into uninteligibility, blasting from the TV set, people dancing with wild abandon, all in silouette with the only detail on the screen being the iPod itself... The message was emancipation; "You will live a life of joy and abandon if you buy our product"... and people lined up to get them.

Sheer marketing brilliance that...

 

[Rob Williams]

I read this in a consumenr magazine called Which.

No offense, but even the toughest critics out there have praised Windows 7, and I've never even heard of "Which". You might want to check out other opinions rather than stand firm because of what a single source said.

I have noticed a difference, even on sterio speekers

I have heard that same thing so many times in the past about the Xonar. Good choice of card, and I'm glad to hear things are working again.

Has anyone seen the new "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" ad?

I kind of like these ads to be honest. Of course, these people had nothing to do with the development of Windows 7, but Microsoft (or rather, its ad agency) is trying to associate with the regular consumer, not the tech geeks. Regardless of the feature being promoted, people who don't know a lot about tech are going to know that it's an improvement over the previous version of Windows, and in this case, the ad isn't lying.

The message was emancipation; "You will live a life of joy and abandon if you buy our product"... and people lined up to get them.

I prefer that over its on-going commercials that exaggerate every issue with Windows. The commercials annoy me so bad at this point, that I just mute the TV whenever one comes on.