Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 02:35:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel Pouzzner <douzzer@mega.nu> To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: PCI bus activity causes Soundblaster Live glitches Message-ID: <200004270635.e3R6ZRM06120@mega.nu>
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Whenever my NIC or SCSI controller generates PCI bus traffic, I hear
crackle-pop type glitches from the sound card. I believe the problem
is with the sound card (Usenet is rife with frustrated reports of SB
Live specific crackling, popping, etc., using Creative's own drivers
and the very ordinary mass market hardware and software the card was
intended for), so I should be glad I'm well within the 14 day return
window I suppose.
By the way, when it's not glitching, the SB Live has good sound
quality, despite all data being digitally resampled to 48khz before it
reaches the DAC.
A persistent problem I've seen is that I cannot sample with the card.
cat and sox invariably exit immediately with a "device busy" error.
Seems like this might be something awry in the driver?
For when I've given up on the SB Live, does anyone have a sound card
recommendation for me? I want S/PDIF I/O, but if I could just have
good quality glitch free analog I/O (preferably over PCI) I'd be
satisfied. I'm planning on getting an RME Hammerfall for digital I/O
anyway.
So about this glitching: what I'm hoping for, obviously, is some magic
incantation that will make the card stop glitching. My hopes are not
high but I figured it was at least worth giving the question an
audience.
Machine description:
CPU: Athlon 750
mainboard: Epox 7KXA
BIOS: Award for 7KXA, version of 2000-Apr-25
memory: Kingston PC133, clocked at 133MHz
NIC: 3com 3C905B
SCSI: Adaptec 39160
sound card: Creative Soundblaster Live! mp3
display: Matrox G400-TV
OS: FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE
sound card driver: emu10k1 of 2000-Apr-18, grabbed from 5.0-CURRENT
The sound card has its IRQ (5) all to itself, though it doesn't in
fact make any difference whether it shares an IRQ or not
(experimentally determined).
Display activity causes no glitches. The G400 runs over the AGP port
a.k.a. pci1, while the main peripheral bus is pci0, so this is
unsurprising.
Chipset onboard ATA/66 interface activity does not cause glitches,
even though the controller is internally on pci0. Activity over low
speed devices on the ISA bus - specifically, keyboard and mouse - do
not generate glitches, even though the ISA bridge hangs off pci0.
In other words, glitches occur only when other outboard cards on the
pci0 backplane generate traffic, and then, occur sporadically but
fairly predictably. In particular, an ifconfig probe of the NIC
always produces a substantial glitch.
In the earliest BIOS version of my mainboard, there was a known bug
that caused outboard sound cards to have noise and glitches. In early
March Epox released a BIOS version that purported to fix the sound
problem ("Fixed cracking sound problem when an additional sound card
is installed."). I am now running a BIOS that is several generations
on from that original fixed version.
On a slightly related issue, I have never been able to get onboard
sound on the Epox to actually make any sound, though I imagine I'm not
missing much.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
-Daniel Pouzzner
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