Asus Xonar DX problem

jarvis82 · 9 Jul 2012 at 10:48

Morning all,

My system has over the weekend developed a sound problem. The sound simply cuts out about 10 minutes after boot up. The only way to get it back is to reboot. In addition, if gaming at the time the sound cuts out, it will sometimes (although not always) freeze the whole game/system, then BSOD with a 'DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL' message.

But the times that it doesn't actually crash the whole system, it it still causing deeper issues - for instance if I load itunes, and try to play a song, it just freezes the program (song appears to start, but the track progress bar just stays put at 0.00 and no sound). Very odd!

I tried different drivers, but same issue. I've had this soundcard for about 14 months, with no issues at all.

Anyone think it could be a hardware issue? I'll probably grab a new one, and see if it solves the issue, can always flog it afterwards if it turns out to be something else.

What does worry me is that if I switch to onboard sound, that seems to go **** up after a while too - for instance in games, after about half an hour of gaming, the sound goes kind of distorted - guns sound more like lasers, explosions become fuzzy sounding etc. Hope its not actually my motherboard on its way out.

But if anyone has any other suggestions, or advice, I'd be most grateful.

Cheers.

StonedPenguin · 9 Jul 2012 at 10:50

Hmm, The only issue ive ever had with the DX is the left speaker stopping working, But thats fine after a driver reinstall.

What drivers are you on? And which have you tried?

jarvis82 · 9 Jul 2012 at 11:07

Unfortunately I've tried all of them that are currently on the Asus website, and none of them solved the issue.

-=Vect0r=- · 11 Jul 2012 at 20:09

Tried the brainbit unified drivers?

Orcvader · 11 Jul 2012 at 20:11

-=Vect0r=- said:
Tried the brainbit unified drivers?

This. I find these a lot more stable than the stock Asus ones. The stock ones caused too many little problems for my DX, after moving to this my DX has been rock solid stable.

Adam123 · 11 Jul 2012 at 21:18

how can soundcard drivers be unstable? (serious question)..

jarvis82 · 12 Jul 2012 at 17:54

-=Vect0r=- said:
Tried the brainbit unified drivers?

Orcvader said:
This. I find these a lot more stable than the stock Asus ones. The stock ones caused too many little problems for my DX, after moving to this my DX has been rock solid stable.

I appreciate the input.

But I'm fairly sure this is a straight hardware issue. I whipped the Xonar DX out, and had a rummage around in some boxes in my cupboard - low and behold I found my old Creative X-Fi Xtreme 7.1 PCI card. The capacitors were all a bit bent and lopsided from it being underneath a load of books in the box, so didn't have much hope that it would work.

But I straightened them all up and stuck it into my rig. Installed Win7 64 drivers, and what do you know...it worked perfectly. Absolutely no issues since. No sound cut out, no crashes. All tickety boo.

Should prob check the Asus literature for the DX and see if its still under warranty...

Marsman · 12 Jul 2012 at 18:12

Adam123 said:
how can soundcard drivers be unstable? (serious question)..

Poor programming, not enough testing and laziness. Look how many people who had problems with Creative drivers a few years ago, had to turn to modified drivers. Creative are better than they used to be, although not by much according to some people. Asus aren't as bad, but not great either, and there are probably a few people cheesed off with their drivers. A few people had BSOD's problems with D2's a while back.