Lock up with looping sound - soundcard at fault?

[eddiew]

Hey guys,

I'm getting an annoyance where every few days my (normally reliable) rig will just lock solid, with the last second or so of sound constantly looping.

Windows, naturally, has absolutely nothing in its event log except "The system has recovered from an unexpected shutdown." No duh. What I'm not sure of is what is causing the crash that forces the shutdown x(

Only happens when a game is running, sometimes alt-tabbed. Always features the looping sound. Does this make it likely to be sound card related? I have an old PCI Creative X-Fi, which is rather known to have driver issues with Win 7...

Definitely not the graphics card, since that was recently upgraded, and this has been an issue since before then.

Cheers for any ideas

 

[tribz]

I'd try removing the overclock and see if it does it at stock. I've had the same problem with an unstable overclock.

 

[eddiew]

I'd try removing the overclock and see if it does it at stock. I've had the same problem with an unstable overclock.

Tbh, I should have done that, I was just hoping to have an excuse to replace that 7 year old soundcard :] I'll bring the clocks down and see what happens ^^

 

[marc2003]

it may even be your current overclock just needs a tad more voltage (assuming you're below whatever the recommended maximum is and your temps are ok). i'm a bit of out of the loop with overclocking these days but there are plenty of other guys here who can be a bit more specific.