Slightly off sound but cant quite cure?

[FatRakoon]

Ok, this one is one that Im unsure as to a reason, or a cure.

First off, its not my PC, but I built it for him with fairly good bits.

The specs are :-

945P-S3
C2D-6600
BFG 8800GTS
SB Live! 24
2x1GB Corsair 6400
WinXP Home ( Vista Home Prem also )
Maxtor 80GB ( XP )
Seagate 250GB ( Vista )
3 x 500GB External HDs ( IQon, Seagate, and WD )

Thats basically it.

Now, what happened ( I was not there, but this is what Im told ) is that they were listening to some music ( MP3 via KMPlayer ), and when they put on another album, and ever since then, the sound has been bad and farty.

I went over, had a play and while they made out its so bad, I found that the sound wasnt too bad at all... Sure, there is somethign there, but not THAT much?

I saw the sorry state of the HiFi he is using and so I loaned him an old 5.1 Logitec 530 setup from one of my kids PCs to try out and he says the sound is still there... Again, Im at a loss to hear much, but there is definitely somehting not quite right, so, I uninstalled the SoundCard ( Live24 ) and tried the onboard... ARGGHHH!!! - utterly disgusting and immediately obvious the music was not right... Sounds like its fluttering and that on bass kicks it farts, and even on the higher notes, kind of as if the line level was set too high... I have adjusted the volumes, and EQ a lot and its helped but its still there.

Now, we have gone back to the SBLive24 and all *** drivers are fully up to date ( Downloaded fresh new ones under 2 hours ago ) and I have even upped the BIOS to F12 ( Was on F8 ) just on *** off-chance, but there is still that bit of a gravvelly sound that we cannot quite get rid of.

The thing is, that as I said, its really hardly noticeable now, but as I did the system up for him, he is now saying that he wants his money back if I cannot sort it and blah blah... Im at a total loss.

I have the DS3 and as I said, he has the S3 so tehy are pretty much the same Board, so I could offer him mine as a trade I suppose, but what if it does not cure it?

Anyway, I dont know what Im trying to ask? - basically, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could try, to stop it from crackling?

 

[FatRakoon]

Hiya James...

Yes, We have used

WinAmp
Korean Media Player
Windows Media player 11

It does it in XP but hardly at all in Vista, ( Still there though? ) and since we have tried different Operating systems too, says that its not software?

kernel streaming plugin? ... Explain?

Is it at all possible, that there could be an issue with the motherboard that might have suddenly developed, that has sort of done something that can affect the audio?

My honest opinion is that I really cannot heard it much at all... There is definitely somehting there, dont get me wrong, but he is kind of making a mountain out of a mole-hill... I mean, his Speakers have sellotape over the cone FFS so hearing somethign out of those and wondering what the sound is, kind of made me want to slap him and tell him to stfu but its also doing it with the 5.1 Speakers I loaned him to try too, just not as much.

However, he is getting on my pip, saying that I have a real challenge to sort this one out etc etc etc, but how can I sort it out when I dont really think there is a problem.

 

[FatRakoon]

I immediately thought of the MP3s playing back poorly.

XP shows the issue more than Vista does, ( not really ) and in my honest opinion, the very few songs that does show it up, I dont know and they are ****** pop songs anyway that I feel are supposed to sound like they do... Some songs have effects, and I feel that those songs that he says are sounding bad, sound fine to me.

I have not bothered going down there in the last few days, because thinking about it, I really dont see a problem... When I went there, the volumes on the speakers were at a sensible level, but on the computer side, the sliders were on full, and he had been piddling about with the EQ... I moved them around and the bass distortion etc went away, and they now sound fine to me, but he was still saying can you hear that... Cant you hear that all the time, and... Well... No, I could not.

Sure, his HiFi popped a few times, but hell, he has sellotape on the cones to hold them together, so I really dont care a jot about that.

 

[FatRakoon]

Thanks for that J.M

What I did in the end... Heck, last week now actually, is told him that I cannot be bothered with it.

I had to.

I told him that there is a tiny, tiny little bit of distortion sure, but all he needs to do ,is drop the ****** FX a tad... No Amp will be crystal clear when you ramp the bass up like that on its line input like he has done, and basically I told him to Piddle off and stop bugging me over stupid things.

Guess what?

He phoned me up a few days ago saying that he cured it himself.

I asked what he did, and he turned the volume down

FFS... Sometimes you have to give up dont you???