Hi Just upgraded to XP Pro - best thing I ever did for my PC. Only one problem and that's the sound card. It works, but there is a lot of crackle through the speakers when either playing MP3s or playing games with sound. The crackle increases more when the CPU is active. The soundcard is an OEM one made by SoundMax and on a Compaq Presario PC. I have downloaded the one and only driver released by Compaq for it, which stated that it was compatible with Win XP. Soundmax don't want to know - their website says to refer to the computer manufacturer. I'm guessing that the problem is due to Win XP? - it never did it on Win Me. If no-one has any ideas, could you point me in the direction of a decent but not too expensive replacement sound card that loves to work with Win XP? Preferably a 4 channel one. I'd much rather get a new card than get rid of the otherwise excellent Win XP Thanks Michael.

have You tried removing it from device manager and then rebooting ? maybe XP can properly configure it on the boot-up/install?

No I haven't - I didn't even think of that! I guess it's worth a try because I still have the software for the driver and can just reinstall it if XP can't configure. Although I hear that XP is excellent at configuring drivers. Thanks

Hi Michael, I had problems with Onboard Sound in XP-Pro. I bought a 4 Channel Sound Card DIAMOND DT-588 that comes with all drivers for Win95/98/SE/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP and it works ok. It is nothing very special but for the cost of $20 it does a good job. Cheers de Peter

I had these same sound problems. You need to visit the Windows Update site and run the scan for XP fixes. After d/l and installing Creative sound card fixes, and other updates, my snap, crackle, pops completely disappeared.

Hi everyone None of the above seemed to work. I've downloaded every new driver that XP recommends and it still crackles like before. I tried to uninstall the driver and let XP configure, but it kept reverting to the Soundmax driver upon reboot. Any other ideas anyone? How I wish I had a soundblaster where I could get decent support for the soundcard! Michael.

Windows XP has a habit of putting all of your PCI devices on IRQ9 if you do an ACPI installation. Although your PC will probably run ok with ACPI, it can hinder the all round performance of your PC and create unwanted side effects with audio applications. As a result of this, it is suggested that you reinstall XP with ACPI disabled, i.e. as a "Standard PC". Even if your XP audio system is working ok with ACPI, you might find that you can achieve lower latency by disabling it (as reported by some RME soundcard users). I have personally managed to achieve slightly lower latency (smaller samples per buffer settings) without ACPI (the same SPB setting with ACPI activated on my PC resulted in intermittent crackles). The best way to disable ACPI is during the installation of XP. The way to do this is explained below. Firstly, the entry Plug and Play OS in your motherboard's BIOS should be set to 'NO'. During installation of the XP operating system, you will see a screen displaying the message - "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver". At this point, press the F5 key (this won't be supplied as an option on the screen and the installation won't wait, so you'll need to babysit the installation process and hit the key at the right moment). A few seconds after pressing F5, you will be presented with an option to select either "Standard PC" or "Other (ACPI) PC". At this point, select "Standard PC". If you have already installed XP with ACPI, then you can change to "Standard PC" in the device manager afterwards. However, this method doesn't appear to be as effective as disabling it during the install. To do this, Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware Tab > Device Manager. Expand the Computer at the top of the list and right click the ACPI Computer > Drivers > Update Drivers > Select List > Standard PC. Note that when you reboot your PC, you will need to re-install all of your device drivers again. Hope this helps