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onboard sounds terrible
Hello. I've recently bought a second hand motherboard. The Jetway 694AS
http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/produ...94as/694as.htm It seems to work okay but the sound provided by an onboard sound chip is really terrible. I've used a number of computers that have relied on motherboard sound before and they've all been fine. I could listen to music cd's and mp3s to a hi-fi standard. But here the sound is distorted and tinny. It does sound as if something is wrong. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience of this motherboard and could they tell me whether this is normal (I doubt it is) or whether there is something I can try to improve things. Thanks. |
#2
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On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 23:58:43 +0100, "HarrySpider"
wrote: Hello. I've recently bought a second hand motherboard. The Jetway 694AS http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/produ...94as/694as.htm It seems to work okay but the sound provided by an onboard sound chip is really terrible. I've used a number of computers that have relied on motherboard sound before and they've all been fine. I could listen to music cd's and mp3s to a hi-fi standard. But here the sound is distorted and tinny. It does sound as if something is wrong. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience of this motherboard and could they tell me whether this is normal (I doubt it is) or whether there is something I can try to improve things. Thanks. It's AC97 on Via 686 Southbridge. Yes, it is horrible compared to most onboard sound, but still should be serviceable with medium to lower quality computer speakers. I have a board here with that sound (though not sure if analog codec chip is the same or not), and it sounds like it has lower dynamic range and more distortion but you have to listen pretty carefully, it's not so bad as you describe. The distorted and tinny sound might be due to mixer or audio settings, reverb effects, etc. Try opening windows mixer and seeking advanced audio control properties (that's not actually what the windows/buttons are called, I foget their names). You might also try a different driver and raising the PCI latency in the bios, suggest trying latency value of 80 to 96. If you have PCI cards installed you might try moving them to different slots. I am assuming you have the Via 4in1 driver installed, if not, install it. If it's an old version, try newer version. Had sound previously worked or was bad from first moment you heard it? What operating system are you running? If WIndows, try this driver: ( AC97 for VT82C686A/B ) http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=328 |
#3
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"kony" wrote in message ... On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 23:58:43 +0100, "HarrySpider" wrote: Hello. I've recently bought a second hand motherboard. The Jetway 694AS http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/produ...94as/694as.htm It seems to work okay but the sound provided by an onboard sound chip is really terrible. I've used a number of computers that have relied on motherboard sound before and they've all been fine. I could listen to music cd's and mp3s to a hi-fi standard. But here the sound is distorted and tinny. It does sound as if something is wrong. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience of this motherboard and could they tell me whether this is normal (I doubt it is) or whether there is something I can try to improve things. Thanks. It's AC97 on Via 686 Southbridge. Yes, it is horrible compared to most onboard sound, but still should be serviceable with medium to lower quality computer speakers. I have a board here with that sound (though not sure if analog codec chip is the same or not), and it sounds like it has lower dynamic range and more distortion but you have to listen pretty carefully, it's not so bad as you describe. The distorted and tinny sound might be due to mixer or audio settings, reverb effects, etc. Try opening windows mixer and seeking advanced audio control properties (that's not actually what the windows/buttons are called, I foget their names). You might also try a different driver and raising the PCI latency in the bios, suggest trying latency value of 80 to 96. If you have PCI cards installed you might try moving them to different slots. I am assuming you have the Via 4in1 driver installed, if not, install it. If it's an old version, try newer version. Had sound previously worked or was bad from first moment you heard it? What operating system are you running? If WIndows, try this driver: ( AC97 for VT82C686A/B ) http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=328 I'll try the new driver. The board came with a CD-R with drivers and a manual. There appear to be 2 sound drivers, the Via 4 in 1, and an older version of the viarena driver in the link above. There is an option in the bios to enable to enable soundblaster. Is that the best thing to do? Also where do I find the option in the bios to change pci latency? Thanks. |
#4
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On Tue, 3 Aug 2004 08:21:47 +0100, "HarrySpider"
wrote: What operating system are you running? If WIndows, try this driver: ( AC97 for VT82C686A/B ) http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=328 I'll try the new driver. The board came with a CD-R with drivers and a manual. There appear to be 2 sound drivers, the Via 4 in 1, and an older version of the viarena driver in the link above. There is an option in the bios to enable to enable soundblaster. Is that the best thing to do? SB Emulation is irrelevant for Windows sound, is there for legacy (DOS) emulation in (games, etc). You might as well disable that in bios if it's not needed, as well as all other unused onboard functions, perhaps modem features of chipset, one or both of the serial ports, midi port, etc, etc, if unused. Also where do I find the option in the bios to change pci latency? Thanks. It is a common setting but i can't be certain that it is in bios of your particular board, nor where it is. Cycling though menus in bios should find it, is almost certainly called a "latency" setting, usually "PCI latency", would not be mistakable. If nothing else you might try the Via latency patch (otherwise known as an early RAID IDE patch), http://download.viahardware.com/vlatency_v019.zip but setting in bios or other suggested measures could be more productive, the latency patch is more appropriate as a later attempt (though it could also improve IDE performance as it was intended to do, and for that reason, benefit, it might be a good attempt). |
#5
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"kony" wrote in message ... On Tue, 3 Aug 2004 08:21:47 +0100, "HarrySpider" wrote: What operating system are you running? If WIndows, try this driver: ( AC97 for VT82C686A/B ) http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=328 I'll try the new driver. The board came with a CD-R with drivers and a manual. There appear to be 2 sound drivers, the Via 4 in 1, and an older version of the viarena driver in the link above. There is an option in the bios to enable to enable soundblaster. Is that the best thing to do? SB Emulation is irrelevant for Windows sound, is there for legacy (DOS) emulation in (games, etc). You might as well disable that in bios if it's not needed, as well as all other unused onboard functions, perhaps modem features of chipset, one or both of the serial ports, midi port, etc, etc, if unused. Also where do I find the option in the bios to change pci latency? Thanks. It is a common setting but i can't be certain that it is in bios of your particular board, nor where it is. Cycling though menus in bios should find it, is almost certainly called a "latency" setting, usually "PCI latency", would not be mistakable. If nothing else you might try the Via latency patch (otherwise known as an early RAID IDE patch), http://download.viahardware.com/vlatency_v019.zip but setting in bios or other suggested measures could be more productive, the latency patch is more appropriate as a later attempt (though it could also improve IDE performance as it was intended to do, and for that reason, benefit, it might be a good attempt). I've had a look through the bios options and latancy isn't there. The link for the latency patch is broken. I've had a look using google and all I could find was a beta version which is meant to be unstable. http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/#PCI I managed to find it here http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...tency_v019.zip ! But I'm thinking of giving up and buying a cheap second hand pci sound card and trying that. Thanks |
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