Windows 7 and IRQs

writer22816

United States5775 Posts

January 11 2010 13:14 GMT

Another tech blog. Let's see if anyone here on TL has this problem. You have your realtek sound card (mine is ALC662 "high definition audio") and you're running Windows 7 with the latest realtek drivers. Whenever you play sound you end up with really shitty sound, with crackles and lots of static. You can fix this by installing certain drivers (often older drivers for Vista) but I suspect these drivers are the cause for BSODs so no go.

Now I read on SevenForums that sometimes this error can be caused by conflicting IRQs. I ran msinfo32 and noticed that my sound card and my network card were both on IRQ16. Could this be the cause of my problems? It is very weird because I see another "high definition audio controller" on IRQ18, and when I install an older driver that fixes the sound, the card is still on the same IRQ. Should I somehow reassign my sound card to a different, non-shared IRQ? If so how would I do this and Wwould this fix the problem?

Here is the thread in question (I know the thread is about 64-bit but I have the same problem on my 32-bit system)

http://www.sevenforums.com/sound-audio/22369-realtek-windows-7-64rtm-crackle-static-popping.html

And here is a screenshot of my IRQs

FaCE_1

Canada6180 Posts

January 11 2010 14:03 GMT

(no experience under Vista, talking with XP experience)
I really doupt that an the network card and sound card sharing the same IRQ would cause this kind of problem. I already saw those both device on the same irq with no problems. (on my PC, my onboard sound have the same irq that my videocard and other usb device).

For you problem, do you have any other slot available? You could try to put your network card or sound card on a different Slot so your sharing IRQ should normally be gone.

jimminy_kriket

Canada5520 Posts

January 11 2010 15:57 GMT

Have you tried right clicking the volume icon in the taskbar and going into the realtek playback configuration and setting the output to 16 bit or something lower than it is?

writer22816

United States5775 Posts

January 12 2010 04:17 GMT

Tried that. I'm hesitant of breaking open my case and messing around with slots because the sound card worked 100% perfectly on Vista.

jimminy_kriket

Canada5520 Posts

January 12 2010 05:59 GMT

Thats strange. I had cracking noise when I first installed win7 as well, but i messed up a video card install and had to reformat and then it was strangly working fine after that. If you only recently installed win7 it might be worth it to you to reformat just for a shot before you start trying more advanced/time consuming stuff. Normally I wouldn't recommend a reformat for something like this but I was lucky enough to have it work

R1CH

Netherlands10341 Posts

January 12 2010 09:14 GMT

On January 11 2010 23:03 FaCE_1 wrote:
For you problem, do you have any other slot available? You could try to put your network card or sound card on a different Slot so your sharing IRQ should normally be gone.

They look like integrated sound / NIC so there is no card to move. IRQ conflicts are a thing of the 90s, with ACPI they are largely just a display relic at this point. Integrated sound is usually pretty bad as it picks up a lot of noise from the system bus.

semantics

10040 Posts

January 12 2010 09:40 GMT

can't do much about the IRQ short of moving cards around on the mobo or shutting off things that you don't use. Unless the conflict/"sharing" prevents something from working at all usually just means to be that it's fine as is.

Speaking of APCI power managment or w.e i had problems with that sucker while installing my os via my DVD-Rom drive the dvd wouldn't rev up and read the disk when APCI was enabled but wouldn't install windows 7 without it on eventually i just ended up booting enough times to trick it or something.

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