Anyone having trouble playing audio CDs in Windows Media Player?

[forumjoe]

It was only recently when, on my newly-built P55-US3L, I installed afresh WinXP, installed all its service packs, the chipset drivers I reckoned were necessary, and a good deal of other software. It's all working, apart from the playing of audio CDs. The sole player I'm using for that is Windows Media Player, now v11.

I'm using two SATA optical drives in my system, one a DVD-ROM reader and the other a DVD-RW, both new. Both have been used to successfully transfer and install software, so seem okay in that respect. They and the hard drive are connected to the Intel SATA ports on the mobo. No RAID is used on the machine, so I haven't installed the GSATA driver, just the Intel SATA driver which is set up for Native IDE mode. In fact, the only Gigabyte chipset drivers I've installed at all are the Inf driver and the PCIe LAN driver.

I've disabled the Azalia setting in the BIOS, as I'm using a Soundblaster (proven in my former system) PCI card instead for the sound and have installed just its basic Windows drivers from the Creative CD. There's other audio software on the Creative CD but, in former PCs I've built, I've never needed all that extra stuff. I've subsequently configured all the sound settings. For reasons discussed earlier in these P55 forums, I've not installed the Microsoft UAA driver that Gigabyte makes available for these P55 boards.

The symptoms I'm getting are that, even before I insert an audio CD in the drive, I'm hearing a low-level whilstling sound coming from the speakers. If I insert the CD, it autoplays and WMP opens. The CD runs but the sound is scratchy, unintelligible, and stops and starts during each track. In some situations, it will play a few bars of one track, then switch to the next and play just a few bars of that (still all distorted), then switch to the third track, and so on. Once it does that, I can't halt the playing via the control in WMP and have to abort instead by just manually ejecting the CD. This happens in both optical drives (recent LiteOn models).

Several possible causes spring to mind:-

1) Should I have installed that Microsoft UAA driver? Before, none of us could agree as to whether that driver was needed. It seemed to be relevant only for when Azalia is enabled and you're using the built-in audio on the board. I've searched all over my installed Windows and can find no sign of a Microsoft UAA file having been installed via some other means.

2) Inadequate firmware in the optical drives.

3) Interrupt sharing. It seems that, with this mobo, there's no manual control over interrupt handling, and I've seen within Windows that quite a few IRQs are shared with various other devices. The interrupt that the Soundblaster uses is definitely shared also. I've no idea whether PCI slot-moving would have any beneficial effect in this regard. Probably not.

4) Does the GSATA chip play any part in processing audio from any of the drives, ie. does the GSATA chip just handle RAID or does it also perform functions passed to it from the Intel SATA ports on the board? Remember, I've not installed any chipset driver for that GSATA chip.

I'm conscious of the fact that, unlike some years ago when PATA drives had distinct audio outputs, SATA drives these days output audio from CDs via the SATA cable only, and thence hopefully to the soundcard (for conversion to analogue) via the PCI bus.

I've in recent minutes partially run the Setup for the Microsoft UAA driver, to the point where I've been able to unzip and view its various folders and its main file. The main file has the label "Azalia Install Application", which kinda suggests that it is indeed a driver or codec that's required only for the onboard built-in audio.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions/insight.

[forumjoe]

I've in the meantime tried to run an mp3 music file, sitting in the Desktop, in the Player and am getting much the same terrible result. So, clearly the problem does not lie with either of the two optical drives.

The combination of this particular Creative Soundblaster PCI card and WMP11, in conjunction with the standard and quite basic Windows drivers from the Creative installation CD, has hitherto worked perfectly well on my former, non-Gigabyte PC. So the conclusion I've drawn is that the problem I'm experiencing is something to do with the way in which the H55 chip interacts with the Soundblaster card.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Are you running the latest Creative Audio drivers for the sound card?

Try installing the card in a different slot.

Try re-routing any cables connected to the card.

[forumjoe]

No, I'm not using Creative's latest drivers. As far as I'm aware there's only one updated driver available for this particular SB card and that's the one I can currently see offered at Windows Updates website when I log into that. However, I have in a note I made some years ago of when that very same update was offered and I'd downloaded and installed it - it made the operation of WMP far worse than it was already. It seemed primarily to just add further digital output channels, for more speakers, which I don't use in digital mode anyway. So, I'm loath to download it again.

Re slots, are up-to-date mobos designed in such a way that devices can still be sensitive to the PCI slot position? I recall that that did sometimes happen in the old days when devices shared IRQs. They still do, of course, and analysing the Resources part of my WinXP, I can see that the soundcard is sharing IRQ19 with three other devices - two Serial ATA Controllers and a USB Host Controller. It's not unusual these days for many devices to share IRQs per se, though, and for it to be without problems. A lot will depend on how the machine allocates resources at any one moment. For example, my graphics card shares IRQ16 with three other devices but there are no problems with the graphics card as a result. Overall, WinXP is showing in its records of the resources that there are no conflicts.

Apart from the stereo analogue lead plugged into the external strip of the soundcard, which is of high quality and has never given a problem before, there are no cable connections to/from the soundcard. With my former PC, where PATA drives were in use, there were, internally. But now with SATA, all audio between those drives and the soundcard passes to the PCI bus via the SATA cable. It's not a drive problem, anyway, as WMP malfunctions even with an mp3 file (that's not run in a CD). The music will sometimes play perfectly, but then if I stop then restart the track, it'll break up into a loud, scratchy mess of unintelligibility.

This problem is almost certainly something to do with the particular way in which the H55 chip deals with the soundcard, as the same Creative drivers (I install only the basic Windows drivers on the Creative CD) have hitherto worked faultlessly on my previous PC.

[Dark Mantis]

Are you using the latest BIOS version for your motherboard?

If so, I would suggest reporting the problem to GGTS.

Just enter your email address and click on the language of choice.
GGTS   http://ggts.gigabyte.com.tw/Default.aspx

[forumjoe]

Yes, I'm using the very latest BIOS, version FH.

I've now downloaded and installed all the WinXP security updates and other bug fixes, which took quite a while as there were nearly 100 of them and I analysed each in turn before selecting them. One or two were security fixes for WMP. However, none were bug fixes for WMP.

The processor engine of the Audigy Soundblaster has an updated driver associated with it dated 2006 which is offered to me in the hardware section of Windows Updates, but I think that a long time ago I tried installing that (or possibly it was a similarly-named driver for the SB Audigy that I obtained elsewhere) and it caused more havoc than I already had. Nevertheless, I thought just now that I'd check whether it was still being offered by WU on my old machine. If it wasn't, the implication would be that, at some time, I had actually downloaded and installed it and it had presumably worked okay. In fact, it wasn't still being offered to the old machine. But then it dawned on me that it wouldn't now be, anyway, as I'd swapped the Soundblaster card from the old machine to my new P55-US3L. I've located the SB driver in Windows and, on both machines, it's showing as e10Kx2K.sys, dated 2001. Looks like it was originally written for Win2K.

As far as Windows Media Player is concerned, I found in my notes that the last version of it that my old PC used was v.11.0.5721.5260. The version now on the P55-US3L machine is v.11.0.5721.5280. Confusant, n'est-ce pas? I guess it's possible that that's come about purely from having just downloaded the one or two security updates for WMP.

As regards symptoms, what I'm finding is that if I start a music file in WMP, it'll play okay, but if I pause or stop it and then try to continue the track, all I get is a loud, regular, scratchy noise. From thereon, that's all I get, unless I completely quit WMP.

I've had a good look at the P55-US3L's IRQs. They're not easy to find in WinXP, but if you do Start/Run and type in MSINFO, it gets you into the right area. The IRQs are listed in Hardware Resources/IRQs. Generally these days, IRQ0 - IRQ15 are allocated to fixed common devices and systems in PCs. Beyond that, there's IRQ16 - IRQ 23 and, depending on how many hardware cards are being used and how many USB and other Controllers there are on the machine, these remaining IRQs are automatically shared out between them. The Creative SB Audigy card uses IRQ19, the same as it did on my old machine, and shares that IRQ with a USB Host Controller and two of the Intel serial ATA Storage Controllers. I'm inclined to think that moving the SB to a different spare PCI slot would make little or no difference.

So, I suspect that the problem lies with either the SB's driver, or with the way that the H55 chip interacts with the SB card. What d'ya reckon?

[forumjoe]

Spent some further time investigating this problem but still couldn't find a reason for it, other than there possibly being a problem of the H55 communicating with the PCI bus. I've therefore contacted GGTS and have explained the issue in detail. I'll now have to wait for their response.

There IS a difference between the PC I used to have and this Gigabyte one, in that the optical drives (being SATA now, rather than PATA) can pass audio to the H55 only via their serial interfaces. No longer can the optical drives also connect to the SB Audigy via additional Creative-provided analogue and digital leads. This could conceivably now mean that the update for SB Audigy provided on the WU website, dated 2006, is relevant. However, the fact is that music files executed alone, not using either of the optical drives, also do not run properly in WMP11, so once again I'm inclined to think that this is a problem with the H55 driver rather than anything else.

[Dark Mantis]

Well please let us know the outcome when you finally get it sorted as this is not something that is common.

[forumjoe]

Yes, I'll most certainly post some feedback.

Although the SB Audigy card dates back quite a number of years now, I think it's fair to say that it's remained a popular soundcard. I've only ever used it in its simplest form, with just the Windows drivers applied from the Creative CD, and have hitherto never had a problem with it. I could believe, however, that SB cards like this were not taken into account when the drivers for the P55 series H55 chip were devised.

Creative no longer seem to support it.

In the present-day context of SATA optical drives, the only way in which music files (even standalone files like mp3 and mp4a) can be applied to the SB Audigy card is through the PCI bus itself. This does appear to happen but the result is extremely flakey - initially, the sound is fine, but any stopping/pausing/restarting of the music file in WMP11 results in an extremely distorted and very unstable 'noise', and then it stays like that.

The problem could lie with either the SB Audigy card itself or with the H55 chip. I do vaguely recall at one stage confirming on my old PC that the optical drive (PATA drive) could deliver audio from a played CD via the IDE bus, rather than via the usual mini-leads from the back of the optical drive that went straight on to the SB card. That involved choosing the appropriate channel in the Windows audio mixer. So, something analagous to that ought to happen on this PC.

I'm kinda hoping that GGTS will immediately say it's because of shared IRQs (despite Windows saying that all are 'ok'), or it's because I haven't installed that mysterious UAA driver (which I personally think is needed only if you're using onboard high-quality sound, which obviously I'm not), or something like that. As matters stand, I can't run any sound at all properly on this new PC.

[forumjoe]

I've had no response from GGTS yet but I think I may have finally nailed this problem with audio on this board!

The solution appears to lie in the use of a very insignificant and easily-missed SPDIF Out header on the motherboard. As far as I can tell (and I still need to get this confirmed by GGTS, really), the Microsoft UAA audio driver is not required, nor is any updated driver for the SB Audigy soundcard; the basic Windows audio driver provided on the Audigy CD is all that's needed.

I suppose the use of this header exemplifies the different approach to audio connectivity needed within the interior of the PC when using Serial ATA rather than Parallel ATA. I'd been wrongly assuming that the H55 would have taken the serial audio signal and converted it to parallel before then passing it across to the PCI bus to the Audigy card, but it seems that no such conversion is actually required. In fact, the PCI bus is not used to get the digitised audio signal to the card.

Incidentally, I'm not sure if this is exactly the same SPDIF Out signal as on the backpanel connector on the PC but it might well be. According to the motherboard user's manual, one of the very uses of the SPDIF Out header is to feed digital audio to expansion cards, including soundcards. It's very easy to miss this rather crucial statement, though, especially if you're not thinking in terms of SPDIF signals, as was the case with me. Fortunately, the SB Audigy card I'm using has a 2-pin SPDIF In connection on the card itself and I had the requisite two-wire lead.

The objective I've had from the outset has been, of course, to allow (as with my former PC) the SB Audigy soundcard to play speech or music files from virtually any source and to provide a Line Out stereo analogue signal from the requisite connector on its PCI strip-plate. So, the H55 chip and the soundcard have had to work together in such a way as to be able to play video and audio CDs, as well as audio streams from the Internet, discrete mp3 files, wav files, wma files, etc. There are, of course, no Analogue or Digital Audio Out connections provided on SATA optical drives these days. It appears that all these kinds of audio signals are, in effect,  brought out to one collecting point (as it were) on the motherboard - the SPDIF Out 2-pin header. It all kinda makes sense now.

Mind you, you have to be careful how you configure both the Windows mixer and Windows Media Player. It's possible to select all sorts of permutations of the various channels and some of these permutations can give rise to 'concurrent playing', spikey interference, instability of the player, or no sound at all, if you're not careful. For the guidance of anyone interested in this, these are the settings I've used:-

Windows Play Control mixer (double-click on speaker icon in systray, otherwise visit Sound & Audio Devices in Control Panel to set the icon there).

Relevant controls:    Play Control
                              Wave/MP3
                              Advanced section (tone controls)

Mute all other controls in the mixer.

WMP11

Tools/Options/Devices tab:

Speakers: ensure Sound Playback shows default device as DirectSound: SB Audigy Audio.
Select: Always play default devices.
Don't select 24-bit performance unless you actually use 24-bit CDs.
DVD-ROM or DVD/RW drives: ensure Playback is set to Digital.

Device Manager

DVD/CD-ROM Drives:

Go into the Properties of each optical drive you're using and deselect: Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device.
(Windows advises deselection if you're having problems with CD audio).


I can't guarantee that these settings will work faultlessly for everyone but they certainly seem to now work for me. I've tried them out on audio CDs, discrete MP3 files, and streamed radio.

So, GGTS will not now need to investigate this audio problem, at least not in any depth. However, I'll still be interested to learn from them whether the Microsoft UAA driver (I seem to recall that two different ones are listed on the Gigabyte website) is still required; I personally don't think it is. And, as I've pointed out before, Windows Updates recommends a yr 2006 update to the processing engine of the SB Audigy, but installing that update really fouls up the Audigy soundcard good-and-proper, so avoid that one.

[Dark Mantis]

Well thanks for the update as I am sure it will save a lot of time and trouble for anyone with a similar problem.