Re: P5P800 On-Board Sound Chip Setup

Installed the Chaintech sound card and used the drivers supplied with the
card. Sound improved dramatically but...the system immediately became
unstable and crashed several times. Downloaded and installed the latest
drivers from
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1010&SubCatID=107
and everything seems to be running normally or at least the system has not
crashed for several hours and the sound generated by Media Player 11 from
MP3 and WMV files is much better. At this point I am a happy camper and
can't wait to hook the digital output up to a receiver. It is truly hard to
believe that a $25 dollar card can make that much difference! Makes you
wonder why does ASUS even bother putting a sound chip on the MB if it is
going to be that bad?

However, I still have the problem with poor quality sound via the ATI Wonder
Elite TV Capture card and Snapstream's Beyond TV program. Part of the
problem is the quality of the sound coming over the Comcast Cable on certain
channels. I know there are all kinds of settings I can play with in BTV but
I don't know where to start. If anybody has some suggestions please let me
know.

"Ken" <krlorenz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:v_CdnZEXiPf9LevYnZ2dnUVZ_rqdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ok, I bought the Chaintech sound card from NewEgg. Thanks for all the
information.

One thing I failed to mention in my original posting - I have an ATI TV
Wonder Elite TV Capture Card in the system and am using Snapstream's BTV
to control it. The sound from the TV capture is also terrible.
Hopefully, the TV sound will improve dramatically with the new sound card.
I'll let you know how it turns out in a few days.

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:el64c7$28r$1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Ken wrote:
Lots of dumb questions but I need a little input. The sound I get from
the P5P800 on-board sound chip is not very good. I have it connected to
a "budget" set of Altec Lansing Series100 speakers (right, left and
base). I don't know if the lousy sound is the chip, the speakers, or
probably both. I would like to connect the computer to a Stereo Receiver
that is connected to a couple of good old JBL speakers. How do I make
the connection? The receiver wants a left and a right RCA input. The
MB has three plugs - light blue (line in), lime (line out) and pink (Mic
in). I want two channel stereo sound so the 4 and 6 speaker setups
don't seem to apply. Also, what does the Sound Blaster add-on from Asus
add to the system and has anybody used it? Assuming all of the above is
a waste of time what is a better approach to my problem - like what
sound card do I want to buy to allow me to play all the MP3 files I have
loaded in the Media Player 11 Library running under WinXP?

The motherboard I've got, has the same AD1985 chip on it, and I've
stopped
using it. It is not the fault of the chip, but rather the software.
And the software is a weakness of many sound products. A lot of
sound products don't have much in the way of hardware support, and
features are provided by the software instead.

The first strike against the AD1985, is the occasional click that come
with the sound. Driver updates reduce the frequency of those clicks,
but did not eliminate them.

The second strike against the AD1985, is the software special effects
cannot truly be disabled. In the Control Panel, there are special
effects,
which basically apply variable amounts of reverb to the output signal.
I used Audacity sound tool, and a hand drawn waveform, to present a
pulse to the sound output. Capturing the actual output showed a
smaller pulse, delayed in time, and that is the reverb which should
not be there when all special effects are disabled. Reverb is bad
for music, since the repeated sounds make the sound "muddy". If the
reverb cannot be disabled, I want no part of the sound solution.

The third strike, was in games. Positional audio is used in some games,
and rotating my virtual head in the game, resulted in a sudden loss of
treble in the output signal (like sticking your head in a fish tank).
That was it. I disabled the AD1985, and stuck a cheap sound card in
its place. CMI8738 based PCI card sound solutions can be found for
as little as $7 and that is what I am using. It is not the best, but
at least it doesn't have the exact same issues as the AD1985. No
clicks or pops.

The Soundblaster upgrade is described here. I don't think too many people
have purchased this, as I haven't read any feedback about the package.
I cannot even tell you what the demo gets you, whether it has all
features
enabled, is time limited, or whatever. This link appears in the upper
corner of the Control Panel, when the demo version is installed.

http://www.soundblaster.com/MBupgrade/

To connect your stereo, you need a 1/8" male plug, plugged into the
green Line_out of your new sound card, and RCA on the other end of
the cable. The receiver should have line level input on those RCA
connectors, like 1 volt into 600 ohms or 10K ohms, as a typical
spec.

I made my adapter cable a long time ago, for my mixer. But I see
on the RadioShack site, that you can get a cable already made up.
My cable consists of a dual RCA female to 1/8" male adapter,
plus an RCA-RCA extension. But this cable will also get the job
done.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103865

At a basic level, sound cards are just digital to analog
converters. As you pay a bit more money, you get driver standards
suitable for gaming, and providing enhanced sound effects in
games. You might also see more "bits" used in the D2A converter,
like a claim of 24 bits, rather than 18 bits. The extra bits are
only useful, if the noise floor of the sound card is such, that the
extra bits actually buy you something.

Motherboard sound generally has a terrible noise floor. Maybe
65 to 70dB down or so. A sound card can be around 100dB down, and
is better. It leaves more room, more dynamic range, suitable for
listening to classical music. When the classical music becomes
quiet, you can hear quiet, rather than hiss, "mouse noises", or
other digital chit/chat coming from the computer circuits. So
a sound card buys you a cleaner output signal. (One poster here
discovered that you can actually benefit from shielding a sound
card, so for audiophiles, there is more fun to be had.)

If all you listened to, was music with your sound card, then a
$22 sound card is all you need. But the drivers for this card
are useless for gaming, so a gamer would probably buy a
Creative card of some sort, to be able to listen to music
as well as play games with decent sound effects.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829120103
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16829120103

Paul





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