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Hello,

Hardware specifications see:

Skybuck's Dream PC for 2006 and upgraded in 2008 (new case/new cooler/one
graphics card removed/different pci-e slots)

Software specifications:

Windows XP x64 Pro all service packs and updates installed.

Symptoms:

X-Fi Elite pro soundblaster sound crackling after reading/writing millions
of little files unrelated to sound.
(Just reading/writing little text files with Delphi 2007 and executing them
with PMARSW95) ?!

Questions:

How is it possible that the file system affects the sound driver
system/software/hardware ?

(Maybe something is corrupting the windows xp x64 pro kernel or corrupting
the sound drivers somehow or maybe it's the motherboard that can't take all
the stress ?)

(I also changed from console printing text... to less console printing text,
not sure if that will make it go away)

I thought I report this issue because it seems to be a pretty serious issue
?!

If corruption is happening somewhere in the system then there is no telling
what else might get corrupted ?!

I love hearing any theories you might have ?!

Bye,
Skybuck.

Thanks to advanced controls in the windows audio properties/recording
options... "what u hear" I can record "what I hear"

So I made one recording to let you hear what I hear !:

I uploaded the sample to my webdrive:

http://members.home.nl/hbthoupperman...eadsAndWrites/

I will try to collect more audio samples... because I noticed this crackling
yesterday or the day before too when I was doing millions of reads/writes of
little files as well.

The crackling happens in some you tube video's... very noticeable.

So all samples/uploads will go to that folder... so check it out later when
I have some more for you ! =D\

(After a reboot the crackling will be gone... so not gonna reboot yet )

Bye,
Skybuck.

I was not able to capture any other weird sounds...

Though when running civ3 conquest and then using anything else to produce
sound especially the beep makes weird sound too... had that problem from the
start..

But this crackling is new..

I tried youtube/viddler/uvideo video's and what not...

Winamp...

And

Battlefield 2... when I started playing it make weird sound I wanted to
record it but then as I alt-tabbed bf2 "disappeared/crashed".

Then I reloaded it... but no weird sounds anymore...

One little theory could be: another memory chip might be slightly damaged...
and it's only noticeable with high memory usage...

Since the file system cache will go to 2 GB or so when using millions of
little files... maybe this forces other sounds to go into other memory chips
or so...

Another explanation is a bug in windows or sound drivers which is somehow
triggered by reading/writing millions of files.

Another theory is some codec got corrupted or is bad/has bug... I should
figure out which codec is being used to play the "error/beep" sound from
windows... and then see if others use other codecs.

I will give it a rest for now... it doesn't seem to be too serious for now.

If I ever come across corruption like this again I will let you know...

But I am pretty much done with processing millions of files so it's becoming
unlikely that I will come across it again...

But maybe... I will do some more processing so nothing is certain.

Next time... now that I know how to "record what you/i hear" I will most
definetly record it... just to have some wacky proof of what is going on !


Bye,
Skybuck ! =D

Also one last little detail I don't know if it's important... probably
not...

But the sound was produced with "textpad" by simply going up with the cursor
until it can go no further... then it produces this error beep... which
sounds just like/seems to be simply the standard windows error beep !?

Bye,
Skybuck.

Skybuck Flying wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Hardware specifications see:
>
> Skybuck's Dream PC for 2006 and upgraded in 2008 (new case/new cooler/one
> graphics card removed/different pci-e slots)
>
> Software specifications:
>
> Windows XP x64 Pro all service packs and updates installed.
>
> Symptoms:
>
> X-Fi Elite pro soundblaster sound crackling after reading/writing millions
> of little files unrelated to sound.
> (Just reading/writing little text files with Delphi 2007 and executing them
> with PMARSW95) ?!
>
> Questions:
>
> How is it possible that the file system affects the sound driver
> system/software/hardware ?
>
> (Maybe something is corrupting the windows xp x64 pro kernel or corrupting
> the sound drivers somehow or maybe it's the motherboard that can't take all
> the stress ?)
>
> (I also changed from console printing text... to less console printing text,
> not sure if that will make it go away)
>
> I thought I report this issue because it seems to be a pretty serious issue
> ?!
>
> If corruption is happening somewhere in the system then there is no telling
> what else might get corrupted ?!
>
> I love hearing any theories you might have ?!

HDD thrashing? CPU maxed out? Paging as DRAM maxed out?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

Ok,

I just came across more sound corruption when I was trying to make a
screenshot of how I enabled the recording option.

Later I will also put a screenshot in the folder so that I and others can
later in time see how to enable it in case I forget it and quickly need to
find it ?!

One more time the webfolder:

http://members.home.nl/hbthoupperman...eadsAndWrites/

New sound corruption mp3 is called:

ErrorBeep2InVolumeControl.mp3

Screenshot will follow shortly !

Bye,
Skybuck

And here is the screenshot showing how to "do it" / "record directly from
windows"

http://members.home.nl/hbthoupperman...romWindows.PNG

You might need to resize in IE Explorer/Web browser since it's large
resolution picture

(My display is 1920x1200... but it should fit on slightly smaller monitor...
just try making webbrowser big first... then in the bottom corner an icon
should appear to make it larger/zoom in/true size etc)

(I used goldwave but sound recorder might have worked just as well ! )

Bye,
Skybuck.

I have many services off in Windows... especially the ones I don't need or
slow down the system..

For example just a few days ago I updated windows... and .NET 3.5 was
installed.

I think it installed some kind of .NET Optimizer Services which become
active when the system is idle...

I don't like that... I want my system to be idle when it's idle... not
suddenly busy...

Besides I don't really know what it does.

So for safety I disabled those services...

It's just an example...

Anyway the indexing service is disabled.

I am not processing any files when the sound corruption occured.

The files processing happened minutes or hours ago... but somehow it
affected the system afterwards...

I do have an nvidia chipset... and have had other x-fi issue's...

Also I know it's officially called hypothesis but I don't like that word...

I like the word "theory" better... even if it officially has another
meaning.

For me it means "hypothesis"

However it does seem file system activity related because I have noticed the
same kind of sound corruption when BF2 loads...

Maybe windows is actually loading these beep sounds all the time... instead
of pre-loading or caching them.

That could explain why it suddenly sounds corrupted...

Another explanation could be the play/recording control itself is corrupted
?!?

So many possibilities... and I probably have no way of tracking it down...
except maybe replacing memory chips but I am not gonna do that...

I could do a memory test later on if windows xp x64 pro has a memory test
like windows 7 has ???

I am not sure if x64 pro has it ?

Bye,
Skybuck.

Now suddenly the same situation... and the beeps sounds just fine...

As if the corruption is moving through the system...

But in reality it's probably just a certain memory region which is affected
?

Since I assume the memory for the beep gets reloaded ?

So if this "hypothesis" is correct this could indicate memory chip problems
? OH-OH ?

Or maybe this hypothesis is incorrect (wishfull thinking ?)

Maybe I can write a "test program" which will simply allocate a large chunk
of memory and then fill it with "wave sound buffers" and then simply try and
play it !

If the memory does get corrupted... or is corrupt somehow... maybe this will
show up during the wave playback !

Cool idea isn't it ?!

This would require locking the memory so it isn't moved by windows ?!

Maybe some day I try to write such a tool but right now I am busy with other
stuff...

Besides I don't have that much experience with wave/audio stuff but I could
probably do it...

Maybe somebody else can make it... or maybe such a tool already exists ?!?

Anyway if it doesn't exist... then consider this a FIRST ! WIEEE

Bye,
Skybuck =D

I just had a freightning funny thought:

What if one of my corewar warriors accidently left it's safe environment and
accidentally entired my real system and is now travelling through my system
causing havoc ? LOL.

NOOOOOO CAN'T BE !? LOL.

Or can it ?

NEH I am just being silly/crazy/fantysizing... but the sound corruption is
real though ?!

Maybe something else is travelling through the system ?

Maybe some kind of kernel thread that escaped ?

Who knows ?!

Bye,
Skybuck.