Sound Interference

[TMT]

Hi!
I've posted this in the Windows section of the forum, but I thought I'd post it here as well, since it could be hardware related:

Recently a problem has cropt up with my sound. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure how. I'd just like to know how to solve it, since it's a bit annoying.

Whenever I'm reading/transferring data from my CD drive it interferes with my audio. This includes playing a CD-DA as well. The interference sounds like little cuts in the sound, and it also seems to be in synchronisation with the CD drive read-light.

My thoughts are that it may be some kind of IRQ interference, but why would my CD drive and/or sound card all-of-a-sudden use a different IRQ? I'm not sure about it...

Anyway, does anyone know any ways of fixing this?

Thanks.
TMT.

 

[Samm]

When you say it interferes with audio, do you mean an audio CD that you are playing at the time (so one cd drive playing audio & another cd drive dong data transfer) or not?

 

[TMT]

It's one CD drive and it's any type of data activity of the CD drive that distorts the sound, not just CD-Audio (CD-DA).

Thanks.
TMT

 

[Charbo]

do you mean ur trasfering and listening to music from a cd at the same time?

 

[TMT]

No, not that. It can be ANY type of sound. Say, for example; I'm playing a game and data is being read off of the CD drive... Well, the sound distorts in synchronisation with the CD drive read-light. It will happen outside of games too (on everything), for example; I could be listening to an online radio stream, and if I'm transferring data from my CD drive, whether it be data files or the like, the sound will distort in synchronisation with the CD drive read-light.

I'm wondering whether or not it may be that my secondary IDE channel is on a transfer-type that the drive doesn't necessarily agree with, yet will use if it has to. The current transfer mode is PIO Only.

Thanks.
TMT.

 

[TMT]

I've set it to DMA if available, but it still seems to default to PIO Mode.

Thanks.
TMT.

 

[TMT]

Well, it was the transfer mode as I suspected.

I did a format, and all is resolved. I'm now transferring in DMA mode and sound interference and a little sluggish transfer rates have gone. It must have been some kind of software fault with Windows. For some reason it was locking the drive in PIO Mode.

If anybody knows how to force DMA without formatting, that would be great... Especially for others facing this problem, considering doing the big format.

Thanks.
TMT.