Clicking, Crackling and Popping sounds during mp3 playback.

[Tonman]

Hi. I've been dealing with this issue for a while now, and I feel I've ruled out almost every posibility.  The only parts on my computer I haven't been able to test are my processor and my motherboard. 

The problem:
Up to a while ago, my system was running perfectly.  I use my computer for gaming and recording.  All of a sudden I start getting some strange behavior:  Mp3's will make a crackling sound, like an old record, and randomly click and pop; same goes for videos, I get clicks and crackle and when I switch to fullscreen my screen will flash randomly.  The strange thing is that wav files will play perfectly. As for gaming, my computer is totally useless now.  Games won't load, and the ones that do load will make the screen flicker and are practically unplayable. Also I can't run flash v10, I'm running v9.0124 or something.  Some pages will load with clicks in the sound, youtube loads choppy videos and most of the time with a loud hissing sound.   Also I keep getting Invalid floating point every now and then trying to run executables.

Specs:
Foxconn K8M890M2MA Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+
2GB of RAM (2x1Gb Corsair)
250 GB SATA drive
120 GB, 40 GB IDE drives
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496
PNY Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT
Win XP SP 2

Troubleshooting:
Ruled out speaker issues with headphones.
Scanned for viruses and spyware finding nothing.
All hard drives are set to DMA.
Took out soundcard and videocard.  Using built in audio and graphics showed the same behavior.
Tried with my old ram (2x512MB Corsair) with no results.
Used to have SP3 installed.  I rolled back to SP2 after I read that SP3 had some issues with Athlon processors.  Started with a clean XP SP2 install, formatting my main drive and disconnecting my other HDDs to make sure no virus passed on.   After installing audio drivers, sample mp3’s from windows made the same noises.
All drivers are updated.  Even the BIOS has been flashed with the latest update.  Built in audio has been disabled from the BIOS.
I already cleaned all the dust from my board, whipping every connector and component inside my computer.  There are no signs of damaged components.
Right now I have all of windows updates except for SP3.  Everything seems to be working fine except for the sound and graphic issues.  POST shows no errors, and windows boots up pretty fast.  As I mentioned before, the only parts I haven’t been able to test are my motherboard and my cpu.  I wonder if they could be damaged, or if somebody can lead me to other solutions.    Any help will be geatly appreciated!!!!


 

** Edit:  No IRQ conflicts.  Audio card is on channel 17.  Moved to another pci slot, channel changed to 16.  No difference.   PLEASE HELP!!!

[Kurtiskain]

have you had any other electrical appliances recently placed on the same power circuit?

[Tonman]

nope.  i already tried unplugging everything else with no results.

[Kurtiskain]

Do you have a good known psu to try?

Is it a constant occurrence? E.g, are the pops equal times apart?

Does it occur more frequently while moving the mouse or typing?

[squall_01]

you try another set of speakers an or sound card?

[Kurtiskain]

you try another set of speakers an or sound card?

Yes he did

[squall_01]

Oh I  missed that was doing a quick scan of the post.  Thought that it may have been dirty contacts.  It mite be the os it seems like that its not so much a hardware issue.

[patio]

Try factory recorded CD's...same results ?
It could also be the DVD ROM drive itself.

[squall_01]

You dont think so patio?

[Tonman]

Thanks for your responses.

I haven't tried a different PSU.  The noise is constant and it is not affected by the mouse or keyboard.  I already tried the built in audio card and the noises are the same.  I keep getting this constant crackling (mp3's sound like and old record) and random clicking (like the click you would get from a MIDI metronome).

What puzzles me the most is why does it reproduce wav files with no problems,  but with mp3 I get all that noise.

[Tonman]

Update:
Swapped PSU with a computer that works ok, same problem. 

I haven't been able to test the MB nor the processor because my other computer is a pentium.  I guess if the processor was bad the problems would be greater like restarting and not passing the POST so it's probably the motherboard  (right?).  I guess I won't know until I get my hands on another processor and motherboard to test my gear.

BTW, I've burned CD's and saved mp3's to my phone and the noise is not there.

CPU usage during playback is next to 0% and won't go over 5 to 10%, and PF is at it's minimal.

[squall_01]

seems that the os is having issues then.  Try and do a repair then.

[Tonman]

I've already formatted my computer a number of times.  First I was trying with a downloaded bundle of SP3, but then I read there could be compatibility issues with AMD processors, so I reformatted using my oem SP2 disc. 
After a clean install, the first thing I do is install the audio drivers and everytime I get the same problem.   That is how I ruled out the OS issue.


**Edit:  OMG did I say "downloaded"??  I meant "acquired bundle of SP3" 

[Kurtiskain]

I've already formatted my computer a number of times.  First I was trying with a downloaded bundle of SP3, but then I read there could be compatibility issues with AMD processors, so I reformatted using my oem SP2 disc. 
After a clean install, the first thing I do is install the audio drivers and everytime I get the same problem.   That is how I ruled out the OS issue.


**Edit:  OMG did I say "downloaded"??  I meant "acquired bundle of SP3" 

AFAIK or care, downloading the XP disk with built in SP3 isn't what MS would worry about, it's the key you use.

For instance I use XP disk I made to include the SP3 setup files in it, MS actually tells you how to do this!

Anyway...seeings as you obviously know how to download and use an iso, try heading over to ubuntu.com, and getting a live disk ISO of ubuntu, and then seeing how the audio is affected there.

[patio]

Try factory recorded CD's...same results ?
It could also be the DVD ROM drive itself.