Kyle_K_ski
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Posts posted by Kyle_K_ski
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Thank you for your input zeealice.
I looked very carefully at my PCI slots. All of them are 5V. In terms of the slot's configuration, the receptacle channels look like -------------- ---- . A better illustration of what I'm talking about can be found here: graphic of PCI slot types & photos of my setup
What's a real mystery to me is that Windows is no longer hounding me to have it install a new multimedia device. It stopped asking me this once I installed Turtle Beach's drivers from the CD that came with the Riviera sound card. I've uninstalled the CD's drivers and I've also tried the latest official one from 2010, but the 2010 version will not FINISH installing itself on my system. The progress bar reaches max, and then hangs there. After 45 min., I exit the progress-window, to see a message waiting for me underneath telling me that the latest drivers were installed, but when I reboot my PC, the drivers are NOT there.
The CD's drivers, which are from 2009, will fully install, but it cannot locate the device, and then requests me to physically install it.
I can't make sense of how, after the CD's 2009's drivers are installed, Windows "finds" the sound card, yet Turtle Beach's own program can't tell that it's there as well.
This is VERY frustrating to me. The HOURS that I've put into addressing this are incredible. On my last count, I have 11 hours put into this thing.
Take deep breaths. I've yet to get even a confirmation email from Turtle Beach, but I'm hoping that they'll respond soon.
Happy New Year all.
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Just sent a help request through Turtle Beach's Support page. I hope that I get a speedy reply with a remedy that works.
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After reinstalling Turtle Beach's drivers from its CD once more (it's dated to 2009, with the latest official online version being from 2010, but the 2010 version won't complete its installation--it "hangs" with its progress bar, and when "Exit" is pressed to quit the install, I'm immediately greeted with a message saying that it was successfully installed, when, upon reboot, it's determined that it's not even on the computer), I shut the computer down and rearranged the PCI cards in the hopes that putting it into a new slot will cause it to be finally recognized.
The new top-to-bottom arrangement is like this:
Radeon PowerColor x1950 Pro AGP graphics card (I can't put this thing anywhere other than the top slot)
Empty slot due to the size of the graphics card above
Another empty slot due to not needing the Ethernet card anymore
The "mysterious" card with the unidentifiable monitor/joystick/mouse port and the 2 firewire ports
Turtle Beach's Riviera sound card (the last available PCI slot, furthest from the Motherboard)
Now, I didn't want to have the sound card at the very bottom, but I wanted to test it in a NEW location, and it had to be there to complete the power circuit, or otherwise the computer would not turn on.
When I started the computer back up, Windows did NOT do its usual routine of requesting the location of the drivers to a newly installed device.
But my hopes that the moving of the card to a new location would lead to its recognition were shot down when I went to Turtle Beach's palm tree icon, clicked Control Panel, and was told once more that it could not detect a Turtle Beach device, and that I should insert one.
If I had a hammer...
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I am at my wits' END on trying to get Turtle Beach's Riviera sound card to work with my system.
First, I ordered from here:
Notice that it says Model TBS-1127 and it shows that the card comes in a colored box?
Well, that's not what I got in the mail today. The receipt states that it's Item # TBS-3429, and it came in a white box.
I honestly don't know if the contents are the same or not. But whatever it is, it came with "Riviera" stamped on it so I tried installing it, to no avail.
Here's what I did.
I uninstalled Creative's drivers for my old Sound Blaster Audigy 2. I then ran CCleaner to destroy any registry gunk that was left behind. I shutdown the system, removed the old card, and slid in the Riviera, which was no easy feat. There was only one of the PCI slots that I could slide it into due to how the bumps on the motherboard were situated. It's setup top-to-bottom as described below:
Radeon PowerColor x1950 AGP graphics card
Empty 5V PCI slot due to it being blocked by the thick AGP graphics card above
Ethernet card
Turtle Beach's Riviera sound card Model TBS-3429
Last card (It has a port, but can't tell if it's for a monitor or joystick or mouse. It does have 2 firewire ports)
The reason why I spell out the above is due to Turtle Beach's assertions that the positioning of the sound card is important; they were very adamant about it NOT being the card immediately next to the AGP slot, nor should it be the very last card. As one can see, I was VERY fortunate that the only slot I could get a snug fit in just happened to be in the "perfect" spot sequence-wise.
I started up my system, and following the directions in the thin manual, I canceled Windows' offer to use its interface to install it. I ran the installation directly from the CD per the instructions.
The drivers installed, and within a few seconds of the installation concluding, a palm tree icon appeared in the lower right corner of my monitor. When I clicked on it, it informed me that it could not locate a suitable device.
I rebooted. The palm tree told me the very same thing.
How is it possible for Windows to know that a new multimedia device was installed, and yet Turtle Beach's drivers thinks that it's missing? I've spent an ENORMOUS amount of time at Turtle Beach's support page, not having ANY luck with finding an answer that works. I've even gone into my BIOS to turn off the "PC Sound" so that the driver will be later recognized. No luck.
The directions are LOUSY. I'm guessing as to what steps I need to take first, so who knows whether or not I used the correct means but it failed due to being in the incorrect sequence of actions.
Any detailed help on this would be HUGELY appreciated, as I'm ready to rip that card out and send it soaring into a snow bank.
At this point, I would GLADLY download and install an alternate driver that would get the card to work, but I have no idea which driver would be the best in regards to my situation. I've already tried one alternate, and it too can't locate the card in the tower, which Windows knows is there. ARGH!!!!
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I can't express how relieved and grateful I am that I finally know what kind of sound card I can get.
But I'm nervous about buying a new one, as I've yet to find a manufacturer who has completely eliminated the problem. Still, Turtle Beach is getting my money.
I've read some pretty bizarre things in the past couple of weeks as a result of finally trying to address this problem.
At one point, I was contemplating just buying a set of Turtle Beach's 5.1 surround sound headphones My link but it was disturbing that nearly a third of those who've tried the product had pretty lousy experiences with them. It's pretty clear, that the headphones are an excellent product if you get a set that's well built from the factory. But what a crap shoot! Now odds are in one's favor when a set is bought, but so many of those who got crappy ones said that customer support was lousy, so that's a strong disincentive for me to try them. I tried a set of surround sound headphones years ago, My link and they worked well for two weeks, and then the sound would start cutting out on the left side due to an inexplicable internal disconnect. One had to have those headphones on just the right angle to get the sound to work again. I sent them back to the seller (not Amazon.com) who, after waiting several weeks, shipped me a new pair with the shipping cost being almost half the purchase price, and after that set failed me, I just tossed them.
I don't want to go through that loss of time and money again, that's for sure.
I'm going to order me Riviera, and once installed, I'll let you know how it went. Hopefully, VERY well.
Well, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We certainly had a great time with the family, which is far more important to me than presents.
Now the count down to New Year's!
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Buehgler_AS,
Thanks for the tip. After the kids went to bed, I cracked open my tower, and removed every PCI-related product that I could so that I could hopefully get a pretty good photograph of them. Here's the image of the PCI slots...
I posted a high resolution image of it so that scrutinizing it is easier.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not mistaken, the three PCI slots that are on display are 5V ones. Yes?
If so, that's very good news indeed.
Let me know what you think.
And once again, Merry Christmas and lots of thanks for the help!
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Thanks again wombat.
I've contacted Turtle Beach, directing them to this thread. Hopefully I'll have an answer soon.
And Merry Christmas to you as well!
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The Riviera is a 5V-only card. But my PCI design allows for 3.3V as well as 5V, so there shouldn't be any issues, right?
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Thanks again guys. The illustrations are useful, but...
I'd like to have a multiple opinions on whether or not I'm interpreting the PCI Keying graphic properly.
I'm pretty sure that the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 has a 3.3V and 5V 32-bit PCI card.
I've posted below images of my card, along with the PCI Keying graphic. Please let me know what you think.
PCI Keying Graphic
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 topside
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 bottomside
*See post #38 for an image of the PCI slots inside the tower.
Again, I'm very grateful for your help.
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Search maps for open ammo boxes to replenish your inventory by using the space bar.
What? One of the most obvious things you COULDN'T do in Ghost Recon, and you've made it possible for Rockall?
SWEET!
Suppressing fire will never have been so tempting to use now!
Thanks for another sneak-peek!
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firefly, thanks for passing on that link to me!
Nightcrawler, I wiggled my way between the backside of my computer and the wall, and wrote the following down. I hope it's useful. And thank you for your offer to assist!
Dell Dimension XPS
Model No.: WHL
Mfg. Date: 052803
v: 115/230
A: 6.0/3.0A
Hz: 50/60
V~ 1C Class B 1CeS-003 *
FCC Class: B
Ref. No.: 03053 **
*Not sure if it's the number "1" or the capital letter "I."
**Not sure if the FIRST "3" is really a three due to part of it being scratched off.
And I'm pretty sure that the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 was a "standard" option. I'm confident that it was an middle-upgrade from what came with the system by default, and there was another, even more expensive option offered to me, which I obviously passed on.
Thanks again!
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I've done some searching after visiting the Turtle Beach Riviera site, and I can't find any info in regards to the following...
The Riviera is compatible with PCI 2.1 slots (5 volt only, not compatible with 3.3V). Note that the Riviera is not compatible with PCI-e or PCI-X slots.That quote's from here:
I've searched and can't determine if my Dell Dimension XPS has PCI slots that are compatible with the Riviera. For years, it's handled the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card, so any advice on how I can exactly determine whether or not my PCI slots are Riviera-friendly?
Thanks in advance!
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Just a quick update.
I installed some graphics card-adjusting programs and the initial results were pretty terrible.
Both atiTool and ATI Tray Tools promised their users the ability to adjust the latency of PCI devices. These two products would completely freeze up my system shortly after logging in to my User Account. Talk about a panic! I found out ways to stop their start up process and get them uninstalled.
One program that worked as advertised was PowerStrip. No lockups, and it allowed me to adjust the PCI latency for any PCI device that was on my system.
I spent an entire day alternating between testing out Ghost Recon and running PowerStrip, each time lowering the latency value by a factor of 8. I got down to 88 with there being NO impact on the gremlin noises. I even elevated the latency value for my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card up to 96, which was superior to what I had set my Radeon x1950 to. Not a single decline in the snaps, crackles and pops.
A common fix for most didn't work for me.
So, it looks like I'll be steering some cash shortly for a new card.
I'm happy to see two votes for Turtle Beach cards.
Firefly, would you mind telling me the exact model of Turtle Beach card you used to replace your SB Audigy 2 card with?
Again, thanks for your help and advice everybody!
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Thanks Wombat. My heart sank a bit seeing all of those Creative products along with Asus. My own experience with SB is already well documented, but I've a couple of friends that have had Asus cards, and let's just say that they weren't very happy with said firm's performance. And it looks like those two companies have pretty much the entire market covered, so...
Yeah, picking the "right" card is going to be..uh...fun.
But it's a start, and we all have to start somewhere right?
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My nephew was over today, and played a copy of Armagetron on my computer. That Tron-inspired lightcycle game did not produce a single gremlin-sound, much as when a video's played.
But my other games are still a torrent of gremlins.
If it was the electrical system causing the issues, then the snaps, crackles and pops should be equally prevalent, and it's now obvious to me that they're not.
It's got to be the sound card.
Any recommendations on a replacement, and where I'm most likely to find the best price for it?
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Here's an update.
Since I had just recently updated my sound and graphics drivers, I went ahead and moved the sound-card to a new PCI slot that's as far away as possible from the motherboard.
The external speakers were on when I rebooted, and there wasn't the typical flood of pops and clicks when the computer boots up. I thought, "Hey, it worked!"
But then there wasn't ANY media that would produce sounds, so I came to the conclusion that the driver "lost" the card when it was moved. I uninstalled the driver, double-checked Creative's site to ensure that I did already have the most up-to-date driver, and half an hour later came to realize that I didn't. So, I downloaded and installed the latest driver. Creative's support site SUCKS by the way. It should NOT have to take me that long to find a driver for a product whose model number I'm typing into their damned search engine.
Anyway, on reboot, the newly installed driver started working, because the pops and clicks were back on the speakers.
I guess that at this point, I either get the extension chord and get the electricity from the far, back-corner bedroom to see if that eliminates the pops/clicks, or I just get a new sound card and hope that does the trick. Running the power from yet another room seems like a real long shot. As I stated earlier, our entertainment center has its sound running through the stereo, and that's never produced a single pop or click. I even cranked the volume up on the TV (which is normally mute) and even that is gremlins-free. I've already used that entertainment center's electrical socket, which I know for a fact is on a different breaker than the bathroom's, and sadly I still had the gremlin-sounds.
If it was the electrical system that was causing the issue, shouldn't it cause the pops and clicks in the TV and the stereo system? And if it isn't causing any gremlin-sounds for those units, then why would it then "target" my computer when I plug it in to the very same electrical source that they're using without any issues?
I'm coming to the conclusion that it's the poor design of the sound card that's the real culprit.
So, to ask but one more time, how strongly do any of you feel that it's the card that's at fault? If you feel that it is the card, and knowing how old my system is, is there a sound card that you would recommend for me that's economical yet supplies great 5.1 sound that's free of gremlin-sounds issues?
Thanks in advance. Your patience is appreciated, as I'm nearly out of mine.
Yours,
Kyle
Dec. 12, 2010
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A quick update on some discoveries.
As we decorated our home we played some holiday music over my system today. For the first 4 min. or so there were the usual reduced gremlin-noises for when music's played, but then it stopped altogether, UNTIL a different Firefox tab was checked, or the mousewheel was scrolled. Then the usual gremlin-noises returned, only to virtually disappear if the desktop was left alone for several minutes.
When I tried GR, the gremlins were still crying, per usual.
I have TWO "Sound" listings when I run dxdiag, "Sound 1" and "Sound 2." After reading some articles for a while, I turned off the Hardware Sound Acceleration Level all the way off. If it had an impact on the gremlins, I couldn't discern it.
My chief concern is this: I uninstalled Creative's driver yesterday, and then installed that SRS driver-program that I mentioned above, yet I noticed today the following under the DirectX Diagnostic Tool's Sound 1 tab, it states that the driver's Name is: ctaud2k.sys, which I think is the driver provided by Creative, and the Sound 2 tab has SRS_HDAL_i386.sys listed. Now why would ctaud2k.sys be listed if I uninstalled Creative's driver yesterday, and how would that impact SRS' performance? It just seems strange to me that the Sound 1 and Sound 2 tabs don't agree with each other in regards to who is providing the driver.
Should I use CCleaner to remove all listings dealing with Creative? Is this a non-issue, or...?
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I adjusted the sound settings via dxdiag. initially, when I loaded up GR, there weren't any gremlin-sounds. But as soon as I started up an actual mission, they were back, and behaving as usual.
The sounds were there once I quit out to the desktop as well.
I'm going to see if I know anyone who has a sound card that's compatible with my system that they'll let me use, but that's going to be a longshot.
It looks like the overall consensus of everyone here then is that there is some kind of software compatibility issue that I'll need to work some magic on. I better be Gandelf from the looks of things.
I don't know if I'll have any time today to get this done. Maybe next weekend.
Thanks guys. Please update me if you think of anything else that might be helpful and hopefully easy.
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Win XP SP3.
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Thanks for the advice.
Before I even read any responses, I went through the trouble of wiping down my longest three-pronged grounded extension chord, as it was filthy from usage, and ran it from my entertainment center's outlet to the Belkin powerstrip, and all to no effect. The gremlin-sounds were still there, cackling at me.
I cleaned out my tower several days ago, and regularly clean it at least once every month or two.
I plugged my headphones into the rear jack of the sound card, and while the gremlin-sounds were not there, what I got instead was a very prominent level of "snowy static" sound that could be clearly heard over any type of sound source that I played. No good on that.
It never dawned on me to see if there was a difference between the quantity/quality of the gremlin-sounds inside different applications, and here's what I discovered:
Playing .mp3's=almost no snaps, and when they're there, they're very quiet.
Playing video through VLC Player=gremlin-sounds, but only half as frequent, with their volume nearly identical.
Playing Ghost Recon (and I assume other games as well)=the typical gremlin-sounds, as already reported above.
NOT playing anything=the same level of gremlin-sounds as if I was playing a video game. Weird.
After your assistance, and my more thoughtful exploration, yeah, the sound issues are definitely tied to my system setup.
I started reading through the supplied articles, and my stomach tightened up over any mentioning of adjust the graphic card's clock speed. I really don't want to mess with that.
That said, the drivers for the ATI x1950 AGP card and the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 are the most up-to-date. In fact, I just started using a really sweet demo-version sound driver program called SRS HD Audio Lab that certainly has broadened the range of sounds I'm hearing in-game, but unfortunately did nothing to address the gremlin-sounds.
So, at this point, would you still advise following the one article's advice about adjusting the graphic card's clock speed? Are there any other adjustments that you'd recommend as well, or...?
Nervous me.
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Hello Folks,
I'm trying to determine what exactly has gone wrong with my sound system. For quite a while now, my 5.1 speaker system and headphones have been plagued with snaps, crackles and pops. It may have even cost me the loss of my 4.1 sound system (more on that below)…
Needless to say, I’m trying to determine the most likely cause of the gremlin-sounds.
Basic System Specs
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Dell Dimension XPS from 2003
ATI x1950 AGP graphics card
SoundBlaster Audigy 2.0 sound card
Belkin powerstrip in use (medium grade, about $40 when first purchased)
Plugged into an UNgrounded power socket
Here are the symptoms
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The symptoms appeared shortly after we set it up where we now live.
The computer is plugged into a room that shares a wall with the bathroom—whenever the bathroom’s lights are turned on, there’s an immediate and SINGLE “snap” sound heard over the speakers/headphones; this single-snap is also heard if a hairdryer is activated in the bathroom.
Rarely (like once a month, if that) there aren’t any snaps, crackles, or pops to be heard.
The quantity and quality of the gremlin-sounds VARY, and I haven’t been able to determine a pattern to it. Sometimes, for DAYS at a time, the pops may be very few, and/or also very quiet, or a little more frequent and.or somewhat louder than normal.
Demise of the 4.1 sound system
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We lost our original sound system about two years after the symptoms first appeared. They died a very slow death, with the chief sign of their demise being a very gradual reduction in volume. When they were brand new, turning the volume up to even 1/4 the potential was so loud as to hurt the ears, but by the time they died, the volume was cranked up to maximum and the sound could be barely heard. Does the way that this sound system died act as an indicator of the culprit, or did they expire just because of how old they were (almost 6 years old)?
Attempts made to address the problem
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Have run a three-pronged (grounded) power chord from a GROUNDED power socket to the Belkin power strip. The result is that the snaps, crackles and pops were STILL heard, and did NOT affect the quantity nor quality of the gremlin-sounds.
Contemplated theories
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The UNgrounded power socket was the source. Why? Gremlin-sounds heard from bathroom which shares a wall with the ungrounded power socket. BUT the power supply was changed from an ungrounded one to a GROUNDED one via a three-pronged (grounded) extension chord and it did not affect the quantity nor the quality of the gremlin-sounds.
Also, if the power supply, whether grounded or not, were the issue, why do we then NOT hear the gremlin-noises over our TV’s speakers, or through the stereo system? They’re nearly as old as our computer is. Yet we have never heard a single snap, crackle or pop through them—if the power supply is the cause, wouldn’t they be affected too?
We also just acquired a laptop, which has a minimal set of speakers built into them. Thus far not a single gremlin-noise has come from it.
The house that we live in is most likely built around 1914. Only a portion of the power sockets are of the three-pronged and grounded variety. Could some of these be better than others? If so, then perhaps the grounded sockets in the living room are supplying a “cleaner” energy than the other grounded sockets that I ran the extension chord to? The three grounded sockets that I ran the extension chord from were all from the kitchen. And every single one of those had no impact on eliminating/reducing the gremlin-noises coming out of my computer’s speakers/headphones.
Is the sound card the real issue?
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The only theory that seems wide open to exploration is that the sound card is the culprit. But prior keyword searches hasn’t helped me come to a determination on this. The 5.1 system is plugged into the back of my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card, while my headphones, when in use, is plugged into the front of it. But how could I test for certain that the sound card is the real culprit? I don’t want to invest in replacing it only to discover that it’s not the solution.
If anyone feels that the sound card is the problem, where would be an ideal site for me to look for a sound card that’s compatible with my almost 8 years old system?
Thanks in advance for any advice that can be directed my way.
If there’s any diagnostics you’d like me to perform, please be as detailed as possible in your directions so that I don’t make a gaff that could lead to a misdiagnosis.
Yours,
Kyle
Dec. 4, 2010
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Those images of the main screen are more than a little intriguing.
I went back and reread the first post's description of what the campaign is centered on, and it certainly sounds as if it's set in contemporaneous times, yet a good deal of the images are featuring soldiers sporting U.S. arms & uniforms from the Vietnam era.
Hmm...
So, is it safe for us to assume that the island's forces are equipped with gear from this era, or...?
If that's the case, then we'll be forced to reconsider some of our tried-and-true tactics. Those M16's are certainly a good deal more accurate than what's found in typical third world fare. What would be even more intriguing is if as one approaches closer to the final battle that the OPFOR's gear gets upgraded significantly.
In any case, I'm hooked!
I caught a couple of typos that might need addressing if they haven't yet:
There military are on full alert and have currently deployed all troops to key locations around the Island."There" should be "Their."
Also, the very last sentence has two "." instead of ending with just one.
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Yeah, that was the first time it ever happened to me for GR, while I had similar things happen in other titles, it was usually with newer ones that naturally push harder on my aged system's capabilities.
I'm just happy that it went away. Should it occur again, I'll just quit the game and reboot the whole system.
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Forget the above post.
Everything looks fine now. And I have no idea why.
I did play a lot of Centcom that night. Perhaps it wore out my 7+ year old graphics card, and all it needed was a nitroglycerin pill and a good rest?
Riviera sound card, impossible to install...?
in Self Help Tech Support
Posted
As near as I can tell, all that happens when I disable "PC Sound" is that it turns a little "beep" like sound effect off when the computer is first turned on, or when the power cable is reattached at the backside of the tower.
I think that the goal of turning off the sound in the BIOS is to disable onboard sound, whatever that is. I'm guessing that it's a mini-sound card dedicated to the tower, that acts independently of any other, more muscular sound card that's installed along with it.
About a third of the advice that I've read on other forums regarding this matter is that the onboard sound should be shutoff in the BIOS before the new card is physically installed. For my BIOS, the only "sound" entry that I have found is the PC Sound one. I doubt that it does much of anything other than disable that tiny little beep sound effect. I'm surmising that Dell didn't install anything beefier than that because I chose the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 option.
Ah, but who knows?
If there is another "sound" entry that needs to be disabled in the BIOS, I have no idea where it would be.
You read some of the feedback from those that purchased their Riviera through Amazon.com, and I'm not the only one who has had issues with installing it and getting it to work. From my hopping about on those other forums, there are quite a few Turtle Beach customers who never so much as got a standard "we received your email" statement from the firm, and I've yet to receive one myself. So I have some reservations in regards to that. Hopefully, I'll be happily proven wrong.
Here's to a happy new year, with me being proven wrong. That will certainly make my wife happy!
;-D
Safe travels to any of you out there!