Techies SBlive distortion/scratch/static removal howto for win2k/winXP

Hi and welcome to my little SBlive! howto site.

I am a happy owner of a SBlive. Or at least I was till a scratch/static/distortion sounds started coming through on my mp3s and musicvideos. I tried upgrading and downgrading my sblive drivers but suspected I damaged my sblive while cleaning a dusty fan/heatsink on my north bridge and cpu(I always wear a anti static strap when working "under the hood" of a PC). I then read many sites around the web on possible fixes. But most blamed the 686B southbridge or software.

I lucky had my almost default install of win98se and there was no problems with my sound card. Now able to being able to release sigh of relief that I had not Statically damaged the sound card i was determined to find this software bug.

I had not had the problem before and will find the answer.

I hunted through the Internet to find the answer but did not find any gems. The ideas on the Internet are as follows
-Turning on the memory hole from 15-16 meg in the bios
-Decreasing the the hardware acceleration for the sound card (Start -> control panel -> Sounds and audio devices - Volume tab - Under speakers - Advanced Button- Performance tab)
-Increasing the the hardware acceleration for the sound card (Start -> control panel -> Sounds and audio devices - Volume tab - Under speakers - Advanced BUTTON - Performance tab)

Removed the device from the device list. Right Click on My Computer -> Manage -> Device manager -> Sound, video and game controllers. Right click on Creative Sblive! game controller and select uninstall and Right click on Creative Sblive! (WDM) and select uninstall.
I deleted the oem*.inf in the d:\winnt\inf\
I noticed that win2k and winXP will backing up the previous drivers in D:\WINNT\system32\Restore so i deleted everything in there.

I noticed that the problem was not present if I changed the environmental effect to chipmunks under AudioHQ( Start -> Programs -> Creative -> AudioHQ). But if the setting was set to Default it would go back to its scratchy ways. So what did I do?

Deleted AudioHQ :) from the startup menu. Start -> Programs -> Startup

Now I enjoy sound but only through one of the two outputs.

There is a handy program that comes with the creative cards called speaker preset setup (Start -> Programs -> Creative -> Soundblaster Live! -> Speaker Preset setup). Run this with only 4 speakers box ticked and 4 speakers preferred. Restart your machine now you should enjoy a stable 4 speaker sound with out distortion.

A very clever guy has realeased a potential fix to the PCI Bus lacking in bandwidth compared to Intel boards. This extra bandwidth has in some cases reduced or stopped the distortion coming through a SBLive card on a via motherboard. http://download.viahardware.com/vlatency_v019.zip

Try using the lastest version of the via4in1 drivers. You can download them form here. http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

I will not be held responsible if you stuff up and make things worse for you, your family and friends. Please use common sense and if your unsure get someone who does know what there doing to help.

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