Audio distortion - all sources

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Guest

My wife's HP computer exhibits severe audio distortion on program peaks while
playing back most audio sources, either using Windows Media Player for MP3s,
etc., or even just playing a commercial CD in the CD/ROM drive. It's as
though there's not enough headroom in a D/A converter. When files are
transferred to a CD or to another computer (digital-to-digital), they play
fine. However, when she plays a CD in her DVD drive instead, that audio is
clean. Thus there would seem to be nothing wrong in the analog part of her
computer, but with a certain part of the conversion software. Could this be
a driver situation? All audio goes through something called Multi Channel
Sound Manager that must have come with the computer, at least I don't have it
on my Windows XP machine. Can this be defeated to see if it's the culprit?
Any ideas will be most welcome.
 
You may check the volume control and be certain that it is NOT at FULL but
at rather 3/4 volum setting. If you are using a Soundblaster also check the
creative labs volume level or mixer and do the same. If you have an
amplified speaker system, you may have too much input, which will cause
excessive voltage spikes into the audio cards iline in.
You may also check to be certain that your external speaker jack is
plugged into the LINE IN or BLUE jack of the audio card and NOT the earphone
jack, whic is an amplified output and may cause distortion on a controlled or
regulated aux input.
 
Thanks, Craig,

...but it's more than just a juggling of internal levels, I've tried
all combinations of level controls that are in series. Also, the fact that a
CD played in the DVD drive sounds good should eliminate anything in the
analog domain; it's a common audio out for the DVD and the CD drives. I'm
stymied.
 
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