Hi Dave,
Glad you finally solved the problem with your system. However, the cause of
the problem is still unknown, and it certainly has mystified many folks who
tried to help.
Creative (Soundblaster) essentially started the soundcard business, and
generally has been the soundcard that works. History suggests that this is
still true in most cases. I wish I had suggested trying a total system
restore to eliminate any variable due to the Windows system. There is also
the possibility of operator error, especially with the Audigy, since it is
so complex. We have a member of our digital net here who finds it very hard
to understand how the Audigy works with his ham programs, but it works
perfectly with fldigi on all modes, and DM780 as well, once he finds the
correct settings and leaves them alone. I have often recommended changing to
a simpler card, but he thinks the decoding will be better with the higher
quality card, and it could be, depending upon the comparison sound system in
the same computer, but the jury is still out on that one.
I personally have had situations where a total system restore was the only
way to make things work. Why, I do not know. Since Windows has over
10,000,000 lines of interacting code, it could be almost anything.
I seriously doubt that your problems are caused by the SoundBlaster or
fldigi, but most likely by something we do not know about your system. I say
this because there are probably thousands of systems with SoundBlaster
cards, and even hundreds with Audigy cards that are working with no problems
at all, and if your system were one of those, it would obviously work also.
Just like you are not condeming SoundBlaster, I am not trying to defend
SoundBlaster. However, I just want to point out to anyone with soundcard
problems that the Windows system itself can often be the culprit, and the
way the operator is configuring the system, or the way programs have
modified the system, could be the problem as well. When I test fldigi for
any version release, I have a computer on which I always do a total system
restore so I am testing with a truly virgin system. We have another net
member who cannot get fldigi to run on his desktop machine, but it is OK on
two laptops. Since he has so much data and programs on the desktop machine,
it is not practical to reformat and restore that machine to fix the problem.
He is one of our fldigi beta testers, and in one case, did have to do a
restore on one of the laptops to get fldigi working, because somewhere along
the line, a remnant of one of the beta versions continued to do something to
the system and cleaning it out completely was the simplest (and probably
only) way to get it working again.
If there are mysterious soundcard problems, next time I'd first try a total
system restore before assuming the soundcard is at fault.
BTW, Peter Martinez, G3PLX, has found that some USB soundcards have a
greater offset between receive and transmit tone frequencies than most
onboard soundcards. In this case, the soundcard might be the problem, and
not the system.
Anyway, we have beat this horse to death. I am happy you finally found a
solution to your own system that works for you, and we can move on to other
issues. :-)
73, Skip KH6TY
NBEMS Development Team
Little problems began to show up again. Once in a while, the PC
wouldn't boot properly, but most of the issues were with digital ham
apps. Beginning to see a trend, I just replaced the Soundblaster again,
but this time with an inexpensive Diamond brand sound card. All problems
have completely disappeared!
This isn't an ad for Diamond sound cards, or a blanket condemnation
of Soundblaster. Just a hopefully informative note to anyone out there
who has problems with their PC that are unexplainable by other causes,
that looking at your sound card /*might*/ be a place to look.
73
Dave
KB3MOW
