The craziest USB soundcard problem ever

**Sibi** · 03-07-2008, 03:04 AM

Hi 2 all. I have a car pc setup for almost two years and I have a crazy problem hunting me whatever I do.
My initial carpc setup was a jetway j7f2 with m2 atx, 1gb ddr2 ram 160gb hdd and audigy 2 nx and i use roadrunner with winamp for music playback. The car pc is under the driver's seat and the sound card is placed in the trunck (I use a 5m usb repeater and a usb extension-before adding the usb repeater the pc wouldn't "see" the audigy).For some strange reason I sometimes had a "bad direct sound" error in winamp which would stop music playback,bring the audigy 2 nx offline and make it unrecognizable by the pc and force me to restart the system. Sometimes the sound card would reappear in windows without restarting,just by itself. This problem happenned randomly, while driving, while the car is stopped,with the engine running or turned off etc. Through these 2 years I have tried many things but I haven't found a solution yet: format&reinstall win xp,new power supply for the audigy,new usb hubs,different usb ports for the audigy (all possible combinations) etc. I was so frustrated that I even changed all my hardware , I bought a new motherboard the Jetway J7F5,changed the ram,changed all the wires in the car pc but even after that the problem is still there !!!! The last two weeks the problem got worse, i had this error almost everyday so yesterday I decided to spend even more money for buying another sound card and resolving the problem. I bought the Terratec Aureon mkII usb, plugged it in,everything seemed to be ok,but the second time I drove my car the music suddenly stopped and i got a bad direct sound error from winamp again!!! I'm getting mad! No matter what i do I cannot fix this, the only things that i havent tried yet is to 1) tottally change the usb wire that goes to the sound card (including the usb repeater) and 2) install a pci usb 2.0 card and try my luck.

Have you ever faced something similar?? Any suggestions ???

**Woofnstuff** · 03-07-2008, 03:14 AM

have you tried removing the repeater and running the audio cable longer.
and is that the only USB device on that port?

repeaters cause problems alot.
also instead of the repeater you could try a small powered usb hub, as that way its generating full 5v for the usb sound card. powered usb hubs are only $20 or so. and change the usb cable from the pc at the same time as putting the hub in.

**ptk** · 03-07-2008, 03:55 AM

hi sibi

actually the bad direct sound thing isn't problem with your pc. that's just merely your usb soundcard hardware going offline.

most common problem with usb sound card going offline is link to power supply. I have that soundcard before and boy, is it power hungry. I am assuming that you are providing power to it via a seperate power supply?

but seeing that even with aureon mk2 ( i dont' know if this thing is power hungry or not though), the possible problem is your usb link. my own setup uses a 5m usb extension going into a powered hub. perhaps you might want to try ussing woofnstuff's suggestion as well.

**Sibi** · 03-07-2008, 05:35 AM

When I started setting up the carpc the first problem I faced was the abnormal operation of the soundcard,that's why i installed the repeater. After the installation of the repeater everything was fine.After some time and not very frequently I got the direct sound error and I couldn't imagine it could be the repeaters fault, but now the problem became much more frequent... I will try another repeater and I will inform... Universal Serial Bastard...

**rijk** · 03-07-2008, 09:49 AM

I wanted to use stand-by, with the dsx12vd, so i installed a second wire with a 1212 an a couple of diodes.
The dvd-player was usb, and after that change, it was not recognized and didn’t play.
Turned out that the diodes lowered the power so the system no longer had enough power to give power enough to the usb. Alter removing he diodes, the problem was gone.
I also have a Aureon usb mk2, and in the test on some usb ports it was seen, and on others not, also the usb cable mattered. When i use a high class usb-device-cable (gold connections) and connect that directly to the mobo, than it works fine.
So what you could do:
Check if there is enough power. / make a power device from a opus dcl11 for example
Connect the device-cable directly to your mobo and maybe get a better device-cable.

**greatwhite** · 03-07-2008, 10:04 AM

Sounds like you've either got a problem with signal drop out or power with such a long USB run.

I had similar issues with a usb DVD. I installed a powered USB hub, problem resolved.

Try plugging your usb soundcard into the usb port without any type of extension and se if the problem remains...........

Good luck.

**Nola111** · 03-07-2008, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by greatwhite

Sounds like you've either got a problem with signal drop out or power with such a long USB run.

I had similar issues with a usb DVD. I installed a powered USB hub, problem resolved.

Try plugging your usb soundcard into the usb port without any type of extension and se if the problem remains...........

Good luck.

Also, all USB repeater cables are NOT created equal. Not sure what brand you have, but I the cheaper ones (anything under $25) are typically crap, in my experience. In any case, try a direct connection as a test, and see if that solves it.