Quetion for the experts:

Last week I upgraded my system to: P3 800, Geforce MX2 400, 40gb HD, Creative 128 Scard, jetway mobo. The mobo and sound card were from the old config.

Now, with by new and much improved setup, my sound card is giving me gip.

Whenever I play a game I get a crackling or stuttering sound on top of what's supposed to be heard.
I've tried updating to the latest drivers, reinstalling the card, moving to a different slot and checked all the plugs, all to no avail. I know it's not my speakers coz it happens on headphones too.

Any suggestions??

yeh

give the speaker to soundcard connection (where u plaug the speakers into the soundcard) a squirt of compressed air if this doesnt fix it make sure the connection isnt wobbly if it is ull get distortion

Go into direct X diagnostic (Programs/Accsessories/System tools/System Information/Tools) and try notching down the hard ware acceleration for the sound. The real cause of prob could possibly be solved with a reinstall of direct X 8.1 or 8.0 but am not sure on this.

CHeers for the advice, guys.

I alrready tried an upgrade from directX8 to 8.1, but no change.Haven't tried using the diagnostic tool though.

I'll try making sure everything is nice and clean too......

Any chance of more info on the motherboard?

Just had a quick check, and looks like the Jetway mobo may be running on a VIA chipset. There was a lot of trouble with VIA/Soundblaster Live combinations a few months back, giving off crackling etc similar to what you describe. Never heard of it with the 128, but could be related. New drivers did the trick from what I recall, so look up Jetway's website and see if they have any ideas.

There could also be some problems with the 128 and Win XP, if that's you OS. If that's the case, there's a patch on Creative's website.

I had a problem with my sb 128 when i updated the drivers. Try to force the old ones back in. If that doesn't work then move the soundcard to a new PCI slot as there may be a problem with the slot or the interruost request.

the pci 128's quite an old card now ism't it??. I had simialar stuttering problems with an on board sound card. I upgraded to a soundblaster 5.1 and it solved the problem.
Like the others say check your drivers.
try changing the irq to something other than a shared one if possible.
Is there on board sound as well??? make sure it's disabled if its there.. could be a jumper as well as a bios setting.I've had a couple of jetway boards and they both had sound onboard.

type 'dxdiag'
from within the 'run' box in the start menu.
this will bring up the direct x diaganostic tool a little quicker.
check the sound tab and you could try lowering the anount of hardware acceleration.

also is the stuttering cackling noise happening all the time, just when running games or when playing music from cds... midi files.???
if its happening when playing games.. check to make sure that eax, enviroment enhancements, a3d effects etc are turned off.

i got some terrible feedback once because i had the recording device selceted as' what you hear) which was turned right up.
check this in your mixer settings goto the properties and then choose record. turn the volume right down or mute it.

Once again, thanks for all the advice. To answer a few questions:
Mobo is a jetway 994an/l , but it does not have onboard sound.
(did I say I'm on Win 98SE?)
have tried moving the board to a different slot, made no difference.
Crackling only happens in-game, not when playing music CD's - generally in the game, not on the menu screens.
Have tried all the latest drivers for the soundcard, no difference.

Maybe it's slowly dying and I'll just have to spend out on that 5.1 board that I'd really like.............