[Openchrome-users] via epia boards sound quality

[Warren Wilder]

Ivor Hewitt schreef:
>Warren Wilder wrote:
>>
>>On my SP13000 board, I occasionely have to deal with very bad quality
>>audio. This is a problem that only disappears after shutting down
>>the machine and waiting a while before rebooting. Clearly a hardware
>>issue. Is this common? I don't experience it often myself, but I
>>wonder...
>>
>What sort of "bad quality"? Just rebooting doesn't fix it without "waiting" 
>a while?
>
>Any temperature problems with the machine or chips on the board? Do you 
>have an IR thermometer?
>
>>I am using the normal 'green' line-out output socket by the way. Not
>>yet the s/pdif or RCA jack.
>>
>Never encountered anything like that.
>Are there any other boards in the machine?
>
>

A soft reboot doesn't fix it, where the motherboard still receives
current during the rebooting process. It has to be a real powerdown. I
wait a small while after a shutdown so I know the capacitors will have
drained as well and I will have a clean boot.
I have noticed with other (older generic pc) systems that a very quick
press of the power button generally acts as a reset button flick, so
thats why I wait a while. To let all the current leave the board.
It helps, so I do that.

At first I blamed the speakers, but after I immediately switched it with
a proven quality set, the sound was just as bad.

About the quality, it sounds 'far off', the volume is really low, while
it also sounds like the speakers are blown. If you have ever blown a
pair of speakers, you know the sound. Songs are still distinguishable,
but they are no pleasure in any way. High tunes are completely missing.

The cpu is not overheating. That would make the system unstable. It is
purely the sound output.
I don't have such a thermometer, but I trust the internal sensor of the
cpu to be correct. Besides, the board is not in a case yet and it isn't
burning my fingers off.  I don't know about the heat of the other chips,
so good call. You never know. I'll invest in one of these IR
thermometers. Not too expensive.

>Are there any other boards in the machine?
I haven't inserted a PCI card into the one slot, no, if that's what you
mean.
For the moment, I am still leaning towards putting the blame on the
speaker set I previously had connected. Perhaps it fed current into the
board. It is a cheap and dodgy set. Time will tell.

Anyway, am I really the only one who has experienced this? I hope so :-)

Warren

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