The sound card is...?
Speakers plugged into a surge protector?

From where?

That screaming sound will be the religious sacrifice of small animals to the God Microsoft....

Failing that, listen to yrag...

Are you sure it's not the wife?

ahhhhhh......nothing finer then the smell of simmering critters.   

Speaking of wives....with 203 karmas, how many slurpy sounds did you have to make...?????????

Sound Card is Creative Soundblaster X-FI Fatality Pro.

Yes, the speakers are plugged into a surge protector.



Speakers sometimes pop and crackle when *say* a light or other appliance is turned on or off... most noticeably from the sub-woofer.

Positive! She screams much louder for much longer.

Turn the speaker switch to the just below normal and use the Windows volume control. Turn bass down on woofer switch and disable EAX,CMSS and Crystalizer in Console. If the problem goes away, play with the Console effects until it comes back, then you'll know the correct settings. That said, a 'screech' is almost always a volume problem.



You can try a different outlet with the surge protector, but I don't think it will matter much. If you want to make sure it's not the surge strip, plug the speakers directly into the wall outlet. No pop...your surge is shot.

The pop from other electrical items makes me think it's a ground problem but I am do not have a clue as to what type of setup you are running over there. Is it 110volts with a seperate ground wire?
Have you tried running a UPS?

Ok, I've done all that... now it's a waiting game to see if it happens again.



You might be right about my surge protector being shot/faulty. A couple of days ago we had a brief power interruption and it cut out, but when the power came back on it took a while to reset and become fully functional again. There were no electrical burning smells and it seems to be working fine now, but I'm no expert so will get it checked.

Oh, and the screeching sound happened once before the power interruption/surge board thing so I don't think they're related.

If it's just a sound/volume thing I can resolve that easy enough, but I've heard of people hearing Bios/Mobo related screaming and that's what had/has me concerned.

We have a 240v system here in Oz, and yeah, it probably is a grounding problem which can be easily resolved. As for the UPS, that's probably my next investment, considering how much I have already invested in my PC, etc.

I have heard strange noises coming from my speakers when i place my cell phone on my desk. If I move it farther away it doesn't happen. Just keep it in mind

You can also get feedback from a microphone, if you have one.

starkers,

The "snap-crackle'n-pop" from the speakers is something that has reared it's head in some of the other games I've played over the years (thankfully not sins).

One way I found of getting rid of it was to run DXDIAG and kept lowering the "3D Sound Acceleration" on the slider until the "snap-crackle-pop" went away.




Certainly making sure your PC is well protected (from surges etc.) goes without saying...

the Monk

Or the comptuer screaming at the immaculate comptuer room of a comptuer geek.

Spell-check on aisle three.... ...