Emu 1820m meltdown PLEASE HELP!

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Member Since: Feb 22, 2008

Hey everyone - I've been using an E-mu 1820m for the past few months and have had no problems until yesterday, when everything went wrong. I have a PC running Windows XP Pro, SP2 running on 150gb hard drive. I opened my box to install a 2nd hard drive, a 500Gb Western Dig. Caviar drive...
Prior to my soundcard freaking out, my power amp (Nady XA-300) started fizzling out. I assumed it was just the power amp because it was relatively cheap, but then the soundcard started freaking out. The pc would boot - and as the splash screen for the Patchmix DSP app would load, it would say that the PC doesn't have enough free memory to run the soundcard (or something like that) - All of the green lights on the right of the breakout box were flickering and when I put headphones on I would hear what sounded like bursts of white noise... When attempting to play music to hear what was going on, the song would play for a moment, then a loud noise, followed by the audio "fizzling" out - That's the best word I can use to describe the sound. It just popped and faded out with a distorted sound.

What in the world is going on?!
Any help would be greatly appreciated - I'll be on here all day so if you need to know any more info I can provide it.
Thanks soooooo much, you guys have been great in the past and I appreciate it!

Dave

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Member
Since: Feb 22, 2008


Nov 11, 2008 02:06 pm

Oh! I forgot to mention that as the "white noise" sounded in my head phones, my mouse would be choppy and wouldn't move.. It's like the pc would freeze during these sounds. When I disabled the sound card and unhooked everything, that problem went away....

Member
Since: Feb 22, 2008


Nov 11, 2008 02:10 pm

The sound card also makes a loud buzzing sound when powered up now...
this is not cool

Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


Nov 11, 2008 02:14 pm

yikes, that's scary...have you done any virus or malware scans lately? Maybe something hoggin up memory resources is causing some issues...

Member
Since: Feb 22, 2008


Nov 11, 2008 02:18 pm

I have Avast on-access scanner which does a great job - I generally don't even use this pc for internet stuff. The breakout box is connected to the PCI card by a black EDI cable - At each end of the cable, the wires look a little frayed - I wonder if that would lead to these issues...
It's not like wires are exposed, they just look like they are about to be ;)

Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


Nov 11, 2008 02:19 pm

well, a bad wire can always account for problems...

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Nov 11, 2008 07:55 pm

I would check the resources that are being used as well, but it does indeed sound as though it is a hardware issue with the card. Especially since when you remove it from the system everything seems to calm down.

I would also check to make sure that your Ram did not come loose or get jiggled about. Best bet is to pop them out and re-seat them into their slots. I have had more then one PC show signs like this from a simple ram stick getting slightly jarred during hardware installation's. So that as well is worth a look.

If it is a PCI card you might want to try another slot as well. It would not be the first time I have seen a PCI slot go bunk.

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