Soundcard clicks on mouseover

[Furant]

This is a really odd thing to try to describe but I'll try.

If I listen closely, either through headphones or with my sound turned up on my computer, I can hear little background clicks whenever a mouseover action occurs or the highlighting in a window changes. For instance, if I move the mouse over the entire toolbar in MS Word, it sounds like a Glock 18 (I love when we can still fit gun talk into this forum). I am using Windows XP SP2 on a Dell Dimension 8200 with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard with the latest driver that's available through the Santa Cruz website.

Since it is subtle, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, except when recording, using any decent software, the cursor follows a timeline and generates clicks every fraction of a second (depending upon the timescale used). I've tried it with Windows default sound recorder, Audacity and Sony Sound Forge. All of them create the incessant background clicking. Luckily I have a few noise removal plugins that have worked well to clean up some of my recordings.

BTW, as I write this, I realize that I haven't tried recording when I have the system booted into my Slackware instance. I'll try that tonight. Perhaps that will let me troubleshoot it better - but I still need to get it working in XP so I can do recordings through Sound Forge.

Any other thoughts what might be causing this or what I can do to fix it?

Joey

[Washington,D.C.]

If that is a Dell installed sound card it might be installed in the top PCI slot.This can cause(pick-up) electrical interference with the video card.You should move the sound card to the bottom PCI slot as far from the video card as you can get it.Later Dell fixed this problem by moving the cards.

[Washington,D.C.]

There are two "latest" drivers for that card.One is official and the other is a beta driver.They both seem to work well.

[Furant]

Originally posted by Washington,D.C.
If that is a Dell installed sound card it might be installed in the top PCI slot.This can cause(pick-up) electrical interference with the video card.You should move the sound card to the bottom PCI slot as far from the video card as you can get it.Later Dell fixed this problem by moving the cards.
It was Dell installed when I bought it in Jan 2002. I think, from memory, that it is right below the video card. I'll try moving it.

Thanks, DC.

[Washington,D.C.]

Okay,I found the recommended order to prevent interference and conflict.

AGP-video

PCI1-ethernet card network adapter

PCI2-Modem

PCI3-Sound card

PCI4-IEEE 1394 Firewire

The original card order in the Dimension 8200 was

AGP-video

PCI1-Sound card

PCI2-Modem

PCI3-Ethernet network adapter

PCI4-IEEE 1394 Firewire

Sometimes the bottom PCI slot shares some resources with the AGP slot so the slot above the bottom is likely best for the sound card.

[Furant]

In the past, I've teased you about your ability to dig up references quickly, but man, you do deliver. I have been snooping the Dell website and Google trying to find information on this issue to no avail.

You have earned yourself a ;c my friend. I'll let you know how it works out.

Thanks.