Gremlins Emerge with Switch to Windows 7

CW, what makes you conclude that Windows 7 has anything to do with the problem? Not saying that it doesn't, but for meaningful suggestions to be offered I think that question has to be addressed.

You indicated that the new laptop is "much faster." Depending on the jitter rejection capabilities of your DAC, if any, it seems to me that high on the list of possible causes would be increased jitter caused by increased levels of digital noise generated by the new laptop. Faster digital circuits can be expected to cause increased amounts of digital noise, everything else being equal. Other conceivable possibilities are rfi effects or ground noise effects that may bypass the usb interface altogether.

One thing I'd try, if you haven't already, would be to see if running the computer on its battery, with the ac adapter disconnected, helps at all.

Also, what differences exist between the new configuration and the old one, aside from the laptops being different. Are you playing back the same files from the same external drive, for example? Are you using the same software program for playback?

Also, can you tell us the make and model of both laptops?

Finally, can you characterize the "horrible" sound more specifically?

Best regards,
-- Al

Al,

Thank you and I know you are very good on this topic.

I will do more testing, but for starters, I just turned on Pandora, which I use with a Pandora One subscription for higher resolution.

And yes, I did immediately unplug the AC adapter, wondering if the battery alone might improve things but it did not.

The "upgrade" was nothing exotic - only to a Lenovo X201 which has a faster 1.66 chip and 8gb of memory, compared to my Lenovo S10 netbook which has an Intel Atom and only 1 gb of memory.

The only obvious difference is Windows 7 and hence my suspicion. As for settings on the computer, thats what I need to figure out.

I did not immediately recognize the audio settings compared to XP where you basically just select the USB audio device you want to use and off you go.

The sound was distorted and also had repeated tics or pops - a skipping sound.

Thanks for any ideas.

Why not KEEP your old PC just for music?
Makes sense to me.

Ever think that they skimped on the audio card? I know that new HP's that is a real problem. I've got a massively fast HP but the sound is crap compared to an older unit. I ended buying an external DAC. The internal is so bad that I don't even want to listen with headphones.

CW -- Ok, that does sound like something that is settings related.

I recall seeing a number of reports of similar symptoms with USB audio under Windows 7, which, depending on the specific computer, were resolved by disabling certain power saving features. Modern processors and motherboards have features which dynamically vary both cpu speed and cpu voltage depending on how busy the cpu is. Apparently that switching can sometimes introduce glitches into audio that is being sent out via usb, depending on the specific computer's hardware design.

Try going to Start/Control Panel/Hardware & Sound/Power Options, and selecting "High Performance."

Also, next to where it says "High Performance," go to "Change Plan Settings" and then "Change Advanced Power Settings." Expand the + sign next to "Processor Power Management," and under that expand the + signs next to "Minimum Processor State" and "Maximum Processor State." Set them both to 100% if they are not presently set that way.

If that doesn't help, you can restore the original default settings on the page that appeared after you clicked "Change Plan Settings."

There are probably also some power saving features that can be enabled or disabled in the computer's bios. As you may realize, the bios is entered at startup, before Windows starts to load, by pressing some keyboard key that is probably specified in the computer's manual.

Hope that helps,
-- Al