Sound acting like a dead fish in a box of worms !

Hello everyone, from France !

Since a few months, I am having totally amazing sound problems with the internal audio of my MacBook Pro core duo 2 + Second Life.
This happens mainly when I am using voice, but it does happen even when nobody is speaking, or when I'm just listening to music inworld.
The longer I stay on, the more jerky and corrupted the sound becomes. Yet the whole thing was working perfectly a year ago, on same configuration, a few upgrades earlier.
I posted an mp3 to let you guys hear what my problem sounds like, as I thougt it might help :
http://wvorg.online.fr/posts/audio-bug.mp3

I should add that at the same time as this happens, the mouse gets very jerky also, sometimes stay blocked at the same place for a second, and the computer in general starts running real slow. Actually the longer I stay in SL, the slower it gets.

This happens even when only Second Life is open.
I tried re-installing Second Life, I ran TechTool... no problem detected.

I am looking for any suggestion to fix this problem, that right now just make me think that there is a physical problem somewhere. Please tell me wrong !

Oh and my graphic card is an ATI Radeon X1600.

Akanjee

Your mp3 sounds like a loose or dirty connection between the computer and the headset - or in the headset itself. Does it happen with the built in speakers as well?

Need more data.

hey !
this is not a signal loss problem, it happens even with the built in speakers
connexion isn't envolved either - and that wouldn't explain why the whole computer starts acting really jerky and gets gets stuck intermittently for a second or 2 in synch with the sound problem

i am really thinking of an incompatibility issue between last version of SL / leopard 10.4.5 and/or my macbook pro intel core 2 duo 2,33Ghz (2GB Ram, ATI Radeon X1600 256 Mo)

...

Does this happen regardless of what stream you are accessing? In other words, does the music/audio sound choppy no matter where you're at in SL?

Some things you can look for.

If you have Soundflower or Audio Hijack or things like that installed, turn them off for a while. They shouldn't interfere unless you set them up that way, but forgotten scripts and things like that happen.

Look in /Library/QuickTime and see if there are any old third party components that might want to be removed or updated.

And one that might seem weird, launch and quit GarageBand. That is a quick way force your sound card back to its default sample rate etc., just in case some other program changed them.

hey viktoria thanx for yout interesting suggestions, that's what I'm talking about !


I don't have GarageBand though - is there another way to reset the sound card ?

and I un-installed audio hijack and soundflower — indeed I was using both, but ok fine for now !
but it didn't change anything...
I noticed the more this sound problem occurs, the more my framerate drops - the longer I stay inworld that is, the slower it starts running

i also noticed when I switch to a different output, like aggregate device our external sound card, and then switch back to internal, the sound problem goes away for a few minutes... or seconds...

what's up with that

gee !

woooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwww !!!!!!

this is driving me crazy, really makes my SL experience horrible !
does anybody have an idea on what I could check / do ?

OK, look in Utilities for Audio MIDI Setup. Under the Audio Devices tab, over in the Defualt Output section, look at what it says for Audio Output. Normal sane values for Format would be 44100 Hz, at 16 bits. If it's different try changing them to those. This is what the GarageBand weirdness would have done. If there are weird numbers, and if they come back, you'll have to figure out what might be changing them. If the numbers look OK, something else is up :/

thanx vik !
well... the numbers are ok !
damn

Ha! I started looking into Apple's support to see if there was any common problem showing up, and I saw you there (or someone else who thinks it sounds like a dead fish!) =) If you aren't using any unusual software, then I think this might be a problem for Apple to look at, especially if you are now hearing it outside Second Life :/

lol hey vik ! thanx for even going to look for help on apple's website ! and indeed, it is me yelling about dead fish !

yeah I also think this is more like an Apple related problem - actually, now I am even having the issue - in a less flagrant way, even when SL isn't running and I'm just dealing with """heavy""" apps like final cut (video editing software)

what I don't understand, is that this is new, and didn't happen before !!!

i actually have the same problem,
but im running on vista home basic.

specs:
CPU: AMD 64x 6400+ (3153 MHz)
Memory: 4094 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 9800 GX2/PCI/SSE2

using a logitech headset.
and every thing is fine, but when i start second life.
the sounds starts to sound fishtank like.
distorted, and its not just SL that messes up.
every sound messes up, mp3 i try to play or movies.
they all go bad.

and this only happens when i start sl.

altho, i got a surround sound set, to my normal soundcard.
and that just works fine.
so im guessing some how sl or sl voice is messing up sound driver.

any have any idea ?

In case that helps, this is a copy/paste of what someone recently answered to me when I posted the same topic on Apple Discussion forums :

"Hi Akanjee, I suspect that your problem is, indeed, free space fragmentation. THis is one of those progressive things that , when free space gets down to the sort of level you mention above, is pretty well inevitable if you do any video work. Ultimately you get to a point where contiguous space for VM and the like isn;t available, and , ultimately, where even your catalogue and extent files become compromised.

Once you get to a point where free space fragmentation sets in simply freeing up some room probably won't be enough to get rid of it (as the files you are removing may well be fragmented already anyway) .

I'd first of all free up some space, check your drive directories using "Disk Utility" while booted from your OS DVD, and then try making a bootable clone of your drive to an external HD (using SuperDuper or the like). Then wipe the internal drive (after you have made sure you can boot from the clone) , and clone back.

Alternatively get hold of a copy of iDefrag (the safest of the defragging utilities, and still the only one that deals properly with "hot files" and some of the other file system refinements of the Mac .

If you just want to check the extent of free space fragmentation and the like first try ShowVolumeFrag


Cheers, Rod"


Maybe he's right ! I'm gona try it...