when ever there is no player open or any app that is made to produce sound, other then windows, a faint static can be heard at all times.
Chipless on-board sound, also known as
AC '97 (audio codec 1997) will cause this problem for two reasons:
1. Being on the motherboard, it's more subject to digital noise due to its proximity to digital circuitry (and the fact that part of the audio circuitry is on the same chipset that's doing the digital work); and
2. Since the CPU is doing the actual work of the digital-to-analog conversion, the sucked-up cycles cause little "hiccups" that are audible.
A PCI sound card will both sound better and improve performance. A
SoundBlaster Live! (the minimum that I recommend) will cost as little as $30 in the OEM version.
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