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Jedediah
06-15-2007, 02:50 PM
Hey guys. I'm rather new to this forum and to PC building/moding. You see I been a Mac user for several years and finally built my own gaming PC. I enjoy it a lot but I ran into a problem recently.

It started when I purchased a Xbox 360 controller for cheap. I thought it make a nice gaming controller for my PC so I snipped the end of its cable and installed a USB connection on it. Pretty simple.

I installed Microsoft's official drivers and the controller works like a charm. Windows recognizes it right away as a Microsoft 360 "windows" controller. But here is where things get weird. I have a USB head set I use with my games. The very moment the controller is plugged in for the first time and Windows alerts me of it being connected, the sound on my headset starts cracking. And wont fix itself with a reboot. No matter if the controller is plugged in or not.

I have a pair of USB speakers I plugged in and I get cracking with those too but I get no cracking with a regular analog speaker. I'm sitting here thinking if its the controllers doing. But here is where things get more serious. If I shut down the computer while this is a problem the system will no longer boot into Windows. And if it does on a rare chance it will automatically restart. As if several apps are corrupted and are forcing the system to do so. The only way to fix this is by doing a repair with my XP disk. As safe mode and even "Last Known Good Configuration" mode will not boot.

So now I'm at a stand still. The controller itself doesn't seem to be harming anything hardware wise. Do you suppose its the official drivers that are causing the sound glitch and system bricking? And if so what can anyone recommend?

slytherock
06-15-2007, 02:55 PM
I suspect more a incompatibility between your controller drivers and USB audio driver. For the cracking, it's possible that because they both are on the same bus, one affect the other. It happened once with a rig, when I was using onboard audio; the mouse was causing cracking on the audio, so I add a PCI audio card and it fix everything

Jedediah
06-15-2007, 03:02 PM
Hmmm. Well. I don't have a audio card yet..I could look into getting one. And with hope that'll fix any and all sound issues. Assuming that would fix USB audio problems. Its really a gray area for me.

Luke122
06-15-2007, 03:43 PM
Do the usb headset and/or speakers work ok as long as the controller isnt attached?

If you have multiple USB ports on your computer, try plugging the controller in on the front panel, and the headset on the rear, or vice versa. This will ensure they arent going to interfere with each other.


Also, you can try different drivers for the controller... check out this site (http://matt-land.com/xbcd/) for more info.

Jedediah
06-15-2007, 04:10 PM
Thanks for the reply. To start things off I DLed and tried to install the drivers you linked me. I sadly could not get them to install correctly. After following the steps the software says it can not find the specific files. I am not sure why this is as I installed everything in its default path.

Now, as for the USB port testing. I plugged in the USB headset into the rear ports of my motherboard and the controller on the front ports of the PC. After the controller was recognized the sound cracked. Even when unplugged the sound cracked and even a restart with the controller unplugged left the system cracking sound. I had to do a system restore in order to correct the problem.

Luke122
06-15-2007, 04:25 PM
That's a super weird issue.. I did find one other case of the xbox controller drivers causing audio weirdness, so there might be some connection there. Have you tried to remove the controller drivers completely? Uninstall the drivers from the add/remove programs (if they are in there) and reboot the computer to see if the audio troubles continue.

Jedediah
06-15-2007, 04:42 PM
Allow me to try that now. Here are the steps I've taken with their results.

1. Plugged in headset to rear USB (no problems. Fully working sound)
2. Downloaded the Drivers from Microsoft. (no problems)
3. Installed them (no problems)
4. Plugged in the controller into the front USB ports on the tower. (controller was found and the lights came on showing activation. I got the "found new hardware sound effect in my headset as clear as day.
5. After waiting 5 seconds after the controller was found the speakers now crack at any sound effect.
6. I unplugged the controller. (Sounds are still cracking)
7. Went to add/remove programs and installed the drivers (no problems)
8. Headset is still plugged in and cracks.
9. Did a system restore to correct the USB audio problem.

I did not do a restart like suggested only because I have tried that once before I could not get the system to stop restarting itself. Which is really the worst part about all of this. I could live without USB audio but why does the whole system start to fail from the controller/or/drivers? To the point you need to do repairs XP OS disc..

xRyokenx
06-16-2007, 12:21 AM
What brand headset is it? If it's one of those $40-60 Logitech USB ones, they're crap. I had mine for two weeks and the speakers messed up, I got it replaced and that one messed up too, it ended up in the closet and it's now too late to exchange it, ah well, the mic still works good.

Try another USB mic or try yours in another PC and see if it works. Also take a look to see if it's for Macs or PCs, depending on if it had/has any compatibility problems.

Jedediah
06-16-2007, 12:41 AM
Well the headset is a Plantronics brand. It works flawlessly in mac and just as well in Windows (when the OS lets me select them). I'm using them right now to listen to music on my iBook. And was using them not 30 mins ago on my PC to play some BF2. While they are USB they work great and I never had a problem with them up to this point. But a system restore fixes whatever problem the controller or drivers create.

Jedediah
06-18-2007, 09:03 PM
I'm sorry for the double post guys but I wanted to share a update. I ordered a official Xbox 360 USB controller in the hope it was just my mod that was the problem. Well for better or for worse my mod seems to be fine. The official controller still does the same problems and forces me to do a system restore. So at this point of time I am blaming the drivers. Cause the sound only starts to crack when Windows informs me the "new hardware has been installed and ready to use".

jdbnsn
06-18-2007, 09:53 PM
I'm sorry for the double post

You are fine, that is not a double post. A double post would be posting this question in more than one thread of the forums.

Jedediah
06-18-2007, 10:01 PM
Ah good. :) I do have a little update. I tried to install 3rd party drivers like suggested before and had success with them this time. Oddly enough though the problem is still happening. Which would suggest its not the drivers at all like I was blaming before. Seems to weird for the same problem would happen in the same identical manner with 2 different drivers.

This time around I plugged in the control as instructed with the 3rd party drivers. The moment I did everything was ok for about 10 seconds. Then my USB audio died. Could this be a motherboard problem?