The Snap, Crackle, and Pop of Windows Vista Audio

Posted: September 1st, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Hardware, Software | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

In a previous post, I complained that my Windows Vista x64 machine was suffering from audio that popped, clicked, and sounded like it was, for lack of a better term, ‘losing frames.’ At the time, I had looked around the ‘net some, and tried a few different drivers for my on-board sound card. The problem seemed to get better for awhile, but steadily worsened again to the point where I considered purchasing a new sound card, something that I haven’t done since 1998.

Tonight I took a deeper look down the tubes, and found this forum post that seemed to suggest that the problem was actually with the way nVidia’s 8800GT drivers access system memory when the Vista machine in question is host to more than 2GB of RAM. Following the suggestions in the thread, I headed over to the nVidia website and picked up the latest copy of their drivers (March 2009).

After the installation and a reboot, everything seems to be working just fine, with perfectly clear audio from multiple applications, and none of the annoying popping and clicking sounds that were driving me crazy before.

Areca: The Open Sourced Backup Solution

Posted: January 19th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Software | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Readers will recall the issues that I’d had some time ago in trying to force Windows Backup to play ball with an external hard drive encrypted by TrueCrypt. For some reason or another, Windows Backup refused to recognize the mounted drive as a valid backup location. One reader recommended that I try Acronis True Image out. Seeing as I like free stuff, I’ve found a free solution that solves the problem entirely.

Now it should be said from the outset that this process is a little bit ugly and a tad long winded, but that it does a really swell job and is full of opportunities to improve upon and to customize it for your particular situation.

Read on for the full tutorial – now with pretty pictures!
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