The Haunting

[Karbon L. Forms]

For a while (maybe since I got PC - not sure) every minute or so my PC has made a strange sort of "chic chic" noise through the soundsystem. It sort of sounded a bit like paper or something and I presumed it was my mail program checking my mail.

Anyway it went away. I presumed this was because I'd turned off system sounds as I got into doing music. I never took that much notice to be honest.

Anyway. I have recently set up a dual boot for me music making. I was just sorting me VST folder (booted to DAW partition), in silence, with speakers on. The "chic chic" has returned! System sounds are defo off!

There is like nigh on bugger all installed except Tracktion. I thought it would go away when I fired up Tracktion and it took over the soundcard.

Nope. chic chic. The second "chic" is about a second after the first and seems fainter.

I'm fooking baffled! And a little uneasy!

Any ideas?

[Rack Bitz]

i think you need to get tracktion to look at its authorization key again
not sure about mac but on pc its called tracktion.key
you do this by pressing the about button in tracktion
if its not this it definatly sounds like something in demo mode
good luck

[jens]

I thought the same at first as well, but it seems he
has this strange noise all the time, not only when Tracktion is running - if so it's probably a grounding problem - might go away íf he plugs the Computer's voltage cable in a different - ah how are these damned little things called in english - plughole?

[Glassback]

Are you sure it's not your pop-up blocker erm, blocking pop-ups?

[Rack Bitz]

yeah jens is right
if its happening all the time
get some wire wool on your plug pins
if this dont work you may find you have dodgy audio leads
do you ever unplug em
first thing you learn in a studio doing your training
unplug your audio leads once a week and plug em back in
it stops corrosion+oxidation and clears out any dirt
you can get spray and grease to put on your leads to stop this but it aint cheap

i used to struggle with this problem because the devon coastline is write outside my window(ten metres)

[Rack Bitz]

also you dont have your computer on the same ring main as a fridge or boiler do you
aaah that old chesnut
this is a piece of piss to sort out if so
just use a surge protector on your computers power plug £6.75 GBP

[Karbon L. Forms]

also you dont have your computer on the same ring main as a fridge or boiler do you
aaah that old chesnut
this is a piece of piss to sort out if so
just use a surge protector on your computers power plug £6.75 GBP

This is happening in two threads! Ooops.

It used to happen on this boot but it went away now it happens on my supposedly spanking clean DAW boot.

Surely some problem with elastictrickery (electricity sorry) would affect me whichever of the dual-boots I use?

[Rack Bitz]

it doesnt happen on your other boot
what software is different on each boot

[Karbon L. Forms]

it doesnt happen on your other boot
what software is different on each boot

A lot.

This (not haunted) boot -> Internet/Firewall/Webcam/Viruscheckers/Tracktion heaps of crud etc etc.

DAW boot (haunted) Bugger all except standard windows shite, Tracktion, pdf viewer and powerarchiver.

I've just nailed a virus on me DAW boot! Now I can't find what it was called!! (no logs) Something to do with smss.exe? Just waiting for some downloads then I'll boot the DAW and wait for ghost. If it's still there could I record it somehow?

If there's something strange,
in your neighbourhood...

[Rack Bitz]

are you online when its hapening
this is pretty weird though

[Karbon L. Forms]

are you online when its hapening
this is pretty weird though

No dude. No interweb on DAW.

[Rack Bitz]

so all the drivers are the same
theres no software on the daw
what os are you running

[Karbon L. Forms]

so all the drivers are the same
theres no software on the daw
what os are you running

XP sp1 with latest updates.
Delta 66 Omni Studio w latest drivers.
Oxygen8

My downloads are down. OK chaps, I'm going in! Wish me luck. In theory the only difference is the removal of that virus.

[Karbon L. Forms]

Not a peep! or a "shick shick" should I say.

Do viruses make noises!?!?

The only time that boot was interwebalised was to do windys update. When that happened I got Sasser (which was blatantly obvious - an unrecognised process using 88% of CPU!) but I nailed it immediatly. Would Sasser have downloaded one of its mates?

Hmmmmmmm . It was stinger.exe from symantec that nailed the new critter. can't seem to find any log and I cant remember what it was called.

Well hopefully that's the end of it. Incidently I had run my usual checker over the DAW partition before posting my problem and it found fook all. Turns out that Avast! is gash. Well it is free I suppose.

Anyway. Thanks guys!

Could I have a volunteer to listen to my VERY FIRST experiment in computer music? The web(s)hite should be in my signature. Nobody in the universe sept me has heard it and it is crap. But it's a start. I don't even know what genre it is! (not mine anyway I'm a guitarist and it's got no guitars!)

[Rack Bitz]

viruses do anything they want to
glad you got it sorted
ive just started the tracktion developers group so get your arse over there
we need mac heads
pm me when you join and let me know user name so i can authorise