I've recently built a new system (see sig for details) and have hit a problem that has me beat.All the axis assignments for my CH hardware are set via FSUIPC rather than in FS9. The left-most lever on the CH Pro Yoke is assigned to the spoiler axis. Now here's the crazy bit... when I pull the lever back to raise the spoilers I get sound interference akin to radio breakthrough. I push the lever forward to lower the spoilers and it stops. This doesn't happen for the lever assigned to reverse thrust (the right-hand one).In my previous system I had the three CH devices - yoke, throttle and pedals - plugged into a separate PCI USB card because I didn't have enough USB ports. On my new system I have plenty of USB ports so I've dispensed with the PCI card and they're plugged into the mobo ports.On a slightly different tack with the frame rate limiter set to unlimited and using on-board sound I was getting engine sound distortion so thinking it might resolve the problem I installed an old Audigy sound card. The problem remained but after limiting the frame rates to 60 that problem seems to have been resolved. On my old system I never had any sound problems but then the frame rates were a lot lower. Unlocked I was getting frame rates of 100+.I'm trying to identify what is causing this interference. One possibility is the onboard wireless network which is still enabled. I have a separate wireless router so there is no need for this. When I get home I'll disable it. I'm still mystified as to why moving this lever would cause interference in sound.The other possibility is the CH yoke being plugged into a on-board USB connector. Does a separate PCI/USB card offer superior / cleaner performance?The Audigy sound card is quite old and I just installed the drivers from the CD. Would newer drivers help?The HD3870 X2 graphics card is huge and although I have installed the Audigy card in the PCI slot furthest away it may be causing interference.Your thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

Ray, whenever I've had sound interference like you describe, it has been the sign of the system running flat out and not having enough resources. Locking the framerates may just free up enough resources so the sound process does not get impacted.

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Hi Bert,It's strange that it only seem to affect that one axis. Anyway, I swapped the USB inputs around and tried a quick flight and set frame rates to unlimited and then locked them to 60. The unlimited setting caused sound distortion almost immediately. Limiting it to 60 seemed to stop it. I'll continue to monitor it and adjust downwards but hopefuly not much further. In both situations the spoiler control behaved itself.It does appear to be linked to system resources.

Hi Nick,I do have two powered hubs for the GoFlight kit. Thinking of the differences between my current system and the one it replaced the main differences are two-fold...1) The Aerosoft 747MCP was formerly plugged into COM1. Now it's plugged into a USB port via a Serial-USB converter. It does have a separate power supply though.2) The CH hardware was previously plugged into a non-powered PCI card; now they're plugged into mobo USB ports.Given the PCI card was probably drawing power from the mobo it seems unlikely the CH kit is responsible. The big difference is the Aerosoft unit. I have a spare input on my powered USB hub so I'll plug the Aerosoft into that and see how things go.It seems unlikely something has gone wrong in the yoke as it worked okay during a short flight this evening including no sound interference when using the spoiler.If all this fails I'll look at the BIOS and adjust latency.Finally, what's your thoughts about using on-board sound? Given the power of Core2 Duo processors is it still recommended to use a separate sound card?Many thanks!

Onboard is not the resource killer it was several years ago. I use digital optical out from the onboard to my Bose Acoustimass 16no issuesAlthough if you are looking for the best sound quality possible for professional or hobby reasons there are advantages to a sound card in that respect. In example, I do use one system for video/audio production and because of that, I do use a sound card. For FSX and games, I see no reason to buy one. Onboard works fine and delivers a great sound to the amp be it analog or digital as I use.Given the description, it may very well be latency related. Changes in the results when adjusting frames indicate a possibility the bus is saturated and having a bit of difficulty... see if PCI latency may make a difference.

Hi Nick,Would you believe the Asus mobo has no PCI Latency setting in the BIOS! :-hmmm I chose this board because everyone seems to favour Asus. Blast!I'll revert to on-board sound and see if that helps. It's a pity there isn't a utility that could tell you how stressed the system is when running FS.Ho hum.

Yes, the utility is called PCI LATENCY TOOL and I do believe it will allow you to set it to boot with windows.. Shows a list of the different bus's and RQx coming in and you can change latency for which ever one you wish or all of them.I have not used it in a few years but I did use it back in the AGP days.Typically that setting was for older systems and you may not find it in newer boards. I have not seen it in a while myself but I have been on very new product in the last year.

Hi Nick,Good man! I've found one to download and I'll report back tomorrow with my findings.This quote from the site I found seems to explain why I've had the problem... "This tweak is an important one. Apparently, newer high-end video cards hog PCI latency for no known reason."The 3870X2 is certainly high-end.My previous MSI board's BIOS did have this option but then again it took an AGP card. That option was probably needed.Thanks once again.

Hi Nick,I've installed the PCI Latency Tool but the readme states PCI-E cards do not have a Latency adjustment, only AGP ones.Here is a screenshot of the devices listed. I haven't made any changes. Can you recommend those that need changing and what value I should enter?Thanks.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/186062.jpg

I already knew that... Its not the video card I was talking about, its the entire system and what all devices are told to do by the BIOS. What that is telling me above is the motherboad is locking the bus at 64.hmmmm 64 is really not hogging the busLocking frames should not be at 60.. if you are going to lock, and your system can render fairly well, lock at 30The fact the noise goes away with frame lock indicates a saturated busthat can be affected by the sound card drivers trying to hog the bus BUT it can also be as a result of the position (slot) the sound card is in. Check the motherboard manual for the IRQ SHARING list and see if the slot the sound card is currently in is sharing with the PCIe slot or USB... they normally show a chart of what shares with what on the motherboard and Windows ACPI is suppose to correct any problems, BUT, ACPI is only going to be as effective as the drivers and the design of the card, in that creative is NOT known for being very well designed, at least in the past they were not.What you could try is to raise the latency on all those devices above showing 64, to 96 and see if the problem stops. If not, just uninstall the latency tool because its really not going to help and I suspect the issue is the card location/driversThe other option is to move the sound card to another slot. It does have all the classic symptoms of a resource share issue. We use to deal with that all the time with creative sound cards.. real PITA, and most problems were solved by either a PCI Latency adjustment in the BIOS or by the tool you have above, or moving the card to another slot that does not share with anything, at least anything of importance.

<>You might have done but I didn't until I'd read the site where I downloaded it. No matter.What I didn't mention in my last post is that I have now removed the Creative Audigy soundcard and reverted to on-board sound. There is a direct correlation between the locked frame rate and the sound distortion.Yes, the locked value is quite high so I'll reduce it and see how things go. I flew in FSX last night and there were no sound issues. At least that suggests there may not be a sharing violation.Thanks for your advice. Hopefully reducing the locked frame rate will resolve things.