Article ID: 284201 - Last Review: January 15, 2006 - Revision: 1.2

USB-Based Sound May Be Distorted During Heavy File System Input/Output

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This article was previously published under Q284201

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SYMPTOMS

When you connect audio speakers to the universal serial bus (USB) port on your computer, digital audio playback may be choppy or distorted during playback. This problem is more common during heavy file input/output (I/O) operations, such as when you copy files from a CD-ROM to a hard disk.

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CAUSE

This problem may occur if you play digital audio over the computer's USB. This problem does not occur if you play analog audio through the sound card.

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RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, determine if the USB hardware can function as an output device for an analog sound card. This will alleviate the problem if the USB-based audio device supports this option.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

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MORE INFORMATION

This problem is more common on computers that are running the USB 1.1 architecture, which is limited to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) of bandwidth, and is less prevalent on computers that are using the USB 2.0 architecture.

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