Sound Card Fun

The picture has nothing to do with the post.

Again, more as a reminder for me, although this might help someone else. I installed a Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card recently. Sound did improve greatly over the onboard thing but there was mouse stutter and the occasional mouse freeze. I'd been using a PS2 connection for the mouse but that was mysteriously killed by the card, so I was using a USB port.

Tried moving the mouse around to other ports. Tried moving the card to another open slot. Nothing. Creative tech support suggested going into the BIOS and there were some online fixes that required editing the registry. I didn't like either idea. The Creative card and my nVidia 9500 GT card were sharing the same IRQ and that was leading to the backup on the mouse.

Just about when I was going to pull the card and send it back, I uninstalled my mouse drivers, then plugged in the mouse that came with this HP desktop. That installed new drivers (although both list generic drivers in Device Manager). I hate the HP mouse, plugged back in my generic (so generic that there's no manufacturer listed on the underside of the mouse) optical mouse.

No stuttering for five days. Changed the IRQ enough that it's no longer a problem. I'm not nearly smart enough to know exactly why but I am smart enough to not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

If this helps you, excellent.