Hard / Software problem.

Note: I am not sure whether this is my new sound card, the new sound card's drivers, Ventrilo or my headset. Please point me to the correct direction!

I seem to be getting slight distortion in my speakers when I turn boost on, but if I turn boost off barely anything is transmitted and the distortion goes away. This is with the software that came with my new sound card though.

I also hear every sound that goes into the microphone, such as my voice when I talk into it. This didn't happen on my laptop.

Edit: It isn't just Ventrilo, but my headset seems to be set like that.

what sound card did you get?

Argh. Could be so many things. I hate sound issues :/

It could be something as simple as volume levels. Open up the sound mixer from Windows (possibly depends on hardware), make the master and .wav output fairly low, and turn up the volume on the headphones (if fitted). If not, generally fool around with volume settings to see if you can reach a compromise between volume and distortion.

When the problem involves a microphone as well, it's even more fun to diagnose. Mic detection in Windows is the work of the devil.

What version of Windows?

What soundcard/onboard sound?

Which headset?

That will all help.

Windows XP Home.

CMI8738-4CH

Some Logitech one.

I'm sure it's not the headset though. It worked fine on my laptop.

Make sure you select 'microphone' from the list of recording devices. The reason your mic picks up everything is probably because you selected something else (I'm not familiar with Cmedia sound cards, but SB sound cards, we call it "What U Hear").

Try selecting microphone, and turning on the boost. There still should be some distortion, because of the nature of mic boost, but it shouldn't be as heavy.

Well it's still exactly the same, and I didn't need to change any settings as they were already like that. Although it only seems to pick up wind and scraping from the microphone.

you need to retrain the mic. start>control panel>sounds and audio devices>voice tab>TEST HARDWARE BUTTON. This will scan and walk you through setting up your mic. Next go to the audio tab and adjust the sliders so that you do not hear your own voice/background noise.

Open the Mixer and mute the microphone. That will keep you from hearing yourself - it will not 'mute' the mic for recording, so Ventrilo will still work.

The distortion is probably a combination of hardware software issues and may be very difficult to eliminate.