Static Shock: A painful Ventrilo Experience.

Well I'm pretty sure I can ask a question about this since Ventrilo is a big part of my Guild Wars experience. Basically my problem is this: Every so often, when I am in Ventrilo, when I press the push to talk button instead of the other people hearing my voice, they all get blasted hardcore in the ear with what they refer to as "static pwnage". Basically they say it's an extremely loud and high pitched static noise that always compells them to groan quite loudly in pain over vent. When this happens I will sadly apologize in Guild Chat and reconnect to vent. This usually fixes it (for the time being) so basically I know it has something to do with lag. The thing I don't know is why my computer chooses to react like this when it experiences lag. I have never been hit by static pwnage myself and the only time I heard about anything similar was when I was in someone elses vent and a guy was muttering about something similar that happens with a friend of theirs.

Now here is a brief history of the static pwnage that might give some insight into how to fix it. It first happened to me about 2-3 months ago while I was in my old guilds TS server. It happened every once in a while at first, but after a while it started to happen too frequently. At the time my mic was a cheap 10 dollar thing that was set on top of my monitor. I thought that there might have been some connection issues with this mic so I bought a new head-set. The problem seemed to be fixed but then it happened again a few days after I bought the head-set. I didn't know what to do about it so I just tried to always make sure my mic was plugged in tight to the back of my comp. At the time I thought it might have been a problem with the wires connected to the microphone input on the back of my comp so, being cheap, I decided to not take the comp in and just hope for the best. For a long time, the problem stopped showing up at all. After a while I moved to a new guild that uses vent, I thought maybe it was just a TS problem but then after a long time without it, the static pwnage hit my guildies hard in vent when I attempted to reply to some comment while my comp was in the middle of loading SF for the first time. After this I started to believe that it was definitely somehow tied to lag or memory issues. I was dissapointed that I hadn't escaped the static beast but, though it would show up every once in a while, it didn't seem to be that much of a problem. Then, around a week ago, the lag beast started to show up again and on a much more frequent basis than before. It started out when I tried to switch from the standard Windows Internet Explorer to Firefox. I had heard good things about Firefox so I decided to try it out. People say it's safer and I was thinking that's probably because it is a larger more complex program where-as the standard IExplorer prolly isn't that complex at all. For this reason I think it had some effect on the appearance of the static pwnage. When I play GW I often have a couple IE windows open and minimized. I usually have either my guild forums page open or a website like Xennon.co.uk open so I can check on names and locations of elites. I hadn't had any trouble leaving these windows open and tabbing out of GW every once in a while to look at em. But once I started using Firefox it seemed like the static pwnage showed up a lot when Firefox windows were open. Well, easy solution, I thought. I just uninstalled Firefox. Sadly though, the static pwnage is still going strong. I believe it is somehow tied to the frequency of Guild Wars lag that's been happening recently. All the err=7s and in game complaints, as well as complaints on vent, about lag. But, even if it is because of Guild Wars lag, not everyone is static pwning eachother like I am, so there is something different/wrong with my comps settings or something.

As far as my comps stats go, here is some stuff that ppl might want to know when trying to asses the problem. If you want any other type of information about my comp, you might have to tell me where to look to find out.

ISP: evil comcast
Memory: 512MB
Soundcard: ? Not sure specifically ? in various settings menus it's only refered to as "SB Live! Wave Device". If you wanna know specifically what it is then plz tell me where to look for the info.
Current headset: Some $30-40 Logitech set. (If you want to know the specifc one I could look around online to see)
Vent: I was messing around in the vent setup and saw that all options concerning the output device were set on "Default DirectSound device". I switched all these to the "SB Live! Wave Device" but I haven't gotten a chance to test and see if this does anything. I'd really like to avoid "testing" because to test it I have to basically try to create static pwnage and wait and see if my friends moan in pain over vent. BTW: all over vent there is the check box option "Use DirectSound". :O what exactly is DirectSound?

Sorry about being so clueless about this all :o but thanks ahead of time to anyone that might know how to help.

Sorry Moses, I don't really know how to help. But you should consider copywriting that "static pwnage" thing. I spit beer all over myself when I read that.

:P a guy in my guild coined the phrase. Well what I'm worried about is that there might be some people out there that know how to help, but most of em prolly don't wanna read my humongous post :o

Well...is your volume set at a balanced level? Do you have them equal...from the sound card to the Ventrino settings? Seems like there is too much "power" coming through...and also you are becoming the "Ground". Is your system grounded properly?

I use to get a static charge from my stereo receiver/amp from a good pair of Sony Head phones. I traced it to the ground....I was the ground..and yes that hurt like hell!

From what you're saying it seems like you think that the "static pwnage" is like the friction static that shocks you when you touch a door knob and it sparks you. The static I'm talking about is a static noise. It's like when you're tuned in to a radio station that isn't coming through clear, except it's high pitched, loud, and it only happens to ppl I try to talk to, not ppl trying to talk to me. the Static Shock was just a minutely clever title for my thread, I'm not actually being shocked by static.

Ah, one guy in my Counter-Strike CAL division had this very same problem, re-install your codecs for Vent and it should fix the problem.

This happens to me as well, but only on gw-vent for whatever reason. So give this man (and I) some help!

Kajusta = my god

In reality he may be entirely correct. All sound is, is a frequency that has been converted by a diaphram(spelling?) into an electrical impluse. This pules runs through your cables and then into a DAC on your sound device, or Digital to Analog converter. If your don't have a good ground, and are pulsing extra electrical current, AKA Signal Noise, Line Noise down the analog cable then you will have static pwnage, as the Signal to Noise ratio will be insanely unbalanced.

The problem could be related to any number of things, from unshielded Speakers and monitors, to unshielded power cables leaking Line Noise into your Analog signal. First and foremost I would suggest yes reinstalling audio codecs. Then ensure that the system does have a good Electircal ground. Look around for anything that is magnetically unshielded, and last but not least, Take a look at how the cables in your case are layed out. If you have power cables or device cables running over audio inputs, try to pull up the slack and get them away from there, also do your best to get your power cables and device cable off the mainboard. Device cables as well as power feeds can leak line noise into unsuspecting buses and inputs.

At this point thats about all I can give you. It sounds to me like if its not a Signal leak or an audio codec or audio device driver issue then its a hardware issue.

I think it is the headset. My friend has gone through 3 or 4 Logitech headsets. They are just utter crap. I personally suggest getting yourself a Plantronics head set. Got my Plantronics Audio .90's for $40 CAD. Best headset I have ever owned.

I don't know how to, let alone understand, anything you just suggested. How do I ground my comp? I can't just run a wire all through out my house and out the back door and just shove it into the ground. And I thought the bottom hole of all electrical outlets already did that for me? How do I ground my comp even more?

Right Click my Computer > Properties > hardware tab > (now I dont know what it is exactly in english) Hardware*manager* > Sound etc > check sound card.

After that download the latest drivers for it (yes, Sound cards have driver updates).

You attach a copper wire to your pc (metal part of course the back where al you're ports are is probably best) and then attach it to anything that is a conductor and touching the the ground, a pipe from the heating system for example.

I think it's rather far fetched though more likely a harware issue.

Easy test to work out if it's faulty wire in your electrics: do you get popping, crackling or any other noise on your speakers?

Another thing to do, is pull out the PC from it's home, unplug all the cables, do a thorough clean up, and place it all back, optionally using cable ties to keep it all neat.

If it is only happening over vent, then yes, I'd suspect the codec or a setting.

I'd also try keep the 'DirectSound' thing ticked.