[ AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional ] Sound problem with HWiNFO64

[PowerK]

Hi folks.

I've been using Fatal1ty Z77 Professional with 3770K since May. Great board.

Now, I've been having sound skipping (best I can describe) issues. This problem only occurs when I have HWiNFO64 monitoring app (Vcore, cpu, gpu temps 12v rails etc) running in the background. This sound skipping problem is very very noticeable when I listen to mp3 while HWiNFO64 running in the background. It seems like there's some conflict between temp/voltage monitoring sensor on the board and Realtek 898 chip.

I've tried several different versions of HWiNFO64 since May until now.
I've tried difference BIOS for Fatal1ty Z77 Professional board (v1.00, 1.10, 1.20 and 1.30 BIOS)

My other PC with P67 Gigabyte board doesn't exhibit this problem.

Any Z77 Fatal1ty users out there ??

[PowerK]

Re: [ AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional ] Sound problem with HWiNFO64

I've found the cause of this problem at last.

HWiNFO64 -> Configure -> Settings -> under Safety tab
There are 3 options for IDE Drive Scan
- Safe Mode (default)
- Low-level IO Access
- Disable Drive Scan

That option is responsible for SSD/HDD temp monitoring (S.M.A.R.T.)

Once I selected "Disable Drive Scan", the sound skipping problem is completely gone. (Since I disabled it, I no longer get temp monitoring value for my SSD/HDD). Not a big deal. But this is a work around rather than a solution.

So... it seems like there was a conflict there. I don't know if it's the problem with ASRock board(BIOS) or HWiNFO app (or even my SSD/HDD). But I'm happy that I can use HWiNFO64 without any annoying sound skipping problems.

My storage configuration is
Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD (Windows 7 boot)
2 x Seagate 1TB Barracuda ST1000DM003 in RAID-0
1 x Seagate 1TB Barracuda ST1000DM003 (for data)
They're all connected to Intel SATA ports. (ASMedia SATA ports are disabled in BIOS)

I hope someone at ASRock reads this and look into it.