SoundCard/RAM/Motherboard

[lampposteffect]

Bah, I was afraid I'd have to get into this crap. I'm getting some pops and clicks in my recordings and I'm pretty sure it's from not having enough RAM or a mediocre sound card.
I'm not looking for anything too pricey but I'd like something that works.
A few questions:

How do I find out what kind of motherboard I have?
Can most RAM fit into most motherboards?
Does a higher end sound card really help your recordings latency a lot?
How can I find out what kind of RAM i need for my motherboard?

As of now I'm running 256MB out of my computer with a SoundMax Digital Audio sound card. Not much right?

[brandondrury]

Does a higher end sound card really help your recordings latency a lot?

It depends how you define "higher end". If you are using a high latency soundcard, than a low latency soundcard is going to be exponentially better at low latency. If you already have a real deal audio interface, upgrading to a more expensive one will do next to nothing in this regard.

SoundMax Digital Audio sound card

Upgrading is going to make a HUGE improvement. Check out the home recording soundcard wizard in my signature.

How do I find out what kind of motherboard I have?

Open the case and get out a flashlight. It'll have a labels somewhere.

Can most RAM fit into most motherboards?

No. There are quite a bit of different requirements. Find out what your motherboard is and find out it's specific requirements.

How can I find out what kind of RAM i need for my motherboard?

Google.

As of now I'm running 256MB out of my computer with a SoundMax Digital Audio sound card. Not much right?

256MB of ram on a Windows XP is what I would call grossly inadequate for audio recording. In fact, I consider 256 to be inadequate for checking email on an XP system. 512MB is a bare minimum for checking email. For a recording computer, I recommend 2GB if you can afford it and your computer can handle it.

Brandon

[lampposteffect]

I couldn't find what type of motherboard I have but I did find out what kind of RAM I had.
Do you know where I can find out how much RAM my motherboard can handle?
Also in your soundcard wizard...I've already got a firewire input on my computer.
Should I go ahead and exclude that from the wizard?

[brandondrury]

I couldn't find what type of motherboard I have but I did find out what kind of RAM I had.

How did you do that?

Do you know where I can find out how much RAM my motherboard can handle?

It'll be impossible withotu knowing what motherboard you have or finding the manual.

Also in your soundcard wizard...I've already got a firewire input on my computer.
Should I go ahead and exclude that from the wizard?

Exclude? No, you'll probably want to REQUIRE Firewire if that's the kind of audio interface connection you want. Does that make sense?

Brandon

[CyberCat]

What recording program are you usung?

THe clicks and pops may be due to the sound card drivers.

In Reason, the MME drivers work best.

[lampposteffect]

I"m using Sonar Home Studio 6 as of now.
Could there be a thousand other reasons why there are some jitters in there?

[brandondrury]

Read this:

Home Recording Computers: Clicks, Pops, and Latency

Brandon

[Didz]

Hey lampposteffect,

Download CPU-Z. It's a system diagnostic that'll tell you everything about your pc including motherboard name etc, cpu speed, ram speed, except soundcard. All you then need to do is google your motherboard and look at it's specs online, any decent online retailer will tell you detailed specs.

Cpu-Z Download - Softpedia

You can take it from there, upgrading will be alot easier and you will know where you stand. More than likely you can overclock your system to get better speeds etc as well. Alot of the time, motherboards do not run RAM at their proper certified speeds. I can help you with that if you like.

[brandondrury]

Cool. I always figured there was a tool out there like this. It would have saved me a ton of digging with a flashlight.

Brandon

[nonsensemejia]

hey man dunno if u still need ram...............but go to this website if u do...................

Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com

..........just enter the info for ur computer and it will tell u which ram fits ur motherboard............they have good deals i got two gigs ram for like 60 bucks or something around that cant remember how much......but it wasnt so expensive.........hope it helps