I can hear a constant ticking sound in the background at roughly a frequency of 2 per second mainly when nothing it playing. I have a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 card and 5.1 speakers connected -- and the latest driver I can find for it for my OS (Win XP SP3).
It didn't always do this, but I don't recall exactly when it started (for example if it was after I installed some hardware or software). Anyone have ideas on what could be causing it or how to fix it?
OK, I've apparently found the culprit and fixed the problem myself -- although the solution doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
While checking to see if it was being cause by one of the many devices clustered around the system and speakers, I happened to notice that if I moved my Internet gateway/wireless-router nearer to my NAS the sound grew louder -- not that either of them have anything obvious to do with sound generation. Anyway, I got it to go away completely by rearranging things so that now the gateway is as far as possible from the NAS enclosure (which is about 6 feet vs the roughly 8 inches they were apart previously).
Take a look at the wiring. Those sound cards are not exactly new. I had a SB128 (and it still works) and I remember I also had that ticking sound sometimes. I managed to make it go away was by replacing all the wiring coming from the card to the speakers and lubricating the connections with WD40.
Good luck.
