I am embarrassed to admit that it is the built-in, on-chassis REALTEK device. When I bought this computer I installed my M-audio card and the result was a family fight between the two cards. I was never able to de-activate the on-board card to the point the M-audio would ignore it and the result was strange audio. (This whole mess is further aggravated by the fact that the computer came with WIN XP Media Edition. I read up and decided neutering the Media Edition was potentially troublesome.
For the level of work that I do, the built in card does everything I ask of it. I packed the M-audio away for a rainy day.
Now, back to the current question. I had "re-started" the computer the other day when the bit-rate locked up and that didn't solve the problem. Later I did a FULL, COLD-START reboot and everything works well again. Did some test recording at 88,200 by 32-bit and everything sparkles and percolates as expected.
My machine is an experimental lab as much as it is a production unit. I tutor via the web some guys who are doing sound and recording for their church. If they have some other software like Audacity I will load that. A couple of weeks ago I set out to drag a guy into the 21st Century who is using something called MAGIX Music Maker. Now there is a piece of work! That will soon come off the machine. And recently Dagon Naturally Speaking reduced the price of their program that does voice recognition down to pocket change so I own that now. Talking to your computer and letting it do the typing is a new experience. But it is software that misbehaves! Every time I reboot it reads the registry and turns the input gain down to ZERO on the Windows Mixer. So I fire up Adobe and hit record... and there is no sound.... until I go to the Mixer and set it where it is supposed to be.
If you look off to your southwest some afternoon and see this mushroom cloud about 75 miles away, you will know I finally lost it with one piece of software too many.
