Windows 7: Cracking, dragging sound, causes video lag..struggling for 6 months!!

I'm not very good with computers, so I'll try to explain this the best I can.

I have a Toshiba laptop that came with Vista. I upgraded to Windows 7 home premium 64 bit Around 6-8 months ago, my computer started to get sound that pops, cracks, and drags, and when it does this is also lags the computer, including any video I'm watching. It only lags when I am doing something with sound, or something like taking the computer out of sleep mode, etc.

I have tried EVERYTHING I could think of so far other than a complete re-install of windows 7. The reason for this is that I have some programs installed on this computer currently that I cannot replace without buying them again. (lost CD's, mostly) So I'd like to avoid this problem if at all possible.

I have updated my sound drivers to the newest ones from Realtek, and it helped for about an hour and then the popping and cracking sounds came back. I also did a system restore as far back as possible without losing my programs, to no avail.
I also tried suggestions of a few friends, which included muting the computer sound, changing around some of the sound configurations, and bringing down the audio format of my driver from Studio to CD, also to no avail.

I had this same problem on my Acer mini laptop after a few months of installing Windows 7, which I ended up selling because I couldn't get rid of the problem! I am starting college soon, and I really need a functional laptop to work with.

If anyone knows of a way to fix this problem, PLEASE let me know. I cannot stand this any longer, I really want to be actually able to listen to music and play videos and games on my computer again!



Also, This transfers over to songs that I download, as well. I bought a song from iTunes and put it on my mp3 player, and the cracking had transfered over to it as well!

edit:

Well, that's fantastic. I installed the automatic windows updates and now I have no sound or video at all.

I have the same exact problem...I think I'm just going to have to save up for a mac...I have an ASUS laptop with Windows 7 and after a few months this crap started happening and nothing I have done has made it better. Now the problem is really bad and I'm afraid it's at its end.

running to mac won't solve any problems, its probably just your hardware, has nothing to do with windows 7 or else we would all have this problem :/

Try using older drivers and did you use the actual 64bit sound drivers.?

Yes, I rolled back the drivers a few times back o the originals just to see if it would help. The cracking sound actually started on the old drivers, which is why I downloaded the older drivers.


So far, this problem does seem to be happening mostly or only to windows 7 users. I've been googling the day away and so far all the instances I've found of this have been from users who upgraded to windows 7. A full windows 7 re-install seems to fix the problem for a few months, but I just didn't want to do that yet...

Is there any audio settings that you can tinker with, check and see if the bass etc are to high as that can cuase crackling noises sometime.

Alright, the strangest thing happened! I was getting ready to do a full reinstall, so I put all my pictures into a usb (I'm an artist, so it wasn't even that many! Maybe..a few hundred?) and rebooted the computer just to double-check for any items I may have missed.....the crackling had completely stopped!

Could it have been a corrupted image file causing this? That's the only thing that was removed!

That might be true, like it's true for my family's computer but everyone I've talked to about this audio issue has had this problem specifically with windows 7. Someone told me he changed his sound-card and motherboard but the problem was still present even after all that. -shrug-

Now to get back on track, I've been tinkering with the audio possibilities for a while but it doesn't get rid of crackling, the crackling remains present even if you change some settings.

Interesting. So you think it's just a file or something that might be causing the problem? (for others who have this issue as well?)

It may be...That's the absolutely ONLY thing I did between the time i booted my computer to get ready for the reinstall until I restarted it with no problems. I didn't even remove any programs at all, only pictures. (Maybe it was because my C drive was too full? :s Somehow when I installed windows 7 the first time i went from having 300 mb of space on my C drive and 50mb in my D drive and now I only have 95mb in my C drive and 250 in my D drive...Totally useless!)