Realtek, Windows 7 64RTM Crackle/static/popping

I had a problem like you with my sound card and here's how I've solved it. First of all I'm talking about ASUS notebook with onboard Realtek HD Audio. The problem was that when I installed the latest driver from Realtek I was getting a pretty bad scratching sound. When I was going through the folders of the computer or doing anything else the sound was getting worse. The same was happening when using headphones, so the problem were not the built-in speakers. Actually downloading the latest drivers from Realtek made things even worse. The sound was way better with the Microsoft driver. So here's what I've done to fix this annoying problem:
1. Go to ASUS Support site (not Realtek!) and download the Audio driver for VISTA!!!
2. After you download it unzip it in an empty folder. DO NOT hit the setup file! If you do it you'll probably get an error message that there are no drivers in this package (which is not true).
3. Go to Device Menager and search for your audio card in "Sound, video and game controllers". Now this is very important! Click properties and see on driver details if the manifacturer (of the driver) is Realtek. If you see somewhere Realtek uninstall it!!! If you are not sure just right-click on the device and uninstall it with marking to uninstall the driver aswell!
4. Reboot your PC.
5. After W7 restarts simply wait to find drivers from Microsoft. You will get a message that your sound device is ready to use. PLay a song and if you're still not satisfied go to the next step.
6. Go to Device Manager again and find again your sound device. Go to properties, driver and hit Update Driver. Now it's very important that you hit manualy update driver! It will ask you where to search for the driver. Navigate to the folder where you have unzipped the driver from ASUS and chose sub-folder Vista or Vista-64 (depending on your OS). Wait until Windows find it and install it.
And that's it! Your audio should work fine now. That's what I did and now I enjoy a flawless sound. :) It is important to follow the steps in the way I've written.

fredhoon.

You are correct this is most likely not a Driver Issue. It appears to be a Windows 7 issue/problem. Although some have claimed a remedy by using different drivers, most here and elsewhere have not gotten relief by using any drivers, either current or legacy.

In my case, The problem was with an application (read my posts) provided by my MB Manufacturer, Gigabyte. My Snap, Crackle and Pop and audio distortion is now completely gone.

Before all else, you must first try to find the source of the problem. As previously mentioned, myself and others have used the application, "Latency Checker". You can download that program here "free" DPC Latency Checker

This app runs from your Desktop. Just click on the desktop Icon and it will open and run by itself. No need to configure anything. It also comes with a Help Guide that explains the process about Latency Issues and how the Checker is used to find identify them.

Using this program is EASY. You do not need to be a Techie to understand the result.

Just follow the supplied directions in the PDF Directions/Help File

Download and Use It!

Essentially when the Program runs you will see a real-time vertical bar graph. The graph Bars are either presented in Green and or Red. If you are getting responses in the Green then you are OK. If you get responses (spikes) into the Red you have CPU Latency problems with your PC CPU.

My bet is that you will see that you are getting "Red Spikes" and have issues

Green is Good Red Is Bad Thats it. Now to find the culprit


Once you see that you have problems you must open Device Manager in Windows and begin the slow process of unchecked (one at a time) checking (disabling) all of your system hardware device drivers to see if any are causing the Red Latency Spiking in the Graph. You must do this one at a time for each and every device.

Follow the supplied directions and don't Don’t disable devices that are essential for your computer to function!

In my case (FIX) it was a program application.

When I disabled (un-installed) the application software, No More Red Spikes and the problem was fixed. I used config.sys and temporarily disabled program applications from starting up on bootup.

Try using Windows Task Manager also to see if you have Program Application Processes that are hogging your system CPU memory resources.

Its not hard to do, just time consuming. Hopefully you will get lucky and find the offending hardware devise or program software application early in the hunt.

Give this a try and let us know your results.

People i solved my crackling sound, system slow down, CPU usage spiking and in game graphic lag by simpliest of all means...


- Clear FANS just in case theres dust...
- Install drivers for Sound and Graphics u got with ur hardware
- Do a POWER CYCLE BOOT ( unplug PC from Electric Curent source wait 5 - 10 mins and plug back in )

Please do this and report back...

Cheers...


And i never saw anyone of u who have problems of this kind reporting about MotherBoard BEEP sounds on startup...

For what happened to me is, that 196.21 Nvidia drivers bugged my system...

Cheers Bootis,

I've been using DPC Latency checker and I think I've narrowed it down to either the LAN card or video-card. Using a Vista driver for sound, I am now only getting the issue after streaming flash video and watching it in full-screen for about 1min, watching it in a window makes the red spikes disappear completely after it starts. I am yet to test this over wireless with the LAN device disabled.

Note the laptop has no pop & crackle when watching 1080p H264 video from the hdd (as long as the player offloads to the videocard, CPU is maxed otherwise and vid/audio stutter occurs). Once again I need to test watching HD, or any video, over the network using the LAN and then Wireless.


You gotta love the slow iterative process of troubleshooting, otherwise it would drive you mad!

Fredhoon

Read my and others prior Posts.

At first I thought I had resolved the issue with an offending Realtek On-Board NIC Controller by disabling and then reinstalling it after reboot.

When I did this, Bingo No more Red Spiking, or so I thought.

Next morning I fired up my machine and went to play some clean clear sounding audio and much to my surprise this nasty snap, crackle, pop was back. Boy was I P--sed-Off.

I then started to look at Program Applications. I went back and read the full thread and all related posts again. Sure enough someone else had/was using the same Overclocking Application (Easy-Tune) as me and had claimed victory over this monster problem. I just must have missed his Post on this.

I disabled the "Easy-Tune" Application, no more Noise and distortion and still working that way.

Many including myself have tried many different NIC's and got little or no relief. Some claimed that they did and some claimed releif from Driver Roll-Back.

Sounds like you are on the Right Track now. This is definitely a Windows 7 Issue. I think tied somehow to how resources are managed with the CPU Calls and/or memory management and/or IRQ assignment. Some one more experienced than I can take a stab at that.

This is one of the nastiest and most difficult PC problems I have ever encountered. I build and configure my own machines and can typically resolve and understand the cause for any hardware software problems fairly quickly. Not this time!

Keep us posted on your resolution progress.

Bootis

You can check your IRQ settings in Windows's msinfo32.exe, choosing the appropriate option on the left.

Frostmourne,

Correct me if I am wrong.

In XP and even in Vista we had the option to "manually" select IRQ's in settings. I believe not now in Windows 7.

It appears that with Windows 7 The OS detects sharing conflicts and automatically assigns/reassigns them as it chooses.

There is no Manual way to reassign IRQ within Windows 7 OS. Correct?

Unlike XP or Vista, I believe that the only way to reassign IRQ's now is to do so from within your PC's BIOS Settings/Configuration.

I think it may be possible that MS with its Windows 7 Auto detect IRQ routine may not be detecting all IRQ conflicts. This may be, at least in part, responsible for this Sound Distortion that we the many are getting.

This issue appears to be Windows 7 issue, but yet not all people running Windows 7 are experiencing and/or reporting this problem.

Inversely though, All People who have reported this problem both here and elsewhere are Windows 7 Users.

So,I am guessing here but,

to me I am thinking that this issue may be a result of Windows 7 not properly detecting all IRQ Conflicts (as it should) and that 2 or more system resources could be assigned to the same IRQ Channel thus causing a conflict/drain of system resources that would be greatly needed during demanding Audio/Video Applications Usage.

Well I'm getting my computer back today. I'm hoping it's fixed but I'm not counting on it, so I'm considering using ubuntu linux as my OS. I think I will try the 32 bit version even though I have 8 gigs of ram and quad core processor.

I understand installation is easy after you burn the file image on the disc? I imagine you just follow the directions and it pretty much does everything automatically? The drivers install automatically? I need some of the drivers such as one for my GT220 graphics card to work immediately because I have no onboard graphics.

Linux also seems to still have the same programs I would like to use anyway such as firefox, some sort of media player and all that. I know that the software available for it isn't deep but I think it would be a good solution since this is driving me nuts, if it does in fact fix the problem.

Also is it possible to keep windows 7 installed and just have it boot up with Linux instead? Is there a way I could pick and choose which OS I want to have start before it actually starts? I don't want run both at once even if it is possible because obviously that wouldn't fix my problem, I wouldn't think anyway?

I'd just like to repeat the fact that I got this error on Vista32 that I now get on 7x64. I did not get it on XP32.

Also the soundcard has it's own IRQ.