Speakers Make Occasional Pop/click noise independent of volume

TheZman said:

Alright, sorry I've not responded in a while. I've been doing some volunteering at the naval hospital on base with Red Cross and it's been eating up a lot of my time.

That is not a problem, it is admirable that you are able to volunteer.

TheZman said:

The latency spikes (more like small hills) seem to be independant of the popping noise.

There will be a time difference that is undetectable to you, and it only seems like they are independent of one another.

TheZman said:

I'm not sure how to check and see if the drivers for the flash drive and webcam are causing the problem, so I may just delete them all together and see if anything changes. I'll try to keep you posted.

For the flash drive, and webcam you would have to go to the vendors site, to see if there are any newer drivers for those devices, and update them.

I remember you said that insufficient power can sometimes cause similar symptoms. I've looked at my Beat Audio control panel and in the advanced settings under "Power" it was set to go to a power saving state after ten seconds. Could this have been causing the popping noise? I've disabled it just now. It still pops once when unplugging a headset, but I'm not sure if the laptop does that regardless and I just haven't noticed until now. We'll see if the random popping continues.

EDIT: Also, no word on what could be causing latency spikes, though again DPC Latency Checker isn't detecting any major fluctuations.

I looked back through your thread, and couldn't find a reference to me mentioning insufficient power.
It may have been in one of the links I provided, but I wouldn't know where to begin to look.
A bad or malfunctioning PSU is a possibility, how to check.

Something else I thought of, did this start after you arrived in Japan?

Excerpts from dv7 Manual | Section: Power Cord Set Requirements | Sub-section: Requirements for specific countries or regions:

Requirements for specific countries or regions
Country/region Accredited agency - Accredited agency - Applicable note number

Japan - METI - 3

3. The appliance coupler, flexible cord, and wall plug must bear a “T” mark and registration number in accordance with the Japanese Dentori Law.
The flexible cord must be Type VCT or VCTF, 3-conductor, 1.00-mm² conductor size. The wall plug must be a two-pole grounding type with a Japanese Industrial Standard C8303 (7 A, 125 V) configuration.

Operational power supplied by a Country other than where the machine was built for can cause a lot of problems.
But, If you, and your Father are living on base or "American soil" its possible because of agreements that your "Japanese" power is already being converted to "American". It can get rather confusing.

Try not to go the cheap route, worst case can be a fire in the device.

The METI link is a search there for Power Requirements.

The Beat Audio setting could be causing the noise, you will have to take the time to check different settings to troubleshoot.
Any device or its settings can be suspect.

It won't hurt to keep the DPC running.

I'll look into checking the PSU. Everything checks out okay outwardly, but I know how deceiving.

According to at least this source (and a few others I found) electricity is equal to that in the states on American Military Bases.

http://www.city.okinawa.okinawa.jp/s...lectricity.pdf

Also, here's where I got the idea from you.

Anak said:

By chance...
Your not using any after-market accessories like a power cord or battery for your dv7 are you?
They may be inferior to approved HP products.

Basically the question made me think about checking the power supply going into the audio output. Sorry I didn't clarify better.

The Pavilion's been active for a few hours (total) and hasn't made the sound yet without me unplugging the headset.

EDIT: Nevermind, it's popped once or twice independently now. It may be that being here on the base is causing the problem as I haven't really found any "reliable official" source that says there's no power difference from the states.

Tell you what, I'm heading back to the states on August 15th. I'll see if it's still a problem once I get back. I can handle it for now just fine. It's not a consistent or constant noise and nothing else has been effected by it. It's just kind of annoying.

According to your PDF it's good to hear the power supply is not that different from the States 100V/60Hz compared to 110V/60Hz. Hertz's are the critical part with voltage secondary, and 10V low isn't that bad to compensate for.
The Base receives the main power from Okinawa Electric Power Company, then runs it through a transformer to raise the final 10V.

Have you thought of checking around to see if any one else has a problem similar to yours?
If so, that could indicate a problem with the Base's power supply.
There should be filters to clean up the outflow from the Base transformer station to the rest of the Base, they could be pumping "Dirty Electricity", and I don't necessarily mean health problems, more with frequency, and wave properties.

No problem with the clarification.

About your edit:
To see what your service is you would need a V-OM to take readings from the outlets in your domicile or find a Base Electrician buddy to take them for you.
When we moved into our home 35years ago, I couldn't figure why we kept blowing light bulbs. I took some readings, and found the outlets were supplying 132V it has been straightened out, but those 110V bulbs were sure taking a beating, some would blow as soon as I turned them on.

Aug. 15th? Now there's serendipity, that happens to be my B-Day!
You have a safe trip!

DPC spike of 2250098282

I think we've found my problem.

EDIT:

Another spike of over 90,000. I'm uninstalling programs that I installed roughly around the time this started happening, and it only spikes so high while a program is uninstalled. Does a computer normally spike in latency when uninstalling?

EDIT 2:

Used Latencymon to watchdog my processes. I had that spike while uninstalling Skype Click-to-call. Here's what it has to say.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b...DPCCurrent.png Current Total DPC

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b...DPCHighest.png Highest Execution.

Does that mean that ndis.sys is the problem? I've browsed around and it appears that this is a common cause. I know that the process is involved with wireless networking. Could it be that the new network my computer was introduced to somehow caused this? This wasn't a problem with my older Toshiba laptop while I was here, so I'm not sure.

OmigodmoreEDIT:

Here's a few more screens after another, much less severe spike.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b...PCHighest2.png Highest Execution.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b.../DPCGraph2.png The bar graphs and advice it's given me.

HolycrapfourthEDIT:

Wait, hang on. Could disabling additional wireless adapters cause ndis.sys to spike latency? On my college campus for some reason having the additional network adapters activated would cause interference and knock my connection out, so I just disabled my wireless entirely and got an ethernet jack for the wall, but when I left campus I only turned my primary wireless adapter back on.

Holy Edits Zman, I saw your post earlier, and I'm glad I waited to reply!

1.)The ndis.sys is a system file lets see if this will help. I'd like you to run: SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker and run it 3x's as it instructs with re-boots in between each run.
Sometimes it will catch files on the second or even third run, should take about a half hour.

2.)You could try this tool: Home-WLAN Optimizer - Optimize wireless gaming, audio and video streaming...
Disable the background search and use streaming mode, while leaving autoconfig enabled.

3.)It also wouldn't hurt to make sure these drivers are up to date. If there is a bad mix between the NIC, and Audio, that can cause spikes.

TheZman said:

Sound Card: (1) Screaming Bee Audio (2) IDT High Definition Audio CODEC (3) Intel(R) Display Audio

You could use the Using HP Support Assistant (Windows 7 and Windows Vista) HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)
Or
Voice Changing Software, Online Games, Voice Overs, Instant Messaging, Voice Changer

http://www.pcpitstop.com/drivers/download/IDT~High~Definition~Audio~CODEC.html

I'm not sure about the Intel Display Audio. You may find help with the HP assistant or here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx

4.)More: latency spikes dv7 -6135dx Entertainment PC - HP Support Forum Check out the solved one.

5.)Check the Power Management Tab settings in all network adapters, Control Panel\Device Manager\ Uncheck both "Allow this device to wake computer", and "Only allow magic packet to wake computer".

6.)Check this This latency is killing me! link to check if you have Intel's EIST system in your BIOS, it's not the first link I've seen concerning win7 ACPI/power management.

Check after any of these steps see if you still have the noises.

Are you asking me if you should proceed or have you already?

The only one I would be cautious about would be the BIOS Update.