I may have been experiencing a somewhat similar problem. For example, if I play some music and after that leave the computer idle for a couple of minutes, the next time I do anything to produce a sound: starting playback of another song, opening a folder, emptying the recycle bin-I can hear a short, cracking sound just before the sound corresponding to my action.
I am also experiencing a constant sound from the TV card stream in the background, but I can only hear it when I turn up my speakers pretty loud without producing any other sound...
I never managed to find out what's causing this.