Windows 7: Windows 7 Realtek crackling/popping sounds.

I get crackling/popping sounds it my games. It's very annoying because it also affect my fps. I tried different driver version and different audio settings but no luck. I notice that it all started after I installed Battlefield Bad Company 2, after I installed my new video card (ATI Radeon HD 5770) the crackling/popping got more worse. I uninstalled BC2 to see if that was the problem but no. The crackling/popping stops when I return to desktop. I have ALC888s

Maybe a dumb suggestion, but my son had a similar problem. It turned out that he had the volume level on his monitor turned up (he is using integrated sound from his mobo, not the monitor). We found that once we set that to 0 the popping in games and iTunes stopped.

I think I solved the problem, I was pushing down on the audio I/O on my motherboard to see if it was loose or something. The next few days I notice that the popping/crackling stop