[Realtek][Win7] "Scratchy" Sound Problem

Hopefully MORE Win7 drivers start coming out soon... I have a new HP laptop which I decided to upgrade from Vista and am still having some issues with drivers and software...

Well, I'm having a read headache now! I started off with the sound being fine, but then I tried running TOCA Race Driver 3 through Steam, and now I get this scratchy effect. What's even more puzzling, is I also have a separate Plantronics USB Headset which doesn't utilise the Realtek soundcard, and hey ho, they are also scratchy! I'm getting a bit lost now as to what it can be.

I didn't notice this problem until the last few days, and as I seem to have it on both sound devices, I'm thinking this is likely to be a Windows 7 or DirectX problem.

@DjDead

i really never install it..
but i dont think that will solve my problem..
quite happy when heard that your problem still persists.. (at least i'm not alone..)
i did tried many solutions and still no one can fix this problem completely (some did happen in lesser scale though..)

Just to share with you, from all driver i tested.. Reatek Driver R2.22 had the least chance of the "scratchy" sound..however its DirectX 10 (Vista driver)..


@Thompson9100

i strongly agreed with you that this is a Windows 7 (DirectX 11) problem..since my Vista (DirectX 10) in this same machine doesnt have this problem at all..

It's the driver. I had a similar problem and tried many different things without success until last night when I was able to download the latest Realtek HD Audio Driver 2.35 for Vista/Windows 7....The problem was solved. Here is the link:
Realtek

Just use realtek hd audio drivers version 2.22

When I loaded W7 on my laptop the sound was scratchy, but it had picked up the Microsoft drivers I installed the Realtek 2.37 drivers, they were marked Vista and W7 and the sound was worse. I rolled back to the MS drivers and it was much better but I noticed that the internal mike was inoperative. Deleted the drivers, re-booted and the MS drivers installed again. The sound is pretty bad.

Are the drivers listed above, 2.22 and 2.35 still working OK? I don't have much hair left and the balance is in danger of falling out :-(

I know this forum is quite old, but I have exactly the problem discussed in this thread. I would like to ask that if I were to install realtek hd audio drivers version 2.22, if I manually install it, will it override the later realtek on my PC? If it doesn't fix the problem, I presume I can put the realtek driver I have now back?

Anyone else have any major breakthroughs with this issue? In addition to the scratchy sound, simultaneous with the sound issue, my wireless mouse cursor starts acting erratically. They are definitely related, since both seem to go weird at the same time. If I rebott, both issues disappear until about an hour or two, and the issues recur.

This problem is really a nuisance and any help would be greatly appreciated!