Realtek, Windows 7 64RTM Crackle/static/popping

frogbutt said:

OK, what do you experts think of this. After I made that post above I went to do a reboot. I had emule running and shut it down. Before I could do the reboot the phone rang and when I got off I started up a web radio station and it worked fine, so I started up emule again. About a half hour ago the sound was getting bad again, so just out of curiosity I shut down emule and waited a couple of minutes. Sure enough the sound went back to normal. It was at this point that it hit me that the static on this computer had only started after I put in emule a few days ago. It's obvious that there is some kind of connection, but what is it? Could it be something to do with going from 32 to 64 bits? What do you guys think? I'm far from an expert.

Hmmm, apparently the spikes may be from your network adaptor. Can you disable it in device manager, reboot and see if the spikes cease?

I just tried a lot of the suggestions on here, but what i have found that has worked the longest is downloading the R238... link available here:
Vista Win7 R238 - Download from rapidshare.com - Filestube.com

Good luck! I know it is a huge pain!

liquidsteel30 said:

Just registered to share my findings related to this topic. I'll just quote what I posted on another forum first-off:

I was having the exact same thing happening to me running Win7 x64. I had Ultimate installed (work license), and I started noticing it a lot. Decided it was time to reformat, maybe it would resolve the issue... no dice. Switched to Professional (school license) rather than Ultimate -- nothing. Tried every combination of NIC drivers I could (dual onboard gigabit).

Bought a new sound card (Asus Xonar DS), still did the same thing. Disabled all the networking stuff I could while retaining usability, nothing. Dropped my OC and went to stock speeds, no good. Tried every combination of BIOS power saving, still nothing.

Decided to buy a 3.5mm-->RCA to replace the toslink cable(s) I had been using, just to see if it was an issue with the digital audio in Win7... nope, analog still crackled.


Was linked to this thread: uninstalled MSE and switched my active library to a different drive than my active uTorrent (I keep nightly backups on separate drives, so no big deal)... IT WORKS!...

I think... the sound was crackling like mad right before I made the changes, and without rebooting, the crackling is gone.

In the thread I posted this, it was suggested that uTorrent was frequently reading from the same disk as my music was stashed on, causing stuttering. Another idea was that MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) was the root of all of the sound issues.

Since I posted that, I have switched my foobar library (music) back to the same drive as my uTorrent seeds and there has been no crackling. I do not have MSE installed anymore, though, and there is still no crackle.

I don't know if it has been suggested here yet, but for anyone else having trouble, try disabling/uninstalling your virus scanner and see if it resolves the issue. It worked for me, maybe it will work for you!

I tried uninstalling MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) and the crackling disappeared immediately without a reboot. I was downloading and listening to music from itunes for several hours over the weekend and the sound was great through my very basic two speakers. I had DPC Latency running and all was good. I did this on my desktop, but have yet to try it on my Acer laptop.

I am very concerned about having no virus protection right now, so I'm going to try to reinstall MSE this evening to see if the problem comes back. I'm not sure if MSE has an on/off type switch that will work or whether a complete uninstall is necessary. If I have to completely remove MSE then I'll have to try some other virus protection that hopefully will not resut in the same problem.

If others are running MSE, please try this to see if it's a solution for you and post your results.

People, People PLEASE!

Read the entire thread here and elsewhere on the NET re: this issue.

If you do, you will see that this problem is not related to any one Brand of Computer or even sound card etc.

So, if you are having problems and other issues with your new Brand PC, i.e. ACER, HP, Dell etc. fine, so be it, then contact your manufacturer, but this nasty audio issue plagues many (including home-built machines like mine). and is not Brand specific.

This issue, by all accounts appears to be a WIN 7 Problem, maybe in conjunction with something else, but definitely WIN 7 is at the center of this problem.

As mentioned before, I have an ACER Desktop running the same audio setup as my home-built machine and that runs fine. The only configuration difference between those machines is the ACER is running VISTA 64 and my machine is running WIN 7 Ultimate 64.

If you doubt me, do a simple google search and you will see the countless reports already logged on this issue and growing by the day.

Stop chasing your tails and following things that have already been tried by the many (countless times) with no success.

I have tried all the Driver suggestions and new CODECS. None has worked. NONE!!

Some claim new Legacy Drivers have worked for them, while most, like myself have had no resolution with any of them.

No sound problems with built-in Realtek audio or M-Audio PCI "Audiophile" sound card.
However, I'm only running stereo output. Using Realtek drivers v241.

For a test I set my recording software to output via the Realtek device and played 16-tracks of 24-bit, 44.1kHz audio without problems.

Ap

Bootis said:

People, People PLEASE!

Read the entire thread here and elsewhere on the NET re: this issue.

If you do, you will see that this problem is not related to any one Brand of Computer or even sound card etc.

So, if you are having problems and other issues with your new Brand PC, i.e. ACER, HP, Dell etc. fine, so be it, then contact your manufacturer, but this nasty audio issue plagues many (including home-built machines like mine). and is not Brand specific.

This issue, by all accounts appears to be a WIN 7 Problem, maybe in conjunction with something else, but definitely WIN 7 is at the center of this problem.

As mentioned before, I have an ACER Desktop running the same audio setup as my home-built machine and that runs fine. The only configuration difference between those machines is the ACER is running VISTA 64 and my machine is running WIN 7 Ultimate 64.

If you doubt me, do a simple google search and you will see the countless reports already logged on this issue and growing by the day.

Stop chasing your tails and following things that have already been tried by the many (countless times) with no success.

I have tried all the Driver suggestions and new CODECS. None has worked. NONE!!

Some claim new Legacy Drivers have worked for them, while most, like myself have had no resolution with any of them.

Well I sent my computer to Acer again for the third or fourth time, I lost track.
I have no confidence they will fix it this time. Anyway I'll just keep sending it into them until they either fix it or give me a new computer. If it is a Windows 7 issue why wouldn't these big name computer manufactures find a problem in a newly released model? Don't they test them? I find it hard to believe they would put out a computer that doesn't play nice with Windows 7. If it is Windows 7 I wonder what I can do about it. Windows Vista is not available at a reasonable price anymore so buying a copy and loading that on there doesn't seem like an option.

Freddie said:

liquidsteel30 said:

Just registered to share my findings related to this topic. I'll just quote what I posted on another forum first-off:

I was having the exact same thing happening to me running Win7 x64. I had Ultimate installed (work license), and I started noticing it a lot. Decided it was time to reformat, maybe it would resolve the issue... no dice. Switched to Professional (school license) rather than Ultimate -- nothing. Tried every combination of NIC drivers I could (dual onboard gigabit).

Bought a new sound card (Asus Xonar DS), still did the same thing. Disabled all the networking stuff I could while retaining usability, nothing. Dropped my OC and went to stock speeds, no good. Tried every combination of BIOS power saving, still nothing.

Decided to buy a 3.5mm-->RCA to replace the toslink cable(s) I had been using, just to see if it was an issue with the digital audio in Win7... nope, analog still crackled.


Was linked to this thread: uninstalled MSE and switched my active library to a different drive than my active uTorrent (I keep nightly backups on separate drives, so no big deal)... IT WORKS!...

I think... the sound was crackling like mad right before I made the changes, and without rebooting, the crackling is gone.

In the thread I posted this, it was suggested that uTorrent was frequently reading from the same disk as my music was stashed on, causing stuttering. Another idea was that MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) was the root of all of the sound issues.

Since I posted that, I have switched my foobar library (music) back to the same drive as my uTorrent seeds and there has been no crackling. I do not have MSE installed anymore, though, and there is still no crackle.

I don't know if it has been suggested here yet, but for anyone else having trouble, try disabling/uninstalling your virus scanner and see if it resolves the issue. It worked for me, maybe it will work for you!

I tried uninstalling MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) and the crackling disappeared immediately without a reboot. I was downloading and listening to music from itunes for several hours over the weekend and the sound was great through my very basic two speakers. I had DPC Latency running and all was good. I did this on my desktop, but have yet to try it on my Acer laptop.

I am very concerned about having no virus protection right now, so I'm going to try to reinstall MSE this evening to see if the problem comes back. I'm not sure if MSE has an on/off type switch that will work or whether a complete uninstall is necessary. If I have to completely remove MSE then I'll have to try some other virus protection that hopefully will not resut in the same problem.

If others are running MSE, please try this to see if it's a solution for you and post your results.

I would like to know if it works for other people too. I can't try it but I'm not even sure my computer had MSE on it. I bet it's something that is hidden and you can't uninstall without jumping through hoops. I can't even figure out how to get rid of that dang messenger.

Today I Resolved This Issue - Cannot Believe It!

1. I installed latest Driver REV242 From Realtek - No Joy!
2. I installed and ran Latency Checker Application that reported Red Spikes and probable Bad Driver Message Indication.
3. I then uninstalled the Realtek Network (NIC) Driver and then commenced with a re-boot reinstall using the supplied Microsoft Realtek NIC Driver.
4. After Network NIC Driver reinstalled, BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!! No more Crackling, Popping, Distortion and lots of Clean Audio now.
5. Ran Latency Checker again after several minutes of listening with headphones and indeed confirmed the problem was the Integrated NIC Card/Latency Conflict as no more Red Spiking. All Green and Clear on the Graph now with no Latency Conflicts.

Wow! what a f***-ing pain in the Butt, but I am thrilled to have this one solved.

I believe that at least one other Poster here had/offered this suggestion a few days back, but I must not have done this (thought I had) troubleshoot option then. I went back and read the Posts here and gave this option another try and BINGO!

I'll report back in a few days.

I was having the problem with Windows 7 64 Premium. I found this work around for my Realtek Realtek ALC883 on a forum about a Creative soundcard, it worked for me, if you have more than 4 GB of RAM this probably isn't a good solution for you, but if you only have 4 GB then 1 MB less RAM to solve the audio problem is worth it. I've rewritten the instructions to apply to the Realtek issue:

:WORKAROUND:

You can use this as a temporary work around until it is resolved by MS or Realtek, without removing memory (RAM) physically (which also resolves this problem).

1) Uninstall all Realtek Drivers
2) Uninstall the High Definition Audio Controller under Device Manager > System Devices
3) Run MSCONFIG from Start Menus
4) select the boot tab
5) select advanced options
6) under max memory select 4095 (or any value under 4 GB is fine IE anything less than 1024 * 4)
7) Restart Computer
8) Go into audio preferences and set whatever device you are using as Default (usually this will be Digital Audio (S/PDIF (High Definition Audio Device)

9) Enjoy working sound!

baerwb said:

I was having the problem with Windows 7 64 Premium. I found this work around for my Realtek Realtek ALC883 on a forum about a Creative soundcard, it worked for me, if you have more than 4 GB of RAM this probably isn't a good solution for you, but if you only have 4 GB then 1 MB less RAM to solve the audio problem is worth it. I've rewritten the instructions to apply to the Realtek issue:

:WORKAROUND:

You can use this as a temporary work around until it is resolved by MS or Realtek, without removing memory (RAM) physically (which also resolves this problem).

1) Uninstall all Realtek Drivers
2) Uninstall the High Definition Audio Controller under Device Manager > System Devices
3) Run MSCONFIG from Start Menus
4) select the boot tab
5) select advanced options
6) under max memory select 4095 (or any value under 4 GB is fine IE anything less than 1024 * 4)
7) Restart Computer
8) Go into audio preferences and set whatever device you are using as Default (usually this will be Digital Audio (S/PDIF (High Definition Audio Device)

9) Enjoy working sound!

Anybody try this yet? My acer that is in the repair center has 8 gigs of ram, maybe that's the problem? Does this just fix the sound or does it actually fix the dpc latency issue and slowdowns for some people?