Realtek, Windows 7 64RTM Crackle/static/popping

[QUOTE=Tpiom;729552]And I was foolish enough to think M$ actually had solved their driver issue with this OS! QUOTE]

And how have you concluded that this is a Microsoft driver issue? It's too to easy to blame MS for any problem that occurs with a computer that is comprised of many components built by many manufacturers. But it's the Microsoft name that appears when the computer starts, so we should blame Microsoft for everything we can't resolve?

I had the same issue, and after trying everything (and I can assure you I tried everything), the problem turned out to be an Asus Motherboard. The problem disappeared after the Mobo was replaced.

An Asus tech explained the issue as follows:



The problem you are seeing could be caused by what we call a grounding/emi interference problem, start by taking the motherboard out of the case you have it in. Next set the motherboard up on top of the cardboard box it came in, straight to the cardboard(do not use the anti-static plastic, foam, or an antistatic mat as these have been known to keep a board from posting.) if you do not have the box that the board came in then use some newspaper a phonebook or some other non-conductive material. Connect to the board just the bare minimums needed to verify the problem you are having i.e.: cpu(w/heatsink and fan), memory, video card and power supply. Power the system up outside the case if the problem then seems to have resolved itself then all you need to do when mounting the board back into the case is use some added grounding/emi protection, the simplest way to resolve this type of problem is to get you some standard electrical tape and make a cross over the brass or metal stand-offs you are mounting the board into. This will do 2 things, first it will insure that we do not have a metal to metal ground and second it will lift the board up away from the case so that if you had a solder point sitting to close to the case generating an emi field the distance added between the 2 should keep this from happening. If this does not resolve the problem you are having then please contact either our tech support office at 812-282-2787 or our RMA dept. at 510-739-3777 option #2 and we will have the board sent in for repair/replacement.

I am certain this is all a M$ driver issue, for three reasons:

A) I didn't have this problem with XP.
B) When I run Ubuntu (Linux) I don't get it.
C) Motherboard is Windows 7 ready, and in fine shape.

People talking about grounding:
IT'S NOT A GROUNDING ISSUE

Read the thread and you'll see it's a software issue

Yeah, I'm with Tpiom and Optical. The original post and most others that have chimed in were running or are running (in a dual boot setup) their hardware without any sound issues. To me, that would rule out hardware or grounding issues. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like any of us has had any luck so far.

I recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and had the same issues, static noise. However, I didn't have any Realtek drivers installed, I had the basic ones that windows provided. After installing the latest drivers from the realtek website, the noise got even worse. Then, after browsing through this topic, I had the idea of installing K-Lite Codecs and the static noise reduced, even though it's not completely gone. But, at least, I'm using the latest drivers. Any other options didn't work, but I seriously think that Realtek fails to provide decent drivers for Windows 7. I wonder when they will come out with a new release that will fix our issues once for all. What I don't understand is why they haven't done it already.

I'm using NVIDIA and here's a screenshot of the latency checker:

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6570/25227493.png

What does this mean?

Without posting your full system specs everyone here is playing a guessing game trying to help.

It means just what it says, you have a device driver that's causing an intermittent severe spike which probably causes a bit of static. It could be a wireless driver, or network adapter driver, it could be caused by a real-time virus checker, or one of the nVidia utilities....etc. MS Security Essentials has caused audio problems on some computers... it's a cr@pshoot from one system to the next. It's difficult to pinpoint a direct cause as there's been several different fixes that work on various systems. What works on one machine doesn't work on the next.

I can't say if it's the Realtek drivers or not as Realtek audio is working very well here, From hanging around here the past few months I can say that Windows-7 is somewhat "fragile" when it comes to dealing with events that most be performed real-time, this includes both video and audio, I had to disable quite a few services/devices and background programs to get my DPC latency down to this level. (including a BIOS update)



There's more info here... (I'm setup to get 10 posts per page, my post should be at the top of page four where this link takes you) Of course not everyone agrees that you should have to jump through so many hoops, but I'm used to optimizing systems so it seems almost normal...still, I hope a W7 service pack would soon be released with some fixes for the poor operation out of the box.

10 Windows speed tips that DON'T work.

Ap

p.s. I should add that for some, using older drivers for Vista works.
In this case I think the older driver may shift the IRQ used by the audio system.
I thought we were way past the IRQ game!