Sound "stutter", glitch, or buzz during any audio activity.

krau77 · 06 Nov 2012

First, I extend my love to you, sevenforum!

My laptop specs:

HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Entertainment Notebook
i5-3210M processor CPU @ 2.5Ghz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel SCSI disk
system memory 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M graphics

I purchased this laptop about two months ago and I am shocked to discover that there is already a problem with the sound.

Whenever I am watching or listening to anything with audio -- iTunes, Youtube, Windows Media Player, DVDs, etc. I have noticed that the sound coming from the computer (whether built-in speakers, external speakers or headphones) will experience occasional "glitching". It sounds like a brief buzzy stutter "Brrrrr" that lasts half a second and happens about every minute or more.

I've conducted all the usual system scans and troubleshooting, double-checked that my drivers are up to date and all Windows updates installed, defragmented the disk and prayed to the computer gods for mercy.

Upon reading other posts about audio buzzes, namely this one, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the audio drivers. On my laptop those drivers are listed as:

- IDT High Definition Audio CODEC
- Intel Display Audio

This has not solved the problem.

I'm not a very experienced computer tinkerer but I'm not a novice user either. I would be grateful for any suggestions you guys might offer for potential steps I can take to either resolve or better understand this audio problem.

I just wanna jam to my tunes and watch my movies without my brain being jarred, ya know???

Thanks forumers!

fireberd · 06 Nov 2012

If you scan through this section you will see a lot posts with the same or similar problems, so its not just "your" PC.

There have been some problems caused by Wi-Fi, so just for testing, disable the wi-fi and just play an audio file that is already on the PC or a commercial audio CD and see if you get the same problem or if the symptoms change.

(I'm an ex Pa native - Mechanicsburg).

krau77 · 07 Nov 2012

Thanks fireberd.
So I tried disabling wi-fi and listening to some audio. That didn't help the problem.

Also, I should add that I experimented again with uninstalling and reinstalling the IDT High Def CODEC driver. At first this seems to help and playback is fine. After a few minutes of use, however, it returns to the same glitching problem.

Next I downloaded DPC Latency Checker and it definitely shows instances of drop-outs (and they occur exactly when the audio is stuttering). So what do I do next if Wi-Fi isn't the problem and the Latency Checker confirms these drop-outs?

indianacarnie · 07 Nov 2012

Could be a bad audio card, have you talked to the HP people yet? A new machine like that will still be under warranty. S*cks , but........

fireberd · 08 Nov 2012

I agree, contacting HP since its a new PC.

Since it apparently worked OK, initially, I would suspect a program or something that is running when its started is causing this. Think back to what was installed about the time this started.

One thing to consider, although a hassle, is a complete reinstall back to the original factory condition. Sadly, if you contact HP support, that is one thing that they will seriously consider. The problem is the complexity of PC's and software today and for tech supports, trying to find it can be time consuming, thus the "reinstall" issue.

Update/Added: One other thought, I was experiencing some glitches as shown by the DPC Latency Checker. The problem turned out to be Google. I installed Google chrome and it added an automatic check for updates. The check for updates was causing the problem. Even after uninstalling Chrome, I still had the updates issue. I had to manually edit the Registry (which is a caution to not mess with it if you don't know what your doing) and remove the many instances of the update before I finally fixed my problem.