My audio is skipping, and cracking really bad.

[tylar112]

I can barely watch youtube videos because the sound is skipping and cracking so bad

I have the latest Realtek HD audio codec, I even tried uninstalling the driver and re-installing it

Is there maybe a solution of a something different that Realtek?

This isn't really a new problem, but I think its got worse since i've had windows 7

I have 2 gigs of RAM, and I have no programs open except for the video

I also hear the problem when Im listening to songs with limewire, but thats understandable because limewire is a ram hog

Music is literally my life, and Im on my computer a lot, and its really a drag if I cant listen to music and such without it completely pooping out

 

[torrentg]

First thing I always ask about crackling audio is does the same crackling and popping happen when you listen to cd audio or mp3 from a physical cd or dvd drive? Could be your SATA driver working inefficiently if so.

There are so many potential causes for this. First thing to check is audio driver. If latest, try older. If older, try latest.

Visit your motherboard manufacturer's site or Gateway and update the drivers for everything they offer for Win 7.

Your lan driver could be in conflict with your audio driver. Does it only happen when packets are being sent and/or received?

Defragment your hard drive(s).

Go into your bios and disable every port not in use, like serial and/or parallel. Disable the floppy drive too, unless you actually use the thing. Windows will boot faster.

If you have a firewire (IEEE 1394) adapter in use or not in use, change it to a generic driver. Sometimes in these cases, there's success in untying certain services to each other in the registry and then disabling one. I'll tell about that later too if it gets to that.

I see you have an old video card. The driver you're using for that could be not so great causing interference in your pc operating well.

I've also fixed machines with this problem by going into bios and generally making sure things are correct. Machines with hard drive or controller misconfigurations or that haven't been optimized (i.e. set wrong) can exhibit this behavior.

You may have some luck by changing the latency for the audio using the PCI Latency tool from Guru3d.com, although this is a long shot. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951#download

I'll think of other causes for ya if nothing I've said already has helped. Good luck.

 

[kersey]

I can barely watch youtube videos because the sound is skipping and cracking so bad

I have the latest Realtek HD audio codec, I even tried uninstalling the driver and re-installing it

Is there maybe a solution of a something different that Realtek?

This isn't really a new problem, but I think its got worse since i've had windows 7

I have 2 gigs of RAM, and I have no programs open except for the video

I also hear the problem when Im listening to songs with limewire, but thats understandable because limewire is a ram hog

Music is literally my life, and Im on my computer a lot, and its really a drag if I cant listen to music and such without it completely pooping out

I too have a problem with popping and crackling sound when playing music and watching a film. It was present on Vista and is the same on Win 7, yet there was no sign of the problem on XP, with the same setup and hardware and driver. I've tired newer and older drivers but it seems like it's a Vista / Win 7 issue...and it's really irritating

 

[technoart]

Audio crackle or dropping out in media centre

Hello everyone, I was inspired to register to let people know the cure for a audio problem I was having with windows 7. After playing media centre with DTV2000 h tv the audio would slowly drop to a crackle and drop out after initially working okay on win 7/64 home premium.

I then upgraded to ultimate 64 (wanted the virtualization xp for other reasons) and found the same issue. Then installed new Kworld dual dvb-t 2 card with win 7 64 drivers available..same issue.

After much, much hair pulling and late 4 am nights, installing reinstalling etc etc I finally got to the bios ....!!!

The issue appears to be that on giga boards and I suspect on others there is intelligent throttling for the CPU. It appears win 7 and maybe vista has its own cpu throttling and if selected in bios the two conflict with the end result the audio throttles to nothing after crackling and also appears to have a intermittent effect on the video as well, certainly has an effect in the media centre....so turn off the bios CIA throttling off or whatever it is called on your board...All boards now work...

Hope this helps someone out there have some better nights sleep...

 

[kersey]

Thanks for your post Technoart, I've tried to go into the Bios, mine is Phoenix but there is not option at all that could relate to throttling.

I have undervolted my laptop using Rightmark CPU utility, as I found previously my laptop was throttling the cpu while gaming on both Vista and XP, so now throttling doesn't occur but the sound still crackles as if I was playing an old record

 

[torrentg]

Turn off undervolting and select the high performance power profile. See how it goes.

Control panel | power options. Show additional plans.

 

[kersey]

Turn off undervolting and select the high performance power profile. See how it goes.

Control panel | power options. Show additional plans.

Still no joy...already have the laptop on High Performance, turned the undervolting utility off, then tried it with 'performance on demand' and then 'maximum performance' and it pops and crackles on all of the above settings

 

[torrentg]

Perhaps a bios update is available for your motherboard as has worked in this thread?

http://www.sevenforums.com/sound-audio/31416-audio-skipping-acer-aspire-1520-a.html

 

[kersey]

Perhaps a bios update is available for your motherboard as has worked in this thread?

http://www.sevenforums.com/sound-audio/31416-audio-skipping-acer-aspire-1520-a.html

I've got it updated to the latest BIOS update from Acer

 

[kersey]

Update: I think I may have solved the crackling problem by using the latest drivers from the Realtek site.

The strange thing is that previously Realtek drivers would not give me the full functionality of my laptops sound card e.g it wouldn't interact with the built in subwoofer which meant I had to use the Acer one but with the latest drivers it recognises the subwoofer and gives me the Acer HD Audio Manager which was only present with Acers customised Realtek driver previously.

Anyone with a 6920G I would recommend using the latest Win 7 drivers from Realtek as they work flawlessly with the laptop.

 

[Ukkis]

Hello
I thought I'd register and come here to seek for help. I recently got a new computer and I've had this same problem since installing win 7 on my fresh machine. What happens then? When I'm watching a video, listening to music, gaming or anything the sound keeps popping. It's a slight crack/pop about every 3 seconds when using winamp/WMP/VLC/MPC to watch videos, listen to cd's/mp3's and a bit more irregularly (or at least harder to notice) when gaming. I'ts especially annoying with ambient-like sounds when the cracking can be heard very clearly.

I've tried installing all the new drivers for my mobo and soundcard but that doesn't seem to help. I even bought a "real" soundcard to replace the integrated one but that didn't help either. Now that I read about someone having fixed a similar issue by disabling CPU-throttling I thought I'd come and ask: How exactly do you do that?

You can see my specs on my profile (at least I think so) but here are the important bits:
-Gigabyte ga-ma790xt-ud4p Motherboard
-Soundblaster X-Fi titanium soundcard
-AMD Phenom II 955BE
-Windows 7 pro OEM

I tried to look for the settings in bios but couldn't really find anything. I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to configuring bios anyway.

Any tips would be highly appreciated!

 

[torrentg]

GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-MA790XT-UD4P (rev. 1.0)

Install both Chipset driver and Sata driver, in that order. Do the audio one too to see how your onboard reacts. (You can have both enabled, onboard + new card.)

After, update your bios.

GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - BIOS - GA-MA790XT-UD4P (rev. 1.0)

If still no good, try disabling onboard audio in bios.

 

[Ukkis]

As I said I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to bios so I thought I'd make sure before ruining anything beyond repair: Which of the bios versions should I get? The second newest one (F5) says it supports phenom II and the newest one seems pretty similar. Will I be ok with the newest one? I guess it would make sense but then again, better safe than sorry.

edit. Ah, found the cpu-support list. Apparently I should be quite ok with the newest one (surprise...). I'll report in when I see the results.

And more problems. The bios update I downloaded doesn't want to co-operate. I'm using a 64bit vista and the updater says I should make sure I have a 64bit version of the program. Should/can I somehow force it to run or are there other options?

edit... Read about flashing bios a bit, should be fine now.

 

[torrentg]

Yes, newest always good. They never decrease in functionality or support. Always move forward.

Don't do anything in your home to blow the circuit breakers when flashing. Keep power requirements to minimum by shutting off all other stuff like tvs, unplug nearby refrigerators etc.... if your home ever has problems like that.

 

[Ukkis]

Done with the new bios and that didn't help either. I don't really think there's much to update left. If there's anything else I could try please let me know.

Just to make sure, here's what I've done so far:
-Updated bios
-updated mobo drivers
-bought a soundcard
-updated soundcard driver
-power plan from balanced to high performance
-fooled around with cables and headphones to make sure it's not about my amplifier/speakers/headphones. Same cracks can be heard through:

optical (both integrated and soundblaster)->amp
optical (both integrated and soundblaster)->amp->headphones
integrated and sounblaster front panel->headphones
​

And all this while gaming/music/video pretty much independant of the software used.

 

[torrentg]

I've fixed machines with this stubborn problem before. It's usually a setting within the bios. Haven't done any recently, so I forget what to tell you. I think best place to start looking and checking is bios. Especially because it doesn't seem tied to any specific audio device.

Other than that, perhaps like you say...something to do with throttling. Search the forum. In unrelated issues, I've seen people speaking of it.

I just noticed in your specs: Random old Seagate. Perhaps disconnect it to test.

See post #22 - http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=27993&page=3

 

[Ukkis]

Ok, I'll try disconnecting the old drive and if that doesn't help either I'll try to look for help on the bios settings. Thanks a lot for the advice even though they didn't help for now

 

[Ukkis]

Now then, a few more things I tried:
-Disabled the AMD k8 cool & quiet control from bios
-Removed the old hdd

Neither worked. Might be just me hallucinating but when I disabled the c&q it seemed the cracks didn't come as often (3sec intervals -> 10 or so sec) but were a bit louder.

Win 7 has 2 updates available:
-Creative x-fi audio processor (WDM)
-realtek RTL8168/8111 family pci-e gigabit ethernet NIC (ndis 6.0)

I actually installed the realtek driver once but that ended up screwing my network so that I couldn't connect anywhere. I don't really know what the "audio processor" but I take that it's just a driver. Doesn't really make sense that win7 finds an update when I have the newest version from creative website installed.

 

[Ukkis]

Finally managed to fix my problem or at least found a nonpermanent solution. The reason my sound was cracking was the Gigabyte program EasyTuner 6. I tried updating to the latest version and messing around with the settings but neither helped so I just disabled it for now.

Seems that it actually had something to do with cpu throttling so at least we were on the right track. So if anyone is having sound problems with Gigabyte ga-ma790xt-ud4p just try quitting this program and see if it helps.

-Ukkis

 

[torrentg]

Awesome Ukkis. Glad to hear about it.