Audio skips every 1 - 2 minutes on E6500

Don't know if this'll help, but... worth a shot...
Go into Device Manager and disable the drivers for any devices you've never used on the machine. Possibilities include Firewire, Expresscard, Smart card reader, modem, PC Card... anything else. (Especially modem since it's on the audio bus.) Be aggressive... if you ever need one of these devices, it only takes 10 seconds to re-enable.

Also, in the Sound control panel, try disabling all enhancements... and set the sample rate to 16-bit 48000 Hz (the default on mine).

 

I'm also following the thread that orjan posted above, and also recommend the DPC latency checker tool that ProfessorShred linked to. My personal experience, as detailed in the above linked thread, has shown success in disabling the eSATA port in the BIOS.

 

Did anyone try setting the playback rate to 44100hz instead of the default 48000hz? All normal audio plays at 44100 except for DVD quality stuff....if you set it wrong it will either play at the wrong speed or stutter because the stream has to catch up all the time.

worked here

 

That's the only change i made, i still have all devices and even bass-enhancement enabled and i only needed to change the Hz setting

 

Thanks for all the replies. I am still going through all this stuff. Next I will test the latency (though latency for playing music isn't really a problem as long as it is consistent). I will check the playback Khz rate also. Where might this be set?

So far I have tried:

Updated Intel Matrix Manager + Newest IDT (A05) driver
Updated Intel Matrix Manager + Built-In Vista HD Driver
Dell Provided Intel Matrix Manager + Newest IDT (A05) driver
Dell Provided Intel Matrix Manager + Previous IDT driver (A04?)
Dell Provided Intel Matrix Manager + Built-In Vista HD Driver

Currently using the first combination and still having a blip every minute or 2. Plus with these 2 updated drivers I now have some crackling/popping audio at higher volumes that I did not have before.

This is really sad that something as simple as sound on a laptop is not reliable on this laptop. Really disappointed in this.

EDIT: Also to add, I have tried using DirectSound as well as WaveOut in Winamp. While both give a slightly different sound, they both still have the same problem.

 

I just tested Ubuntu using the 8.10 Live CD. No sound skipping at all (though the volume controls were not working correct). I am going to plan on reinstalling Vista fresh and using only the drivers needed and see if it still skips.

 

Its driver issues... get the latest drivers for your sound card. This also happened to me.

 

If you had read, I already tried the newest drivers available. I now think this wasn't a driver issue. But another application or service running causing it.

I just reinstalled Vista Business SP1 x86. I only installed the WLAN drivers (Dell 1397) and did a windows update and installed Winamp. Currently been listening to music for about 5 minutes now with no skips, pops, or crackling!

I guess I will keep listening to music while going through all my application installs to find out what might have caused it.

I am currently running on all Vista provided drivers except for the WLAN. I will be installing the Dell provided drivers for the NV quadro 160m, Intel onboard gigabit LAN, and the Broadcom USH (selecting Broadcom USH as the only thing to install from the Dell Controlpoint Security Driver).

I will post back if I learn anything else about the issue. But it's hard to say what it could of been when you format :\

 

Skipping is back. I don't feel it was ever resolved. I am going to start going through the crackling thread again. However the latency checker doesn't seem to have any correlation to skipping. With all the combinations of drivers and software I have tested the latency would be high or low and the skipping was the same.

 

I'm new here, but have been watching the different threads regarding audio problems, specifically, the audio skipping.

I've rolled back the matrix storage driver to the 8.2.2.1001. However, to completely eliminate the audio skipping, I also had to roll back to the native Vista standard VGA graphics adapter instead of using the nVidia Quadro NVS 160M driver (7.15.11.7607, A01).

Summary:

Dell provided Matrix Driver (8.7.0.1007) + nVidia driver = Skipping
Dell provided Matrix Driver (8.7.0.1007) + Std VGA driver = Skipping
Dell provided Matrix Driver (8.2.2.1001) + nVidia driver = Skipping
Dell provided Matrix Driver (8.2.2.1001) + Std VGA driver = No Skipping!

Obviously, only a temporary fix, as I'd much rather utilize the nVidia graphics driver. But, at least this allows me to listen to music without those annoying skips.

I have the Latitude E6500, Vista Ultimate (32-bit).