e6500 crackling audio

What's the battery life, now that you've disabled speedstep? What capacity is your battery?

Thanks

 

Why should you have to disable features of your laptop to enable other features?

 

More like why do you have to disable features on your laptop to make other features work properly?

 

or more likely. why doesnt dell listen... it seems most of their models have some kind of sound issue.... I just disabled esata because i dont use it atm. The precision 4400 is an amazing computer, but has 2 big flaws. The audio (disable pc speakers and esata and run over line out) and a grafix problem that seems to work with bios a03 the new bios seems to make my fan more noisy in office mode?? so i will downgrade again tomorrow. Otherwise great gaming performance, good screen and fast system.. Perhaps the perfect system just doesnt exist?

Originally i wanted to buy a macbook pro, but it was soo expensive and the screen wasnt my thing at all, and 1 year warranty sucks. still havent regretted my choice

 

I'm in the process of trying out the solutions posted here, but just want to post my experience for what it's worth. I have a Latitude E6500. It came with XP and I upgraded to Vista Business. The audio crackles about every 4s - it sounds like you're listening from a scratchy vinyl record. The more annoying problem is that the audio stutters/skips like there's a scratch on the CD. This occurs on Windows Media Player, iTunes, and YouTube video. Initially, I didn't have problems with Windows Sounds (e.g. during startup) but eventually stuttering occurred there too. I also have problems with video files - the video briefly pauses when the audio skips. Dell upgraded my drivers. I reinstalled Vista. Dell replaced my motherboard. Still had audio crackling. Finally, Dell shipped me a replacement laptop. The problem is much more subtle on the new laptop, but I suspect it'll get worse with time or might get worse once I start installing other software. As someone noted here, I think the stuttering occurs when the computer is working hard. I'm just about to give up, but I'll try the solutions posted here and let you know it goes. Thanks!

 

Forgot to post my specs:

Latitude E65000
Vista Business
Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T9400, 2.53 GHz, 1066 MHz 6M L2 Cache
4.0 GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
256 MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth 2.1
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n 1x2)

 

This is EXACTLY the problem I was having. I also sent my computer to Dell for this, but I still don't know what exactly they did to it while it was there because they haven't told me yet despite repeatedly requesting that information from them. Anyway, they didn't fix the problem. Seems Dell tech support is on vacation and not listening to customers. For a company of their size producing the kinds of systems they are it shouldn't be hard for them to find and solve the problem, especially if they would listen to the users. Wow, what an idea, huh?

Anyway, after the computer came back I made the audio/video skip go away simply by disabling my Wi-Fi adapter in the Device Manager. Sucks to have to do that, but the only other options are keep bugging Dell until they get a clue or return an otherwise excellent laptop and start all over with a different one. Newegg had a deal on Wireless N PC cards for $20 with free shipping so I ordered one of those to replace my built-in Wi-Fi until Dell figures this out. Will report back once that arrives and I try it.

And yes, I sent Dell a message to tell them that turning off the Wi-Fi card fixed my problem. I'm sure they'll get right on the fix in about, um, well about the time the E6500 is discontinued and they don't need to anymore.

 

I am reinstalling my E6400 now and there are no hardware devices for Intel AMT (V/pro) in my E6400 as far as I can see. This is good since it is how I ordered it and how I want it. I don't want devices I don't need that might slow down the computer.

When I ordered my laptop I selected "Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label" instead of "Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with V/pro label" and I think that is why I don't have any hardware devices for Intel AMT (V/pro) in my laptop. When I ordered my laptop I thought this would only mean that AMT (V/pro) would be disabled by default in BIOS.

However, I had a look in BIOS but I couldn't find these settings anywhere so it seems that Dell is disabling these devices permanently when shipping a computer without V/pro label. My computer has a label that says "Centrino 2" instead of "V/pro".

Strange that your computer had the AMT (V/pro) settings after service. Dell should not change things that were not in your original order.

Örjan

 

I have an E6400 and I have not noticed any crackling audio yet, neither in the Dell factory Windows XP installation nor in my own Windows XP installation. Both Windows XP installations have Matrix Storage Manager 8.2 installed.

My E6400 has the following configuration:
Intel C2D P8600
Intel Graphics
Intel WiFi Link 5100
Bluetooth 370

I have tried surfing Internet sites with Wireless network on while playing musc, no crackling. I have tried copying large files on the hard drive, no crackling.

On the other hand, IDT Audio control panel seems to be lacking settings for digital audio, equalizer etc. Is it really supposed to be this bad? How do you e.g. configure digital audio out through DisplayPort/HDMI?

Edit: On my old Dell Latitude E610 with integrated graphics I had no crackling audio, but I remember that people with discrete graphics complained a lot about crackling audio. What is it like this time? Are the problems limited to computers with nVidia graphics?

Örjan

 

In a last ditch effort to resolve audio issue, I reformatted my laptop disk and reinstalled Windows XP Pro (service pack 2) on my E6500 Latitude (my computer came with XP downgrade and I wondered if Vista was messing things up). I started to slowly reinstall all the drivers/utitilies on the Dell Disk that came with my computer - each time I installed something, I tested the latency and audio. The following had no issues: Intel Mobile Chip Set Drivers, Webcam Driver, Dell Wireless 410 BT, Intel 825xx Gigabit Platform Network Driver, nVidia Quadro NVS160M, IDT 92HDxxHD Audio, Dell Control Point Security & Manager, Dell OS Tools.

However, audio problems started after I installed the Intel Storage Manager 8.2.2.1001. The audio crackled about every 4s, and the latency jumped to 3 msec every 4 s) Unplugging powercord didn't help as someone suggested. Note my Intel Wife Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n) can not be the problem since it's not active. I've previously found that turning off the "A" channel on the 802.11 a/g/n did not solve my problem.

I did a system restore. Everything was fine again. Now I tried installing a new version of the Intel Storage Manager (version 8.6.0.1007) dowloaded from Intel website. Now things get interesting. The audio sounds fine, but the latency is stuck at 9.347 msec (ie. all red bars). I should point out that this also happened when I installed the new version of the Intel Storage Manager of my E6500 when it had Vista.

I did another system restore. Now I tried installing latest Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (but not sure if I installed the right one). Things were fine. Then I reinstalled the Intel Storage Manager (version 8.6.0.1007) and everything was messed up - the audio on the windows startup/shutdown stuttered and latency was high again at 9.2 msec. Again, the audio on the media player doesn't stutter any more.

In conclusion, the audio crackling seems to have something to do with the Intel Storage Matrix Manager. The latest version corrects the audio crackling issue but causes the latency to stay consistently high at 9.2 msec.

Any suggestions on what to try next? I'm going to give a Dell rep another crack at the problem, but if they can't fix it tonight, I'm asking for a refund. This has been frustrating and a complete waste of my time.

Any suggestions on what laptop I should try next for workhorse? Is it time to switch to Apple MacBook Pro even though most my software is PC?

System Specs:
E6500 Latitude
Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz Processor
256 MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
4.0 GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n)
Intel ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E-SATA RAID Controller
IDT High Def Audio Codec (5.10.0.6017)