e6500 crackling audio

I downloaded all the drivers from Dell.

 

I have one audio-related problem on my E6400 I think might be caused by the same thing that is causing the skipping and crackling audio for some users.

When clicking on folders in Windows Explorer there is sometimes a short delay before the folder contents are displayed. The problem has something to do with the sound that is played when clicking on a folder. If I turn off sound for events in Control Panel there is no delay when clicking on folders. Another way to eliminate the delay (with sound for events enabled) is to force the process explorer.exe to run on one core only by setting affinity to CPU 0 or CPU 1 with Task Manager. So there seems to be some problem with playing audio for applications that run any core in the CPU, maybe it takes longer to communicate with the audio driver or something like that.

I don't have any skipping or crackling audio when playing music so I cannot test if setting the affinity to one core only would make any difference but it might be worth a try for you with audio problems.

I have seen the problem with delay when playing the click-sound in Windows Explorer on some new desktop computers at work also. I wonder if it has something to do with the dual-core hotfix KB896256 that Microsoft integrated in SP3 because I have never noticed the problem on SP2. I will see if I can reproduce the problem on SP2.

Edit: The click-delay problem exits on SP2 also, regardless of hotfix KB896256 being installed or not.

Örjan

 

I'm still fightning this stupid thing! A couple days ago I thought I was being all smart and I formatted the harddrive yet again and started all over. And before I loaded anything up I physically removed the Wi-Fi card AND the bluetooth card. I thought sure I was going to get clean sound! But nooooo, the Dell Gods weren't going to allow that! Infact, it was worse than it has ever been with nothing loaded. I was getting a severe stutter every 4 seconds...I mean it was seriously tripping over itself. So, I went ahead and downloaded all the newest drivers from Dell and now it's down to a stutter every minute or so...pretty much the same as before I decided to start clean again.

Now, I just went to the Dell site and found that there was another BIOS update. I don't think I've every had a computer with 5 BIOS updates in less than two months? Well, I went ahead and downloaded it, but have yet to try it and see if it makes any difference. Will update tomorrow or so.

I really should have returned this thing before my 30 days were up, but I haven't been able to find any systems beyond the Latitude and Mobile Precision lines that meet all my other requirements. Closest I've found are the high end Asus, Lenovo, and Toshiba. The Asus and Toshibas though are so disgusting to look at that the performace wouldn't do me any good when I hide them in the closet due to embarassment!

 

I found that installing those Creative Drivers fixed the problem last time I had this (Dell sent me a disc for free for some odd reason!)

That fixed it for me

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but i found a fix yesterday.
My m4400 never had the problem before but yesterday it was stuttering like crazy so i had a look at the IDT settings. There i saw it was set to play audio at DVD quality, 16bit 48000Hz...knowing mpo3's etc are never at this quality unless you recorded or encoded them to be at that quality i changed settings to CD quality, 16bit 44100Hz....all stutter was gone. It does make sense becasue if trying to play mp3 at a different setting then which it actually is will cause it to either play at a different speed then it should or have it catching up all the time and stutter as a result

 

While I can't say I've experienced the audio issue (yet), I have noticed the DPC Latency issue, as also documented by ProfessorShred, diablo2121, John Ratsey, wasabah, orjan, gremlin1000, subversive, and jwerx previously in this forum thread. As posted at http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19244570/19388885.aspx#19388885, it seems that avoiding the Dell / IDT audio drivers is an improvement.

I've spent a better part of the morning troubleshooting this latency issue myself, just to see how my results compared to the other suggestions shared here.

Nothing I did with the OS, including dual-booting between Vista 64-bit and XP 32-bit, disabling almost all software and services, or installing and uninstalling various drivers - particularly the Intel Storage Matrix - made any difference.

I started a long series of reboots, each time only enabling or disabling one option in the BIOS until I noticed a change. For me, the key was disabling the eSATA port. Attached are screenshots from the DPC Latency Checker before and after disabling the eSATA port.

Fortunately, unlike some of the other BIOS options, this one isn't bundled with other hardware, so I don't loose anything besides the eSATA port by disabling it. However, like ProfessorShred, I also expect to use my E6500 for a fair amount of audio/video production - and had planned on expanding my storage through the eSATA port - so this is not a permanent solution by any means.

Details on my system: Currently using the A10 BIOS. NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M video instead of the Intel. Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN wireless instead of the Dell. Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth. Integrated webcam and fingerprint reader.

If anyone else here reading this can reproduce the issue and temporary fix by disabling the eSATA port in the BIOS, please 1) reply here, and 2) open a support case with Dell so they realize that this is not an isolated issue. Please don't assume that everyone else will report it. Until Dell publicly acknowledges that they are addressing the issue, the more users that call/email/chat-in and report the same issue, the more likely it is that this will be fixed. (My case # on this is 628780287.)

Thanks!

 

Any improvements with the new IDT audio driver?

 

Not for me. If anything, I now have skips AND popping/crackling audio.

E6400, IDT A05, Intel Matrix Manager/Driver 8.6, No other Dell utilities installed.

 

Did you try disabling the eSATA port in the BIOS?

 

Yep, just disabled nearly everything possible that I don't need. Still skipping.

I am noticing considerably more skipping when doing more network traffic through wireless. For example, working in a remote desktop window on a server causes music to skip at about 20 second intervals instead of minutes.

I already have the latest Dell wireless drivers though. Maybe I will tinker with the WLAN settings.

I am pretty close to doing a full format / reinstall with Vista Business though and using only the newest / necessary drivers from manufacturers... This is such a pain to do though and I'm not convinced it will help.