AW 15 R2: Abnormal sound while playing movies or music.

Need your advice regarding my problem. I always hear my laptop speaker with like a vibrating or rattling sound especially when i play some movies or music.. its very annoying especially when the speaker volume raised to 70-100%.. Is it a sound card driver problem? Or the SoundBlaster software? Thanks in advance!

 

you need to take a video and upload it to youtube, then we can suggest something

 

Assuming it's not a hardware issue (was it ever driven too loud, does it only happen on one speaker?) perhaps there's some software gain being applied which is causing the sound to clip and distort at higher volumes. Open the Sound Blaster app and disable all enhancements such as "SBX Pro Studio" and EQ then re-test. Also, some software media players like VLC have their own DSPs and let you increase the gain of the output which can introduce distortion, so test with another player, too.

 

In addition to your point about VLC, I must add that using anything that increases gain is dangerous for your speakers. I had to replace the speakers on my old latitude a couple of times due the gain in VLC blowing them. Just to clarify, that means setting the volume to anything above 100%.

Here are a few old threads about it:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3517/t/19492918
http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/80989-35-does-media-player-damage-speakers

This kinda made me giggle, some truth there too: http://www.techeye.net/software/vlc-slams-cheap-and-nasty-dell-speakers

The bottom line is, by "boosting" the volume, the software introduces a saturated "square signal" which burns out the coils on cheap speakers.

 

Thanks for your replies.. I tried to turn off the soundblaster app enhancements like the SBX Pro Studio and Equalizer, but the sound still has some hizzing noise.. I also tried different players like windows media player, vlc, and k-lite mpc, but they are all the same.. But one thing i noticed and suspected is, the noise is like vibrating in the casing.. so i tried to press hard the palm rest part of the casing just above the speaker and it worked, the hizzing sound disappears.. if i will not press it, the hizzing sound will resume.. Any idea about this and how to solve it? Thanks!

 

If you record it we can hear what you mean.....

 

Sounds like you might need to re-seat the speakers, to do that you will need to disassemble some of the laptop so that you can lift up the keyboard section.

Have a look at this guide - http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/2016-alienware-17-r3-re-paste-guide.788431/

It's for the AW17 but it's pretty much the same for the 15.

 

Sorry i cannot upload my audio file as of the moment coz i am still new in this forum. They said after 5 quality posts or above will enable the attach file button.. Anyways, I will upload it as soon as it will be ok.

 

Oh my.. As of now i am hesitant to disassemble my unit coz it is still new and only 4 months old. I bought it in singapore and i live here in the philippines and i am not sure if there is alienware support for warranties here. But all are satisfactory except the speaker. I further noticed that the left speaker is the one causing the hizzing or vibrating noise. Do you mean that the left speaker just needs to be repositioned in the casing to prevent the hizzing noise? Or the left speaker maybe already no good and needs to be replaced? Thanks!

 

It's possible that the speaker might need replacing but as you said the buzzing stopped when you applied pressure to the palm rest, it sounds to me like it might just be loose and needs repositioning.

 

Noted that.. thanks again for your inputs..