Acer Aspire 6930G sound/buzzing problem

Some of you might remember my last post was also related to a buzzing noise a few months ago, but this was related to the screen brightness and was resolved quite quickly through my use of this forum.

I therefore have felt the need to come back, because I now now have a new problem (well its actually been around for a good few months). This problem is also a buzzing noise, but this time from the speakers and in particular, what sounds like the subwoofer. They randomly start making a crackling/buzzing/distorted static sound at random intervals when listening to music or videos or when using Skype, etc.

I've had this problem for a while and it hasn't bothered me as normally going to 'Acer eAudio Management' and simply swapping to '5.1 Output' and then back to 'Built in Speakers' solved the problem, albeit temporarily. Its been more of an annoyance than anything.

However, on Tuesday (2 days ago) I got my copy of Windows 7 through the post to replace my Vista installation. 7 is fantastic it really is, but since I have installed it all hell has broken lose with my speakers. The buzzing noise is now much more frequent, particualry when simply opening something such as Skype or Windows Media Player, whilst listening to iTunes. Swapping between the '5.1' and 'built in speakers' does stop the buzzing, but now, it comes back almost instantly.

I wouldn't have asked, but this is becoming way to frequent and I also know that I am by no means alone with this issue. I have found numerous other examples of the same problem through a simple Google search... please see:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091130140134AAk78Z2
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5927736
http://social.answers.microsoft.com...a/thread/dabb9e79-684c-4a7a-9d1b-7b4b6254bee4

I thought I would post these links here as it draws all of the information together and there appears to be a lot of frustrated customers out there with the same problem, on the same laptop. Acer don't seem to realise there's an issue so I was just wondering.. does anyone have any ideas as to what is causing this?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

I have also tried downloading to latest driver from here ( http://www.acer.co.uk/acer/service....tx1g.c2att92=122&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=2980211862) but to no avail, the problem remains.

 

I too have this buzzing problem for nearly a year now, but I'm still using Vista as I haven't gotten round to doing the upgrade yet. I don't think there's a proper fix for this problem, apart from the 5.1 <---> Built in speaker swap (but that's more like putting duck tape over a leaking pipe =.=''')

A shame really, the only gripe in an otherwise amazing laptop. Are Acer even aware of this problem...?

Actually, at one point, if I'm using iTunes, pause playback and then try to play something from Youtube (or any other program/website that outputs sound) the speakers refuse to work. Need a reboot to fix that >_>. Seems to have resolved itself recently though, not sure what the problem was but it only happens to me if my C drive is getting full!

 

Hi! I'm the guy that helped you out last time, if you remember!

The solution is simple. Go to Acers website and download the Realtek audio driver for WINDOWS VISTA. Not for Windows 7 - It sucks. Then run it as admin, and with compatible settings for Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

My speakers crackle very rarely, but it happens. When it begins to do it, I close all audio applications, and then restarts them. It always helps. I have experienced it on Windows 7 and Vista, so I think it's a driver-problem, but as I said, it happens very rarely, so it doesen't bother me at all.

By the way, the quality of the speakers in this laptop is awesome. I have never heard better audio from a laptop!

 

I know what you mean brokencard its been a pain having to switch between the two sound options so often just to get rid of the buzzing. And its frustrating to think that Acer don't seem to have recognised a problem. Their last update for the driver looks to have been November from last year!? lol

However,, yes I remember you powerfull499 you were a massive help last time... and I'm glad to say you've done it again! Thanks a lot for helping out again, its really appreciated!! I downloaded the Vista driver this time and told it to run in compatibility mode with Vista Service Pack 2. The only problem was that when I turned it back on after restart the buzzing appeared to be on permanently. But when I tried installing again without any compatibility mode, its seems to have worked and the problem looks to have gone. Fingers crossed it works out for me the same as it did for you!! lol

I think its a lot worse on Windows 7 so I can only imagine like you said that its the 7 driver causing more problems. And I agree, when I bought this laptop its the thing I was most impressed with, never mind the graphics card!!! hahah. I think the speakers are brilliant.

Thanks again! Hopefully people with the same problem see this and more people can finally solve this irritating bug!

 

Hi,

you ever read my post here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=439487 ? It seems like the same "problem". I never got any feedback on this one, also not from the Acer support. Just look at the last link I posted on that thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1335420 . It seems the whole problem is because of the powersaving mechanism of the Intel chipset. You can disable the audio chip power saving on Linux drivers and vola, the buzzing is gone. I never found out a way of doing this in Windows. Maybe there is a way doing this with powercfg.exe but I could not find out how yet.

 

It's not the same problem you are telling us about maf9k. This buzzing is only from the inbuilt speakers. If you plug headphones in, you wont hear the buzzing. If you read this thread to the end, you will see it is just a driver-problem

I hope you will find a fix for your problem though

 

No I don't think so, so I am saying it is the same "problem". And yes I have read this thread "to the end".

 

Well I would just like to say the solution posted by powerfull499 has up to now worked perfectly, I havn't even had the buzzing once. I can only say, try this if you believe that the problem is the same as the one I had as it looks to have worked for me. If not, then its likely to be a different 'buzz'.. god i'm sick of that word haha

 

Hi all

Just installed the Vista drivers on my Windows 7 machine, and so far no buzzing! Thanks for that. One thing though - I don't have the option for 5.1 surround sound any more, just for stereo sound. I'd like to have my subwoofer working again! Does anyone know how to do this?

Cheers,

Giles

 

Glad it worked for you man. Now I'm tempted to upgrade to Win7....where'd I put that upgrade disc...

Probably off topic but how was the upgrade experience? Any driver/software issues (apart from the speakers lol). Apart from the usual "back up your data" advice, there be anything I need to do before I pop in the upgrade disc?

 

Hello again, apologies for the delayed reply I've been busy this week. Not only have I had loads of College work but I've started my driving lessons haha. Bit preoccupied! lol

Ok, first to sandspider, I did have your problem when I was going through countless amounts of sound drivers when the problem first appeared. The option was still there under Acer eAudio Management, but I was unable to click it. For me though, the problem disappeared when I installed the Vista driver as instructed by powerfull499. However I did NOT run it in compatibility mode with Vista as when I initially did this, there was more buzzing than before and I also had no 5.1 option. So from what I've experienced I can only suggest trying what I have done?

And to brokencard, yes the upgrade experience was brilliant, apart from yes the speakers lol! All I did was check, double check and check again that I'd backed everything up on my external hard drive (I didn't want to lose anything haha!) and then put the disk in and let it upgrade. I chose the clean install rather than doing it over the top of Vista, because I didn't want program compatibility problems and it always feels good to start over anyway! But no I can't think of anything else, the only other thing I had to do was go to Acer's website and install programs such as 'Acer Empowering Technology' and 'eAudio Management' again, as it wiped the LOT! This wasn't too bad a thing though, as it also got rid of some of the rubbish things I didn't want in the first place

 

Thanks for replying man. Looks like upgrading to 7 is something for me to do over Easter

 

Hi Craig

Thanks for your reply. (Must sort out the e-mail notifications!)

I actually installed the driver without any sort of compatibility mode. Maybe I should try it in compatibility mode! That said, the sound has been crackle free so far - it would just be nice to have the bass back.

Cheers,

Giles

 

Apologies for bumping this thread somewhat, but I have a similar sound problem where the 5.1 is not recognised. I tried downloading the driver, but is about 60files is the 50mb download, which either open and quickly close the command line or do nothing at all. Which exe installs the driver?

 

Guys I have had the sound problem aswell. I downloaded the drivers from Realtek and works a dream!

 

I had this problem with mine when I first got it. Apparently it has something to do with it running on vista. I have installed windows prof 7 and no problems. Don't ask me why but although I had sound I did not seem to have the 5.1 surround features anymore. I went to the Acer site and downloaded the RealTek audio driver. Well, playing music ten minutes later and the problem started all over. I system restored and got rid of said driver. Speakers now working as they should be. I am no computer expert and have paid a lot of money to 'experts' to sort this out. I may have found the reason. Am I wrong. Please let me know.

 

Hi.

I've had this problem for two weeks without getting anywhere. I had to do a fresh install of Windows 7 on my machine and after the reinstall i used all drivers from the Acer site. The buzzing started almost instantly. I was halfway through a youtube film, or a movie and the buzzing would start.

The problem is in the realtek driver. I've tried different versions of it, but what seems to work is not using the driver at all.
Go to your device manager
Uninstall the device including delete the driver files
Scan for hardware changes
Let windows install the device with the default windows drivers.

That solved my problems.