Realtek audio problems with aspire 3003!

I've been working on this problem all night, and am totally stuck. My aspire 3003 has popping sounds which interrupt the audio. The popping can even be heard when the speakers are muted. I've tried the 3.97 drivers, the 3.58 drivers and even the klite audio codec pack. I've also tried uninstalling the default codecs before the klite installation. I didnt initially think it popped during DVD playback, but I think its just less noticable. I called Acer about this problem, and they set up a pickup for tomarrow, but I really don't want to have to send in the laptop I *just* got. Has anyone come up with a solution to this? I did read all the way through the thread dealing with this issue pertaining to the aspire 5020, but nothing has worked. Any fresh ideas out there?

I'm going to do some further listening with audio CDs and games in a moment, I'll update later.

 

EDIT: Apparently it doesn't work, and was just going a long period without popping. I booted up today and its contantly popping, and audio is unlistenable.

Also, I had a pickup scheduled for maintenance regarding this issue, but what's the chance the will actually fix it? Anyone else have this problem?

 

Yep. I got this one as well. Same as everyone else reloaded drivers etc different drives et al now onto updating bios as recommended by others in a different thread.

fingers crossed