sudden problems on sound. help.

My m17x r4 has problems on the sound,
sometimes when i launch BattleField3 game,
the sound suddenly cracks like a broken stereo. I have no choice but to restart it.

Also there are times, when I launch CounterStrike:GO or left4dead2 then the sound suddenly went to max settings,
even if i pressed the mute button on the top right of the laptop,
the volume is still maxed, even when i mute the system using the volume icon on the system tray.
I also have no choice but to restart my laptop.

I'm having these issues almost everyday.
this sound problem is annoying.

Does anybody have the same problem?
Can anyone tell me how to fix these problems?

 

Hello xanderwolfe,

When did these issues first occur? A quick search with Google shows me that you are not alone with the Alienware laptops and sound issues... To be honest, the way your computer is reacting, it seems most likely to be a driver issue. Have you installed the latest drivers?

I would suggest uninstalling all previous versions of the audio driver and installing a freshly downloaded, latest version from the Dell support site.

 

Just this month, I bought my Alienware last year around Sept, Oct or Nov, can't really remember.

How can I uninstall the previous drivers? Is it the one found on Device Managers? When I click the Sound, Video and Game Controllers, there are like 5 items. should I uninstall all of them?
See the pic

 

You should be able to find the driver installation package in the Add/Remove Programs list. (Control Panel>Programs and Features).The driver package contains, not only, the driver files... but it also contains all the support programming and control panel applet. Find the sound driver installation package and uninstall it. When the new package is installed, it will update the driver .inf and driver files automatically, as well as install the support program and control applet.

As a side note... You could attempt a system restore to a point before the issue occurred. You can check for affected programs before performing the restore.

 

Just a heads up

Mine has been doing this since new year. The sound will occasionally stick at max and not respond to the media buttons and other times it will screech before becomming silent.

The soundblaster programs all crash as well.

I have replaced drivers both from advice here and dell both dont fix the issue, your best skipping straight to contacting dell as its a reoccuring problem on alot of R4's

Question however:

Do you have any VOIP software installed? Such as Teamspeak or Ventrillo? I found my issue began when installing vent and using an external mic.

 

I started having this problem initially back last year when I started using an external mic with Steam.

Again however I seem to have defeated the problem as it has not occurred in last couple weeks. The trick for me seemed to mainly be force-assigning several offending programs to run on the integrated gfx in my AMD Catalyst settings.

 

Wow we are the same on that screech part and the soundblaster crashing. whenever i encounter it in-game, i just throw up a lame excuse and restart this d*mn m17x.
I also replaced the drivers and soundblaster software three times, the issue is recurring.
Yes I do have teamspeak installed, but I am not using it during the times i encounter this problem.
So did you uninstall the teamspeak, skype, other VOIP softwares?
I am going nuts every time I encounter this.

Also, there are times whenever I play a game with audio chat, after an hour or so, the mic will feedback like crazy, all of my friends will here that, and they get angry. So i turn off the voice chat, then mute the damn sound.

Thank you for your input.