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    Audio distorts when surfing web

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by tndefender, Sep 7, 2011.

  1. tndefender

    tndefender Notebook Enthusiast

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    New to the forum. I am a recent purchaser of an XPS 15 and have notice that when I am playing an audio file (e.g. iTunes, WMP, Pandora, etc) and surf the web the audio will distort terribly while a new page is loading. It seems to do this regardless of the browser used. I have all the latest drivers. This very is frustrating since I never had this problem with my ancient Dell desktop running Windows XP. Does anyone have any experience with this and a possible fix? It seems like with such a powerful computer (i7 processor, 8gb memory) listening to music while surfing the web should be no problem. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
     
  2. tndefender

    tndefender Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well after a Google search and trying a couple of things (that did not work) on a whim I disabled the McAfee real time scanning and firewall. The problem seems to have disappeared. I realize this is a less than optimal solution. Any suggestions? Different firewall/antivirus? Thanks again!
     
  3. tndefender

    tndefender Notebook Enthusiast

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  4. steakikan

    steakikan Notebook Consultant

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    I uninstall the whole McAffe suite, and my stuttering is gone...
    Now using Avast Free Edition
     
  5. madmattd

    madmattd Notebook Deity

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    Microsoft Security Essentials is a decent free Anti-Virus too, and fairly unobtrusive, which I can't say for McAfee. I remember the days when I had just my P4 laptop (one core/thread) and anytime McAfee updates, it eats an ENTIRE CPU core for the update (even just downloading...). It wasn't much of an issue on a multi-core system, but still. I use MSE now, it seems to do fine.
     
  6. tndefender

    tndefender Notebook Enthusiast

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    Postscript: Uninstalled McAfee. Replaced with Norton Security Suite that is a free download with my Comcast subscription (but did not install the other Comcast software). Running much faster with no audio distortion.