Dell e1505 sound problem

I just got a new Dell e1505 laptop (3 days old) and I'm having problems with the sound on the unit. The first day I owned it, I noticed when playing music on it, it skipped, not a whole lot, but ever so often, it would skip a few times, almost like a scratched CD. Today I noticed that it was getting worse, and it was being a pain already since I listen to alot of music with my laptop. I don't know if this is an hardware issue... but I will post the specs anyway.
Core 2 Duo 2.0GHZ
2GB 533 RAM
160GB 5400 HDD
ATI x1400 256mb
I do not have the Audigy software from dell. I did a clean format when I took it out of the box, but I did download all the drivers from the dell website and reinstalled those. Does anyone else have this problem, or know how I can fix it?

 

Is this happening with music that you have ripped to laptop or discs?

 

I noticed yesterday that it does the same thing with video's. And i'm talking about ripped music, and stuff like that, not CD's. Here's the funny thing, it only seemed to do it on my audio jack, and not on my laptop speakers?, unless the speakers are too cheap to hear it. I have tried diffrent speakers on my headphone jack, and it seems like it does the same thing.

 

Try reinstalling your audio drivers. You only need to install the Sigmatel drivers. You also might check the device manager to make sure that your IDE device is set to DMA mode and not PIO mode. Dell has it set for PIO mode, and it causes some weird problems with cd/dvd playback. To check it: right click on my computer-->properties-->hardware tab-->device manager-->IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers-->right click on primary IDE channel-->properties-->advanced settings-->transfer mode should be set to DMA if available.

 

I also bought a E1505 with similar specs and have been having the same problem -- video playback has glitches every so often, MP3s on hard drive won't play through cleanly, etc.

 

Check your IDE mode. Dell has it set for PIO instead of DMA if available mode, and this causes several problems with DVDs and possibly cds. I know with DVDs, you'll experience stuttering and other problems. I can only assume this would be the same for cds.

 

Thanks. checked IDE mode and it was already set to "DMA if available"

the random glitching happens with mp3s and .avis, etc. that I try to play back off the hard drive, haven't tried DVD playing from disc. I've tried several media players and the glitching occurs in all of them. It's extremely frustrating. The computer is just a few weeks old, so I'm contemplating restoring it from restore partition to shipped mode -- is this advisable?

 

You can do that if you haven't formatted yet, but that might not solve the problem. Normally I recommend to format and start with a clean system if you have not already done so. Its hard to tell if it is a driver problem or possibly software problem if you haven't gotten rid of the junkware yet.

You might check and make sure you are not bottlenecking one of your CPUs and causing the music to shutter. Most laptops should be able to play music from the HDD with no trouble at all.

 

I listened to an MP3 and tried to monitor CPU usage with the Task Manager but there seemed to be no correlation between glitching and CPU usage, which never peaked passed 10% in iTunes. Windows Meida layer was a different story -- playback gets progressively worse, and the Media player uses 50% of CPU on the Core Duo machine.

So I don't think it's CPU overload, but I don't know. By the time I played the same mp3 8 times, it wouldn't go for more than a few seconds without skipping.

 

Sounds like a driver issue. Anyways try with Media Direct to make sure that the problem is software related. As Southern Girl as already recommended reinstalling windows will probably fix it.

Going back to the DMA problem, check the current transfer mode, does it say something like “Ultra DMA Mode x” or PIO mode ? Because simply asking XP to use “DMA if available” doesn’t mean it is doing that.

 

I have same problem here and I worked it around by disabling my "Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN mini Card". Frustrating, isn't it?

 

I, too, am having this problem with ugly pops, hiccups, and skips on my 1505. I've read a few places that this has something to do with the wireless card, but there's no way I'm disabling mine seeing as how I need that to connect to the internet in my house.

There has to be someway to fix this other than that workarond.

I contacted Dell today via chat to see if their CSRs could help me. Nothing. They really need to get on this.

 

Try updating to the latest drivers for your wifi card. I haven't heard any specific problems related to the wifi + sound, but I'll check around and see if there is a certain fix.

 

This is interesting... ...my daughter's 1505e is having the same problem. When she plays music from a CD, or tries to play MP3's from the hard drive (using iTunes), it's all garbled and sounds terrible over the notebook speakers. I didn't really have time to investigate this problem before she went back to college after Thanksgiving. And no, I'm not going to reformat and reinstall Windows or disable the wireless card. Surely there must be a reasonable fix for this?

 

We bought my daughter's 1505e in March of '06, and it has Intel® PRO 3945 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless cards installed. Has anyone else tried this: Inspiron 9400 audio glitching Go to page 2 and you'll find a link to an updated audio driver that was posted by Dell on 11-15-06. However, since our computer has an Intel wireless card I don't see how this would solve our problem with the audio?

 

The WiFi and Sound cards might operate over the same bus line on the motherboard, much like my HD Audio and Modem do. I might be the reason why. But that is my speculation.

 

I am still having the same problem with my notebook. Although, I have noticed disabling the wireless helps, it does not completely eliminate the problem. I'm almost thinking my hard drive is bad, because when I do...like open a program or whatever, the hard drive light is on continually the whole time. Do you think a 7200rpm hard drive would solve the problem. I am generally not very happy with the notebook...since it's only a few weeks old and it's already giving me problems.

 

I have a dell e1705

- intel core duo 2 2.16ghz
- 2gb ddr2 667 mhz
- draft N wireless
- 200gb HD
- Audigy HD


I am having then same problem... skipping dring music, dvd's, cd's, mp3's, itunes... i only have 35 processes running and i am still having this problem... just got the laptop 3 days ago and it was doing it out of the box... I called them up and they had no solutions.. so they are sending me a new laptop??? i don't know if a new one will fix the problem... someone e-mail me if they figure something out.. i'll let you know if a new one fixes the problem... pretty crappy since i dropped $3200.00 on it and my brothers 3 year old laptop can play dvds crisp and clear and mine can't... sucks...