Dell e1505, Sound Skip/Pop on Vista

Has anyone else had trouble with sound skipping and popping in Vista. When playing MP3s, it happens every 30-60 seconds. I have found several forums for all different types of laptops that suggest that the SATA drivers for Vista can cause this sound skipping problem. I have the latest drivers. Some suggested installing an older XP driver, but I'm not really sure where I'd find this.

Has anyone else run into this problem and found a solution?

I have the E1505
T7200
2 Gig Ram
80 gig 7200 RPM SATA Drive

The system runs great otherwise. There are no pauses or CPU Spikes or anything. Just this sound stutter.

 

I think I found a solution!

After trying several things, I decided to load in the Dell Upgrade Disc. I scanned the folder d:\drivers\chipsets\IntelDT

It found an updated SATA driver that has solved the Sound Problem!

Hope this helps everyone else with the problem.

 

Man, I wish this worked for me. I still get the pop and click when I play audio on anything (MediaPlayer, Itunes, foobar) and use my wireless. It's not totally un-listenable, but it's more than enough to upset the audiophile in me.

I am pretty sure that my problem is related to my wireless card. Dell hasn't released a Vista Driver for the 1500 Draft-N wireless card yet. Hopefully it is coming soon. I was all ready to move back to XP, but after a week, Vista is definitely growing on me. Now if I could just get rid of the clicks.

 

I used to have the same problem but a clean installation of Vista solved it. I guess it has something to do with the driver and Vista.

But it's weird that there's high pitch noise coming from the speaker sometimes.

 

Possible solution posted here:

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&thread.id=6860

I have tried upgrading, a clean install, and updating all sorts of drives from different sources. None seemed to work consistently except for disabling enhancements.

ADDITION:

Even after disabling enhancements the problem has returned as soon as I got home and went on WIFI. It seems that the Draft N Dell 1500 card may be the culprit (or at least one more culprit).

Dell just released new 1500 N Drivers today (3/22/07) I'm going to try and hope those work.

 

Follow Up:

To test out and see if your WIFI is causing this sound issue, do the following:

1) Play music or a continuous sound.
2) Ensure that WIFI is enabled and open up the "Connect to a Network" screen.
3) Click the refresh button. Whenever you click this, if the sound produces this stutter, then it's tied to your WIFI card.

The problem is that this "refresh" happens automatically every 30-60 seconds and thus causes this intermittent sound stutter. So far it seems to be tied to the Dell 1500 N Wifi Card (also known as a Broadcom wifi card). The latest WIFI and Sigmatel Sound card drivers DO minimize this issue, but do not get rid of it. Originally the stutter was a severe 2-3 second drop or skip and now it's down to a 1 second stutter.

There is a program out there called Anti-Lag which disables this 30-60 sec wifi refresh, and supposedly can "mask" the inherent issue between the Dell 1500 N and Sigmatel Sound on Vista.

Dell Likes to Waste Money:
Dell Support Forums and some Dell-Techs acknowledge that there are currently Vista Compatibility issues with the Dell 1500 WiFi Card. Note: New Dells no longer ship with this 1500 card as an option. I spoke with a Dell rep who understood all of this and under warranty, said he would overnight a new and compatible WIFI card to me. Well I just got the confirmation and they are shipping me the same DW1500 card. When I called to ask why they are shipping me the already acknowledged "incompatible" card, they said stumbled/stuttered (somewhat like the Vista Sound issue) and said, well just try it anyway - maybe your WIFI card went bad.

Anyone else have similar experiences or find any other solutions?

 

Thanks for the info. As your test suggests, I don't have any problem when I turn off the wifi.

I never thought about trying to get a new card as a warranty replacement, but maybe I will try that route and see if I get better results than you. I had been thinking that we would see some sort of Vista compatible driver for the 1500 coming along pretty soon, but I'm starting to lose faith in that.

 

I also have the dell wireless 1390 minicard which is causing problems.

I guess the lesson to learn here is buy dell laptops but don't buy them with dell components inside of them

They don't do a very good job at realeasing drivers for their hardware.

 

Tonight I checked the dell support site and found that there were new Vista drivers for all of the dell wireless cards. I installed the new 1500 driver and now I am happily listening to skip-free music while I surf the net.

Now, if apple would get iTunes up to speed.

 

Lucky you, my music skips , and I have intel WiFi card...

 

With the latest drivers and I just replaced the Dell 1500 N Wifi card with one shipped to me, there is still sound skipping. The latest drivers have minimized it. Still, if I open up the wifi list and click refresh, you can hear pops/skips. When you click refresh is it completely skip free?

 

You know, you're right. I just went back and tried the check that you suggested and found that about half the time I get a really subtle static when I hit refresh.

The new drivers have made the music much more listenable, but have not completely fixed the problem. At least I feel like I can live with the current state of my sound playback until the next round of drivers comes out.

 

I had the same problem which drove me nuts. I found a good bit of information on the dell forum listed below. Disabling the 802.11a band in the properties of the wifi card after installing the new Dell/broadcom driver helped fix the skipping for me but as previously mentioned, this is a driver issue and disabling a band is only a band-aid. Hope this helps.

http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...thread.id=33179&view=by_date_ascending&page=5

 

Thanks, Perry GT. I think that did the trick for me. I've never connected to an -a band network, so this is a workaround that I can live with.

p.s. - nice job on your first post - Thanks!!

 

I have a 640m with Vista Home premium and the Intel 3945 wireless card... having the same problems.

 

EVERYONE I just found a POSSIBLE solution for this. I have tried many possible solutions and this one happend by mistake as I was playing around with different driver sets for the Sigmatel 9200.

Basically, I got a driver that is NOT for my soundcard (Sigmatel 9200) and it did not install and Windows Vista resorted to the standard Microsoft driver and since then all my music does NOT skip or stutter!

 

So you are using a sound driver that is just like "Microsoft Sound Card" or something generic? Hmm. I just spoke with Dell and they are now shipping me a 2nd internal Wifi Card, this time it's an Intel. We'll see if that does anything.

 

I'd be really interested to see if the Intel wireless card works better than the dell 1500 for you. If it does, then maybe I'll be able to get them to replace mine too.

 

Just got the Intel 3945 Card (A/B/G Centrino). Replaced the card, booted up and it installed the driver. I updated to the latest driver from Dell as well. So far, I have not heard the sound skip at all. I'm running on WIFI (802.11 g) and have clicked the "refresh" button repeatedly and have not heard any skips yet. I'm going to keep testing it out, but this is a good sign. Turning WiFI on and off no longer causes a sound skip. I also tried running a DSL Speed Test while also clicking "refresh" available networks and no skipping. So this is all a good sign.

I had to speak to a few Dell Reps, in summary:

Rep 1 (on-line Chat): 1 hour uninstalling and reinstalling drivers - no effect. So he shipped out a replacement Dell 1500 card (same card)
Rep 2 (On Phone): Talked me through installing the new 1500 card and testing it - this had no effect at all. He said he could not ship out any cards other than the Dell 1500. He transferred me to his manager:
Rep 3 (Manager, on Phone): Could not authorize shipment of anything other than what I purchased (aka Dell 1500). But he put in a "case escalation" to the higher up department.
Rep 4 (Escalated Case Rep): He called 3 times and left messages (I was out of town for a couple days) and he was very interested in solving this problem. When we did talk, he asked a few questions and then gladly shipped out the Intel 3945 Card. I received this the next day. He is supposed to call me back directly tomorrow to see if it works.

So, overall I'm pretty happy with the tech support. No one was rude, they just had to follow the chain of command to get this resolved. Let's hope this problem actually is resolved. I'll keep testing this week and report back.

Card Pros/Cons:

PROs: Intel 3945 is part of the Centrino family and this should make this PC Centrino Certified. Intel 3945 Card seems to have solved the sound skipping issue. Both cards support A/B/G

CONs: The Dell 1500 Card also supported Draft N and costs $20 more. When I ordered my Dell the 1500 Card was a free upgrade so I'm not to upset. I don't think the Draft N is something I will use much at this point anyway. Still I may ask them about the cost difference.

 

i had this problem an fixed by going into control panel-sound and then disable all enhancements

 

Same here, i uninstalled the dell driver