Do a lot of Inspiron 1520 users have stuttery/laggy audio?

Hi all. I was wondering if a lot of people that have the Inspiron 1520 have audio that seems to go choppy and laggy during any kind of audio playback. What I've noticed on mine, is that the sound always starts off fine and then it will at whatever point it decides, get all choppy and the only way to stop that is to shut down the app I'm in and then restart it. The funny thing is when I was testing this, I let the audio get choppy in the application (in this case I was playing some WoW) and as soon as that happened I opened up my windows media player and played some songs to see if that was choppy as well. The songs played great and I had that playing in the background of my game. But after a short while the songs also started to play choppy (kind of sounded like audio skipping) and there too the only way to remedy it was to shut down windows media player and start it back up again.

Are any of you 1520 users experiencing this? I am aware of some of the sound issues on this 1520 but wasn't sure if this was the same issues as the others I've read about. I would almost think this would be some kind of software related issue as it always works great in the beginning and continues to work great if you restart your application, but it doesn't seem to matter what application your in, eventually it will go choppy on you.

I am using windows xp on my 1520 by the way. I have set my sound hardware acceleration down to nothing as suggested in another post I saw in regards to sound issues. Short of that I haven't been able to find anything online that suggests what to do.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks and happy holidays everyone.

Mike

 

if you are using vista then turn off all audio enhancements in playback devices

 

On my 1420, I had the same problem. Even after turning the enhancements off, it was still there.

 

Actually majortom, I took vista off this thing and loaded xp on and I have already reduced the audio enhancements down to nothing (in this case it's called hardware acceleration under xp). I'm betting a lot more people are running into this problem but I guess to them they are just dealing with it. I hope that maybe I can get lucky and it might be solved by a software update for the sound drivers.

I'll just keep searching online to see if I can figure out what's going on. This kinda sucks because I'm usually savvy enough to fix my own problems but I can't find any other settings to try and there is no way I've seen to prevent it. It's manageable, but it's a bummer to have to shut down your game and start it back up just to get the sound to behave again.

Thanks anyway guys.

 

please read posting on here by jrsryder (go into search near top of page, then type jrsryder in there).. look up my Dell Inspiron 1520 Audio Problem posting. You may get an ironic laugh.

 

By the way I just wanted to let everyone know my sound issue is resolved. Oddly enough (and as stupid as it seems to be) downloading nVidia driver version 156.10 as suggested in another thread and turning off the option to have each application decide its 3D settings and instead choosing the option to use my own preferences, worked like a charm.

I always thought it was a driver issue, not a hardware one, but I would have never thought it to be fixed by a graphics driver change instead of a sound driver change. By the way I did test it with just swapping the graphics driver but not changing that 3D setting and I still would get the sound problem after a while, so whatever that 3D setting does, does seem to be important.

I hope this helps someone else out down the road. Oh and in case you're trying to search for that exact driver, I downloaded it from this link:
http://www.x-drivers.com/catalog/dr...idia/models/geforce_8_mobile_series/5257.html

Unfortunately that still doesn't answer why it happened in the first place as I was using different drivers for both the sound card and video card to begin with and it had been working fine, but maybe I updated something else on my system that I just can't remember and that happened to cause the sound issue.

 

I've discovered another stutter situation. I have a Vostro 1400, but this might work as well.

My vostro does not have a BT card in it, so I decided to go to my Dell Wireless 1390 properties and disabled "Bluetooth Collaboration" and voila! no stutter!

 

hi kruege,

i was the one who posted that previous thread about switching to nVidia driver version 156.10.

unfortunately for me, after a few days, the problem did indeed come back. because that particular driver was also giving me problems with .avi playback (discolouration and weird flickering bars on some of my .avi files) i have since switched my video driver to the latest stock drivers released on dell's drivers page for the Vostro 1400. it's version 156.83.

however, i was just wondering if you could be more specific about what settings you changed in your NVIDIA control panel regarding the 3D settings. i may be willing to give 156.10 another try if it in fact can be a true solution to the audio stuttering problems.

i've tried selecting "Use my preference emphasizing: [Balanced]" under "ADJUST IMAGE SETTINGS WITH PREVIEW", but it hasn't fixed the problem. but then again, i'm still using the stock drivers...

also, since someone in a different thread mentioned it, do you have PowerMizer enabled in the Nvidia Control Panel?

ETA: i'd also like to note that i recently purchased a USB Creative External Sound Card, hoping that it would solve my audio woes. quite a few people had success using the ExpressCard X-Fi card, but that was a bit out of college student budget. my hopes were unfulfilled, however. even with my audio being processed by my new USB external card, I still get skipping. so it's definitely not the SIGMATEL AUDIO DRIVERS that are causing the skipping, as some, including myself, had speculated.

 

interior_decor:

try out my workaround if you have the Dell 1390 card and/or don't have a BlueTooth chip installed!

 

way ahead of you, hypdotspec. tried it as soon as i saw your post earlier today. unfortunately, no dice.

well, actually, after changing the 3D settings in my Nvidia Control Panel and disabling the bluetooth thing, the skipping seems to be occurring a bit less frequently now. are your skipping problems really completely gone?

was there anything else you changed in your wifi or video card/drivers settings?

which drivers are you using for your GPU?

 

I fixed it for the last 2 months by enabling ata mode in the bios.

 

interior_decor:

I'm using the standard Dell Drivers 156.xx (whichever are the current ones) and the ONLY option I changed in the NVIDIA control panel was disabling NVIDIA scaling (I did so because some old games I have don't support widescreen).

For the most part, my stutter is completely gone. Now if I'm loading up a game or something, the audio skips probably because of the hard drive trying to load the information.

my skips are 95% gone - I used to get skips all the time by scrolling pages in firefox - now it doesn't skip anymore.

 

does anyone experience audio/sound skipping when using latest everest ultimate edition? when i enable it, my audio skip horribly every 3 seconds, i guess that is the time the software takes reading from the sensors. when i exit the software, skipping totally stopped. anyway to overcome this? or any settings im unaware of?

 

i've been contemplating doing that as well, since it's seemed to be an effective fix for you. however, does enabling ATA mode adversely your Vostro's overall performance? that's the only thing that's been keeping me from trying it out.

yeah, scrolling in firefox has become my personal method of testing if the skips are still there after i try out a potential fix.

did you change the scaling option around the same time that you disabled the bluetooth option on the 1390's settings? i'm so desperate for a fix that i'd be willing to try it out.

ETA: i'm looking at the settings of the 1390, and there seems to be a lot of things that seemingly could be the issue:

here's some of my options and what i have them set to:

Afterburner: Disabled
Bluetooth Collaboration: Disabled
IBSS Mode: 802.11b only
Manage Wireless Settings: Enabled
Minimum Power Consumption: Enabled
Power Save Mode: Fast
Radio Enable/Disable: Enabled
WZC Managed Ethernet: Disabled
XPress (TM) Technology: Disabled


i presume it's the same for you?

 

yea,

I did it around the same time actually.

Can't tell you which I did first, but its working now *knock on wood*

Tell me, when you boot up windows and you get the bootup sound, does it skip too? Mine would before (randomly) but for now it seems fine. I'll have to do testing.

But for those who don't feel like reading the rest of this whole thread:

hypdotspec's solution to audio stutter:
- Disable NVIDIA scaling (seems to increase gaming FPS too)
- Disable "Bluetooth Collaboration" if you have a Dell 1390 wireless card

Can anyone verify the Bluetooth Collaboration disable on other cards?

 

ah okay - gonna try disabling scaling now. i presume you did the following: under Display > Change flat panel scaling > select "Do not scale" instead of "Use NVIDIA scaling", which is what i have it set to now.

also, as for the bootup sound skipping, i wouldn't know - i disabled all system sounds as soon right after i got XP running. so the only audio i've experienced skipping with are mp3s/FLACs that i play in foobar2000 and youtube videos. strangely, i don't have skipping issues (or, at least they're not apparent to me) when i play games (e.g. tf2 and other orange box games) or watch .avi's or DVDs. . .

 

The only thing it prevents is you from using the intel turbo memory...which no one should use anyways.

 

@ nizzy:
ah okay. but i'd have to reinstall windows to enable ATA, wouldn't i? that's not something i'm prepared to do.

@ hypdotspec:
rebooted after turning off scaling. skipping seems to be less frequent now. but it still definitely happens almost every time i scroll in firefox. bummer.

 

you don't have to reinstall Windows to use ATA - I tried it (not for audio issues, but for something else) and when windows boots it automatically installs the drivers for the hd.

go ahead and try

 

interesting. i've never tried it before though. . . think either you or nizzy could walk me through the process?

also, the whole Intel Turbo Memory thing refers to a particular new type of memory, right? since i'm using generic g.skill memory on this Vostro, switching to ATA won't affect my performance at all, correct?

ETA: actually now i'm having doubts about switching to ATA.

the last two posts in this thread indicate that AHCI does yield higher performance:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=177456&page=2&highlight=ata+ahci+xp

also, nizzy reinstalled windows after switching to ATA, which might be a crucial step to the fix. i've spent way too long updating, reinstalling, tweaking everything and getting my stuff migrated onto this system. i can't imagine having to start all over with a format and reinstall of XP.

 

well this is interesting. just turned off PowerMizer in the NVIDIA Control Panel, and the skipping is gone. granted, it's only been about five minutes, but an interesting development nonetheless. my GPU temperature's gone up about 6 degrees because of it though.

will keep you guys posted on whether or not the skips come back.

 

I haven't noticed any laggy audio on my 1520, im running xp home.

 

I don't have any stuttering or lagging when playing audio.

 

okay, PowerMizer looks to be the primary cause of the problem. the skips came back right away when i turned it back on.

but now i'm in a bit of a quandary: if i turn PowerMizer off, my audio is fixed, but my GPU runs considerably hotter AND my battery life gets drained much much faster, which i am not very comfortable with, ugh. i'm also using NHC, which has powermizer option for my GPU, but it doesn't seem to do anything -- enabling doesn't affect the audio, nor does it lower my GPU temp at all.

do you guys have PowerMizer enabled on your systems?

 

Nope.

(10 char)

 

Sorry to hear your sound issue came back on you interior_decor. To answer your first question, the only 3D setting I changed was from the image settings screen. I selected "Use my preference empahsizing: Balanced". So it appears you have tried using the same setting I used but unfortunately it's not working for you. I have not changed any other 3D or other graphic setting.

As to your second question regarding PowerMizer...I'm actually not sure. By the way you worded your sentence it sounds like that is some kind of default option somewhere in the control panel, however I can't seem to find PowerMizer anywhere in my control panel unless I'm just plain blind. So if I had to guess, if PowerMizer does indeed come with driver 156.10, then I guess it's at whatever the default gets set to when the driver is initially installed.

I sure hope something works out for you. So far I think I'm in the clear. Typically within one or two hours of gaming on any given day the stuttering would happen in the game or music I was playing. However I have been able to be on for longer than that amount of time now for any given day and be stutter free.

It's sad that there is so much of an issue with this sound stuff and even more confusion as to what really is the cause. For me and my machine I still think it's a driver related thing with the sound card, but sounds like you are thinking different. Maybe just some wierd resource conflict between hardware? I had thought about doing the add in soundblaster card too but I didn't want to have to pay for what should natively work on my laptop, plus, unless I'm thinking wrong, the add in card would mean that you'd always have to hook it up to external speakers right? It doesn't route the sound through the add in card and still to your normal laptop speakers does it?

Anyway, please keep us all posted on how things are coming with your issue.

- kruege311