Inspiron 13 ticking noise

Hi all,

I recently ordered and received an Inspiron 13/1318 (which I probably wouldn't recommend to anyone considering one*). Last Saturday, I spent about five hours installing Windows XP and tracking down all the drivers for it. The biggest problems were experienced when I was trying to load the audio drivers. For the most part, drivers recommended for the XPS m1330 worked, but the SigmaTel audio drivers that seemed to work for everybody else (R171789 from Dell) just wouldn't load for me (the installer repeatedly said something to the effect of, "The device cannot be found"). In the end, an older version of the SigmaTel C-Major Audio Driver (R153908; I can't remember the version number) did the trick.

Anyway, my problem. The built-in speakers are now producing a very quiet ticking noise once a second and, if the system is under load, it makes three other, quieter ticks on the three quarter-seconds. It's really quite irritating in a mostly-silent environment. The noise happens whether or not I have external speakers plugged into the headphone jack. I did try installing R171789 after R153908 worked; the installation still failed. Trying to force-install the driver (Device Manager -> SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC -> right-click, Update Driver -> etc. and then hit Have Disk) results in the installation failing with, "A device attached to the system is not functioning". Does anyone have any ideas? Please, don't suggest the hard drive - seeing as the hard drive is in the lower-left corner of the laptop, and the sound is coming from both speakers (upper left and right corners, above the keyboard), I think it's safe to say that's not it.

Thanks,

--- Samuel C

* Out of the box, it had a dead pixel which is like a sliver in my eye (I do realize that this is a one-in-a-hundred chance, but still, this is 2008, and Dell should have a better dead pixel policy than "suck it up"), and I'm getting slightly under five hours' battery life with the 9-cell battery which is, by my reconning, about half an hour to forty-five minutes less than I should be seeing.

 

You wouldn't reccomend it because of a single dead pixel (which... have you tried UDpixel or massaging to fix?) and because it acts erratically when you install XP with unofficial drivers. Nice reasoning.

 

I have tried massaging, and while I haven't tried UDpixel, I did leave JScreenFix running for almost two hours. Also, I didn't list the sound issues as part of my reasoning I did, however, forget to add that while it feels very solid overall, parts of it seem kinda cheap and the right side of the keyboard makes a rattling noise. Anyhoo, maybe I should edit my post and cut my complaints out because they doesn't really relate to my question. Don't mind me, I'm just feeling a little ticked off at Dell because it took them three weeks to send me the thing.

--- Samuel C

 

Yeah, I'm not too impressed with Dell as of late either, so I don't really blame you.

Have you tried uninstalling all drivers pertaining to audio, then installing the device with the "have disk" method and pointed it to the folder where R171789 extracted initially? Sometimes those installers won't work but the .inf is still good for your hardware.

Short of that, problems like this tend to be kind of ambiguous at times. Since it's a new load anyway, you might want to consider just blowing it all away and starting over.
Good luck.