Realtek HD audio crackling

it's a graphics card related issue..... it's been around for a while without a proper fix,so it's lame. maybe Nvidia only cares about to-be customers, well YOU just lost one!! or is it just one?

 

I have it too with the same OS. I was going to try to dual boot to see if it happens in linux to determine if it's hardware or software. The weird thing is though, I uninstalled the realtek driver and it's still doing it, more during heavier cpu use.

Although I would describe the problems differently. Mine isn't staticy at all. It's more like a skip for a fraction of a second every once in a while. Like it plays the same sound repeating for that small time like a machinegun. Well those are sounds outside of music playback. During music though, it does crackle and pop more, but no static. It seldom sticks on the same sound.

 

This POST helped me. There is no any freaking noise for last 6 hours anymore.
It's like a blessing now.

 

exactly, it's like a machinegun for a fraction of a second. especially under heavy riffs XD. and it also happens in games, making me wonder why realtek hasnt fixed it yet even after numerous driver updates.

 

Thanks. I'll try this out.

 

My fault. It's helping when NB is >24hours online.
I sent it to sleep. Next day when I started the NB freaking noises are back.
"Here they come again...Galaxy defenders" (c)
Damn it!!!

 

wait, so did you try the 2.33 driver with checkign that immediate sound box or whatever?

 

Yes, 2.33 and 2.34. But nothing helps after the sleep mode.
I even tried to install it at all. Win7 will install a default one.
But the crap sound will be the same.

Looks like some bad bag. Need to buy an external audio card to forget about that nightmare.

 

Direct x11 might be a cause. If there's a way to remove it and put x10 back in, it might solve a problem. Also that forum had people using older vista drivers. I would try but I don't have a lot of time right now.

 

I wasn't able to find an old version. On realtek site only the last one showing up (2.34).

Yes, probably DX11 is a pin in the .
nvidia+dx11 = forget about Gothic games.
realtek+dx11 = a nice sound? What for?

Btw, I've installed DX9.0c because of GTA4. With clear DX11 game is downloading the openworld like 4-5 minutes, with installed DX9.0c it takes 30 seconds. But now I'm unable to watch fullscreen stream video. Only on small windows, otherwise all evil sounds are pushing as crazy, video like 2-3 fps and the browser eating >60% of CPU.
Tried with Chrome, FireFox and IE. All time the same.

 

Even with the Realtek driver uninstalled, I get audio crackling in Win 7 RC.

 

I do too. Is that with your M860 though?

I also remember that downloading Open AL might fix it but I dunno. Might be worth a try

 

Just to give you a helping hand.

I don't use Realtek, I have an X-fi notebook card and guess what... I still have the problem.

It's not related to the Realtek card, it's a general bug of Win7 I guess.
What I've noticed is that disabling the wireless card solved the issue or leaving the computer idle also does not generate any latency spikes or crackling.

Please know that this problem only appeared in the past 2 weeks or so for me.

I was actually getting ready to format my system but now I will a little to see how this problem can get solved.

 

I was thinking the same thing. It sorta came out of nowhere. Maybe an update caused it to start.

I'm glad you mentioned the latency spikes, as I have those too.

 

Well, at least now I know I am not the only and I don't have to RMA my system .

I might do a fresh install during the weekend see if the problem is still there are a fresh install.

 

Blacky
What if to move Wifi card to the TurboMem slot. I know that it will be switched on all time but will the crackling persist still?

 

I've checked one more time.
Disabling the wireless card just makes the periodic dpc spikes disappear. But these are not the problem, they are actually well below acceptable levels.

The big latency spikes and the crackling sound associated with them still appears whatever I do. I think this is indeed a problem with directx 11. I get the same problem on Realtek and on X-fi.

 

Does this only happen in win 7 x64? I have a friend that doesn't have any problems with his but I dont' know if he's usign x64 or not. This isn't happening with vista or linux right?

 

Well, I also have the same problem, and actually it is when the Nvidia card changes its frequencies, it seems to freeze the whole computer and since the sound card buffers are very small, they loop during the freeze... you can confirm that by watching a GPU-Z graph, and when you hear the glitch, watch at GPU-Z graphs

 

Enendil
I love you, man!

I've checked with RivaTuner and GPU's Hz jumping like crazy bunny.
All my afforts to fix clocks failed.

So. I've uninstall all nVidia drivers (video,physx, stereo and etc) and riva tuner. Cleaned my system from rest of files.

Installed last official Video drives for mobile from nVidia and last Riva Tuner 2.24c.
Started, locked clocks but nothing. So I've locked both (2d and 3d) to a minimum.
But the system is stupid anyway.
According the monitoring it's locked clocks on 594/1458/800. Now clocks are not jumping and I'm browsing and watching streaming video and running music sametime w/o crackling.

Dear God, please, send nVidia's driver writers boys and Microsoft's Win7 outsourced team directly to the hell. Thanks in advance.

 

So can this only be fixed by new drivers? How do you lock the clock speeds? Does it adversely affect anything?

 

Nope, nothing with "new" drivers (actually they are much older). It was done just to make possible for Riva Tuner to work with clocks. Riva not working with last (beta) drivers.

There is no matter how you will lock in Riva. System will lock them on it's own. I've tried EVGA clocker but result is same.
Looks like Win7+nVidia=no luck with real overclock.

Yes, it's kinda overheating the VC, because system setup clockers higher then standard. I've got an +10C.

 

Hmm, so this is why I didn't have the problem when I completely disabled the display adapter via Device Manager.

h0w1er, would you mind explaining exactly how to use Rivatuner to lock the clocks?

 

It's just no matter. Set any clock. In win7 it's not working. All tools just will clock it automatically on same Hz, no matter what you will set up there.

So, anyway. I've uninistall ALL tools which was doing anything with VC (Riva,nHancer,EVGA,nTune) except drivers and downloaded foo_out_ks.dll for my Foobar (it's avoiding DX library and will use a different program output for a sound).

I have normal temperature for VC back again, no crackling at all, clean sound for music and pure video stream without latency now.
Dunno how long it will be ok, but I'm pleased right now.
It's like in first month - clear sound and no problems at all

 

so rivatuner just overclocks the video cards and keeps them at that frequency? Can you adjust it to automatically change frequencies because I don't think I'd want my video cards going at 105% while just surfing the web and listening to music.

 

i cant even OC my card at all, with any drivers for some reason, but i do notice an Audio crackling on my new np88662 -- less than a week old. So now I have a faulty wireless card and audio crackling, might have to do an RMA.

 

nauticus, if you read this whole thread, it shows that hardware isn't at fault. It's the changes with the GPU frequency that causes a skip or lag in the realtek thing. I've only heard this happening in windows 7 x64

 

exactly the same issue here, using sager 8662

I've used external soundcards in the past and they kinda ruin the whole mobility, and the creative x-fi are horrible (at least for me) on windows 7, don't get me started on m-audio and their downright pathetic customer support.

So there's no solution?

Like I said i'm never in my life buying any m-audio product ever again (horrible experience)

What about a creative express soundcard, will it support EAX and 5.1?

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook Hmm looks interesting

 

Is anyone tested nvidia beta drivers yet?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_195.39_beta.html
Hope those solve the problem

 

Of course it didn't. The bug is still there.

 

I finally figured out what was causing the issue for me on my new build (AMD Phenom X64 955, GigaByte MA790GPT-UD3H, Windows 7). This mobo has the Realtek IC.

I installed the "Easy Tune" Gigabyte utility. It starts automatically. It was causing the cracking/popping issues that I was experiencing. As soon as I killed that process (closed the program) - I had pop and crack free audio playback.

This is with the latest Realtek drivers (2.3.5).

Hope that helps.

 

I use the Creative X-Fi and get same issue. I doubt that in our case it has anything to do with Gigabyte utility.

 

so the big latency spikes are caused when the gpu is down/up clocking?

i get the same crackling effect in vista aswell, and in XP the display driver crashes all the time

oh did i mention the occasional freezes with or without sound loop aswell?

 

Yeap, you can check it by any vc tool which showing clocking (rivatuner,evga-whatever). When the system changing the clocking we have latency spikes.

Looks like freaking w7 working with so called "user care" about resource consuption, trying to do the best. But somehow nVidia real-pro-engineers and w7 "programmers" f%#^d up with cooperation.

BTW, there are no tools which is working in W7 (x64 for sure) that can freeze clocking how do you want. It will be all time jumping down/up or locked on overclocked rates.

 

That is not true actually, the latest drivers from nvidia that I've posted here have the option to disable power mizer and thus keep the clocks fixed all the time.

 

i monitored it for a while just now and noticed the big spikes happening when the laptop was dropping from raising from the 200/100 frequencies. (2d?)

i had the same issue with vista many moons ago, and when i installed xp the video driver kept crashing.. so its not so much OS related for me at least

out of the many drivers ive tried i did turn powermizer off, but i didnt check the clocks to see if it was actually off. will do so this time with the new drivers and report back.

 

It's work only with 3d application. lol. The problem that even in 3D system still see 2D. Fallout 3 as example. When you are bartering it's total 2d and you can hear that fan is slow down, when you exiting from the barter the sound crackling like a crazy.

 

well im getting big spikes with no downclocking

even tho they did sometimes happen during down/up clocking aswell

back to square one

blacky how did you say you solved the wifi spikes?

 

My Wifi spikes are just at the yellow line so they are not a problem for me and never have been. I only have problems with the big spikes which are all Steve Ballmer's fault.

 

Done. Switched this freaking Powermizer totally off in reg.

So far so good. 5 minutes after reboot - clear sound. Will monitor that thing.

 

I have this issue as well. After monitoring it with several tool, gpu-z, cpu-z, hdtune, latency tools. I have noticed that the 'crackling' sound comes and goes when the Hard-drive spins faster and then slows down; in other words disk read/writes not gpu clock changes.

Let me know if this happens for anyone else, as this is becoming pretty annoying when using headsets.

 

I bought a creative soundblaster xfi pci express, superior audio compared to realteak one and best of all no sound glitches

 

Ok, two days of testing, different video drivers = no crackling.

Was fixed by disabling PowerMizer at all.

Start => Run => Regedit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\"Find a Correct one here"\0001

PerfLevelSrc from 3333 update to 2222
PowerMizerEnable from 1 update to 0

Reboot the machine and enjoy normal sound.

Need to be done after each video driver reinstallation.


Be careful with temps. No power saving for VC now, so it will work on default clocks which is hotter then as "usual".

 

Great, thanx.

 

I've been having the same crackling sound problem since day 1 with my NP8662 using win7 x64.

I'll try h0w1er's solution and report back.

 

I searched my registry and could not find these entries. I'm using the latest version of Nvidia's mobile drivers (186.81)

 

O-M-G!

Just make search of "PerfLevelSrc" key in the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video".

P.s. not sure about mobile one, they are outdated. I've used and tested with 190 series.

 

dude i know how to search in regedit... these keys are just NOT in my registry

about the drivers, you're using the standard 200 series drivers from nvidia?

does most people here use the standard driver or do people use the mobile ones?

EDIT: well i tried installing 191.07 and they wont install anyways so the latest drivers for win7 are 186.81

 

Do you ever heard about the laptopvideo2go site?

 

Yeah, I just searched for the entries in 186.81, with no luck, but I found then after installing 195.39.