Audio skipping...static...WHY!?

Hey, not sure if this is the right sub forum, but its happening on my SR, so here goes:

Recently I've found 2 things:

1- my hard drive makes a very soft clicking noise, only noticeable when the room is perfectly quiet. but it's also noticeable because my system locks when it clicks for this split second, enough that if im scrolling it lags. not a biggie but...

2- ive found my audio (mp3s) to be skipping (odd click or blip here or there, like the track was ripped badly), and to my ear's horror, PURE STATIC for a few seconds will pop up irregardless of the volume settings (ie. i will try to scroll down volume in itunes but it has no effect on the banshee like sound thats trying to destroy my ear drums). This happens in WMP and iTunes, so its not a software problem....


so whats going on? hdd dying? sound card dying? windows???

 

That sounds like DPC Latency. Are all your drivers completely up to date?

 

what chipset for audio is in the SR?

 

actually it uses the RTAHD

you can try these http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...iteID=3&DownTypeID=3&DownID=10&PFid=24&Conn=3

these are the most uptodate audio drivers for the RTHDA direct from Realtek. they fixed my static or crackle on the S Series.

or you can try the VPCZ series since they have the most current Sony RTHDA drivers

 

Yep, probably the ALC262. Sony has a thing for that chipset.

 

okay, so I ran CHKDSK and that seems to have solved all the audio skipping issues....go figure

hdd is still clicking...and kinda annoying me but at least once i put music on i dont notice it. though, if im on youtube it will cause the video to freeze for about a second or less while the audio keeps going...hmm...

 

That sure isn't a common fix for that problem. I'd look a little deeper into that. Ok, soo, you originally had audio issues that were solved with a CHKDISK run, and your HDD is clicking... That just doesn't sound healthy to me, like, at all. That could mean you are starting to get bad sectors on your HDD or just a general HDD failure is imminent. If you have an external storage drive, I'd make sure to keep consistent back-ups of that drive, and possibly look into replacing it.

 

Check your Windows event log and look for any warnings saying "Disk"...

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Administrative Tools\Event Viewer

Windows Logs\System

 

yeah, i already backed up all of my files prior to this thread just in case

the clicking, I THINK, seems to be just a problem a slew of seagate momentuses have. I ran quietHDD and adjusted the power management and so far no clicking....so far....

 

Somehow I just knew that was the drive in question. I've had two of those fail, in exactly the same way. Dell replaced my first faulty one with the same model drive then the second failed, then they sent me a Fujitsu drive and it's been smooth running since.

 

I recommend you get rid of HDDs and buy some nice SSD
Yu won't heaar any those horrible clicking sounds I hate them as well

 

ughhhh, first i get recommended it on here, now that i have it i find out it has issues on here

oh well...never had a laptop drive fail on me yet...

(but yeah, so far so good since adjusting the settings)

 

when the 256gb versions go down to like $1/gb then sure, but I aint paying more for the drive than the laptop!

 

The seagate drives still put up very good performance numbers, even though they now have a rep. I'm sorry if you believe it was a bad recommendation, but at the time I'm sure they didn't know they'd have these kinds of problems.

I completely agree.

 

u can buy cheap on ebay 128gb

 

It's cool, other than this it's been a great drive and a major upgrade over the slow and possibly dying one I got stock in the SR. It's quieter, faster, etc.

How cheap is "cheap"? I just scanned some listings and the average price was like $300-500

That's a huge premium to pay while downgrading from 500gb to 128gb

 

hmm, audio issues with skipping cropping up again

gonna try a driver refresh

 

mine still does it occaionally . usually when I am multi tasking.

 

hmm, its not like my ram or cpu usage is peaking....

 

reinstalled drivers, rebooted

things were going fine for about 40 minutes, then HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS while I had my headphones on full blast....ouch.....crackling here and there now...

would a format and fresh install of windows be recommended? rolling back to a restore point?

edit: got hit again with the hiss....its been just pure static for about a minute now....pausing itunes and unpausing didnt help, sitll just pure static. volume on itunes does nothing, but master volume controls the vol levels of the static. closing itunes and reopening it ended the madness, but undoubtely the audio will screw up again...

 

try and record the sound so we can understand what youre hearing

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH54cp2ggFk

this^

 

wow something other than drivers is wrong. you should take it to a sony store if you have one close by. or where you bought it.

have you tried a clean install and only nstalled the sony drivers? nothing else including no software apps

 

i did the system restore to like a week or so ago but didnt change anything

so far i dont think ive noticed the static on speakers, just headphones; the latter of which are on USB audio out so maybe its the adapter thats failing?

wouldnt account for the audio skipping though, which happens regardless....but possible the 2 arent related in one sick coincidence?


i do a clean install in a few days once essays are in and have the time and post my results if any

 

not sure what you mean by usb headphones. they dont get plugged into the headphone jack?

what do you have running on startup? msconfig? have you ran malwarebytes?

 

nah, the audio jack broke so I had to get a usb adapter

on start up its pretty clean....itunes, utorrent, and then just MS and driver stuff

 

and it only happens with the usb adapter

 

ive noticed audio skipping through both the headphones and onboard speakers

the static.....i think has only been through the headphones/usb. for sure the 2 are connected. it was pure static and i unplugged it and then music came out the on board speakers.

 

maybe when you broke the headset jack you shorted something