Sound Skips In Vista

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 with all drivers supplied by dell. My sound skips maybe every 10-30 seconds. It is very annoying. I have searched and searched, some say its the sata drivers, others say its the wireless card, or even some say to disable all enhancements in the sound settings. None of these work for me. They skip on both my external creative live 24bit usb sound card and the internal sound of the laptop. Its not just windows media player skipping, it is all sounds in windows, including web pages and instant messaging. movies seem to play fine though...

someone please help!

 

Could be the drivers like you said. I recently made the switch to x64 and the first thing I noticed "missing" from the x64 install were the skipping audio and choppy aero eye-candy. Aero effects are now 100% smooth, and audio never skips no matter how hard I push the system.

I say it could be drivers as I know that is the one thing that's absolutely different between my two Vista installs, and I didn't change any hardware when I installed x64. I also followed all the tips on this board to get rid of it without any luck.

Not really a solution, I know. Just wanted to acknowledge that it's these little things that can eat away at your computing experience, especially if you're an enthusiast. There's hope in Vista x64, or maybe SP1 for the 32-bit users.

Regards,
Paolo

 

thanks for trying to help...i know this topic is frustrating many. I did get to try sp1 on this machine and it didn't have any affect. I'm thinking about calling dell about the issue and see what they say :rollseyes:

 

i had a similar problem with mine, but it was more glitches rather than skips. Go to control>Hardware and Sound.

Then highlight Speakers/Headphones then click Properties, then click the Enhancements tab and tick Disable all Enhancements.

Then try, hope it works!

 

Thanks for the suggestion. i have tried this already. it doesn't fix it.

 

I have the same problem. Nothing fixes it. Nizzy, if you find a solution please let me know.
Thanks

 

I've fixed some sound issues on both my own PC as well as those of friends. I've found that for newer PCs, especially if you have a bunch of junk pre-installed, just do a clean install of the OS. One of the two I fixed was a Dell actually.

It's worth a shot if the issue is getting on your nerves. I know you would have to back up a bit for it, but if it fixes it, maybe it's worth trying it out.

 

well i had the issue, so i did reinstall and it was still there...

 

from here

http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/sh...78&siteid=1&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=4

have you tried this?

 

A complete clean install with the Dell Vista disk?

I assume there are drivers they provide you to add on then too?

 

well i found a fix for this problem! well not really a good fix, but a fix. i downloaded a random youtube video and leave it playing on repeat in vlc player with the volume on mute while i listen to my music in windows media player...

that wireless card suggestion didnt work for me by the way. thanks tho. anyone else have a fix for this?

 

I can't give much more advice without actually sitting down with it, but I personally think it's a driver issue. I've seen several of these in Vista systems.

If you are going to continue to troubleshoot, that is where I would focus.

 

I was thinking about making a similar thread a few days ago... I have the same problem. I have the sigmatel major HD card I guess. Vista ultimate, E1505 etc. I'm clueless to why it does this but I've noticed its mostly when I'm running a bunch of applications. I'm surprised to see others with the same problem... hopefully there will be a solution soon because its really bad...

 

bump bump

im thinking about starting a reward for a solution to this problem...

 

What can I tell you, my sound used to skip before and I all I did was keep updatng to the the newest realte drivers and now no more in skipping. On the stock drivers that came with my c90, skipping was terrible in some games but its gone now.

 

Try this fix before attempting the fixes below, if it dosent work attempt it after trying the fixes below.

Control panel > Sound > Speakers/Headphones > Enhancements:

Select "Disable all Enhancements"



Download and install CCleaner (should have this already, very good lightweight proggy)

CCleaner

Download and install Driver Cleaner (must for installing drivers correctly).

Driver Sweeper


Uninstall audio device, go into device manger and uninstall and select to uninstall l the drivers for it as well when asked, or go into control panel and uninstall realtek hd audio driver.

Reboot into Safe Mode

If any prompts come up asking to install drivers, choose cancel or just select it not to look into windows update for drivers and install automatically (this will cause it to not install any drivers automatically)

Run Driver Sweeper, on the left pane double click on Realtek-Sound and Creative-Sound, this will cause them to appear in the right pane.

Click on the brush icon in driver sweeper and will erase any registry or not used files by the audio driver.

Run CCcleaner, click on analyze and then remove. Now click on the registry button in CCleaner and do the same, analyze then remove.

Reboot into Vista

Again do the same for any prompts for installing drivers if they happen

Go to this site and select which mirror to use for the download of the latest Realtek HD audio driver which is 1.80. Realtek's site's mirrors are piss slow . For those with other audio card do the same but using your cards latest drivers

Realtek 1.80

Install these

Download the inf update utility (updates chipset drivers)


Inf Update - Select your OS version, click on GO, click on
INF Update Utility - Zip Format, download it

Extract files, run setup.exe


Reboot

Hopefully it will be working again



might want to read this thread, it has some solutions.....might be due to the sata drives drivers not being properly functional with vista....
http://thevistaforums.com/lofiversion/index.php/t1966.html



Also, could you try this

Disable your wireless card and see if problem persists, enable it again and report back on thread .... could be due to wireless card drivers

(did you install drivers for wireless card or did you not have to since vista automatically detected the hardware)

 

I had a similar although not quite as severe problem with my laptop when I first got it. Audio would occasionally skip and my stereo output would not work properly. After a few Windows Updates the problem was fixed so I'd try and see if there are any updates you have missed out on or haven't gotten a hold of yet.

 

i get the odd occasional skip when i defrag. You havent got defrag set to automatic scheduling have you?

 

Nizzy,

If you can get audio to play correctly in some cases (youtube, etc), but not others, then the hardware is almost sure to be working correctly and the problem limited to software (driver, Vista, something else).

Considering what you have described the first thing I would recommend would be to unisntall the audio drivers, then reinstall the latest driver from the Dell support website - http://ftp.dell.com/audio/R167846.exe (v.6.10.0.5609, A02 from 9/27/2007). While this is probably the same version you already have installed, uninstalling the old one first might make the difference.

Another possibility would be to reinstall the Dell Notebook System Software and Intel Chipset Software (together they are basically the motherboard driver), then reinstall the audio driver. Both are available on the Dell Support Website.

If you don't mind blowing away the OS and all data on the hard drive, you could also try using the PC Restore feature to reload the Dell factory image. It is my understanding that the image on the hard drive is not exactly the same as the one used by the factory. I have seen similar problems fixed this way, although admittedly not often since the images are built with the same information.

PC Restore can be run from the F8 Windows boot menu (just after the Dell splash screen, but before Windows begins to start up). In addition to the normal options (Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, etc) there will be a "Repair Your Computer" option.

If none of this helps, or if you have other questions about the system, I will be happy to help any way I can.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

 

Thanks for your reply.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers. It happens with my external sound card too. which i have uninstalled and reinstalled too.

I have reinstalled the dell system software too.

I wiped the drive clean and reinstalled vista and the problem was still there.

 

If you have done a clean reinstall of Vista, then the only reasonable explanation at this point is some kind of hardware failure. The fact you get the problem with an external audio card as well as the integrated is what is making me wonder just where the problem is (normally I wouldn't even hesitate to say it was the audio portion of the motherboard).

Have you run the Dell diagnostics on the system already? If not, you can do that by booting from the Dell Resource (aka Drivers & Utilities) CD, or from the F12 (one-time boot) menu at the Dell splash screen just after powering on the computer. Running a full diagnostic check is probably the best way to see if there are any obvious hardware faults. If there are no errors then comes the fun of taking the best guess which, thankfully, on a notebook isn't difficult -- the motherboard (since 90% of all components in the computer are integrated on it).

[edit so i don't double post]

I was talking with a coworker about the problem and had a couple of other questions. When you are using the external sound card, did you disable the onboard sound for your testing? Also, did you use external speakers connected to that sound card?

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

 

I have the same problem with my Vostro but with Itunes and Windows XP.

Straight out of the box I installed Itunes and the sound skips. I installed the latest version of the problem persists. I have tried all the fixes that were recommended for Itunes but none of them worked.

I am re-installing the audio drivers now.

 

Well, I had the same problem with my Vostro, and I did call Dell, and I did do a diagnostic, and I did re-install drivers, and I did have a Dell technician replace my motherboard, and the problem still occurs. However, it doesn't happen so frequently now. Maybe this is as a result of replacing the motherboard, or maybe just updates I have downloaded. It will still sometimes stutter very badly if I'm playing music and the screen turns off after 5 minutes, or if I turn the wifi off.

 

So I tried to re-install the IntelliSonic Software/Drivers and ran into issues. Somehow the un-installer didn't finish cleanly and now I can re-install the driver. Sound still skips.