Audio crackling on Windows 10

[AtomicSnipe]

Hi,
I got a weird issue, where all sound produced from my laptop, either through the speakers or through headphones using the headphones jack, has crackling and popping.
It gets very annoying and I don't know how to solve it. I tried updating the BIOS, changing audio format, updating general and audio drivers, nothing worked.
One strange thing is, if I connect my gaming headphones which are wireless and work through a USB adapter, they work perfectly without any cracking.
Can anyone give a solution as to what is causing the problem and how I can stop it?
My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 7567.
Thank you very much.

 

[photonboy]

1) first of all your USB headphones probably have their own DAC so they would bypass the onboard audio and use their own.

2) It MAY be a hardware issue.

3) Since you've changed a bunch of stuff including drivers at this point to test if it's hardware or not I can only think of two options:
a) find a spare SSD/HDD then swap it and install W10 long enough to see if it works fine (at which point it's a software issue you can troubleshoot further), or
b) create a LINUX USB stick (Mint or Ubuntu perhaps), boot to that (may need to go into BIOS which might involve PWR+F2 or similar) then see if audio works

 

[Grobe]

It wokr with USB because it act as a complete different and independent sound device. At least you know that there is not the OS that mix in this noise.

Is the noise constant, or is there circumstances that makes it goes worse - like temperature, CPU load, etc?

Was there any incident prior to the issue, such as program update, fell down to floor, etc?

What OS is running on your computer?

 

[photonboy]

One of the potential SOFTWARE crackling noises has to do with latency. The CPU can be utilized for too long by other drivers.
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

I remember I had this issue on my dad's PC in the past with W8.1 and I think the INTEL NETWORK driver was the problem.. anyway I ran Latencymon and it came up with suggestions... I then DISABLED them (did not uninstall) in Device Manager to see if that affected the audio.

I remember it fixed the audio on my dad's PC but I could never get network or whatever it was working WITHOUT audio crackle but when I upgraded to Windows 10 it somehow fixed the problem.

 

[AtomicSnipe]

1) first of all your USB headphones probably have their own DAC so they would bypass the onboard audio and use their own.

2) It MAY be a hardware issue.

3) Since you've changed a bunch of stuff including drivers at this point to test if it's hardware or not I can only think of two options:
a) find a spare SSD/HDD then swap it and install W10 long enough to see if it works fine (at which point it's a software issue you can troubleshoot further), or
b) create a LINUX USB stick (Mint or Ubuntu perhaps), boot to that (may need to go into BIOS which might involve PWR+F2 or similar) then see if audio works

Thanks

Tried Ubuntu on USB, and sound works beautifully. So I assume the problem must not be hardware related thankfully right?
I also remembered one thing, don't know if it help in this case or not, but before this crackling issue started, every time I inserted the wire into the headphone jack, I used to get a message asking me what kind of headphones/speakers you had entered and gives me a list of customizing the sounds. It doesn't do that know that the issue started, which makes listening to audio sound weird and echoey in a way, that is ignoring the crackling noises.
Does that mean anything?

 

[AtomicSnipe]

It wokr with USB because it act as a complete different and independent sound device. At least you know that there is not the OS that mix in this noise.

Is the noise constant, or is there circumstances that makes it goes worse - like temperature, CPU load, etc?

Was there any incident prior to the issue, such as program update, fell down to floor, etc?

What OS is running on your computer?

Thanks

There is no related circumstance, and I can't remember any prior incident.
I am running Windows 10.

 

[photonboy]

1) The USB solution uses its own DAC and software stack so it's probably just BYPASSING the issue you have now.

2) It's obviously software since Ubuntu works with the onboard audio.

3) It sounds to me like it's a LATENCY issue which LatencyMON should detect. The CPU is probably being held up too long with another driver thus there's too much delay processing the audio stack thus the sound breakup.

*Did LatencyMON reveal potential suspects and if so did you use DEVICE MANAGER to temporarily disable them to see if the issue went away?

 

[AtomicSnipe]

1) The USB solution uses its own DAC and software stack so it's probably just BYPASSING the issue you have now.

2) It's obviously software since Ubuntu works with the onboard audio.

3) It sounds to me like it's a LATENCY issue which LatencyMON should detect. The CPU is probably being held up too long with another driver thus there's too much delay processing the audio stack thus the sound breakup.

*Did LatencyMON reveal potential suspects and if so did you use DEVICE MANAGER to temporarily disable them to see if the issue went away?

Thanks

LatencyMON did detect something but I don't really know how to solve it.

This is the message:
"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."
It says to disable CPU throttling which I don't exactly know how to do. I've updated my BIOS though.

 

[AtomicSnipe]

1) The USB solution uses its own DAC and software stack so it's probably just BYPASSING the issue you have now.

2) It's obviously software since Ubuntu works with the onboard audio.

3) It sounds to me like it's a LATENCY issue which LatencyMON should detect. The CPU is probably being held up too long with another driver thus there's too much delay processing the audio stack thus the sound breakup.

*Did LatencyMON reveal potential suspects and if so did you use DEVICE MANAGER to temporarily disable them to see if the issue went away?

Thanks

LatencyMON did detect something but I don't really know how to solve it.

This is the message:
"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."
It says to disable CPU throttling which I don't exactly know how to do. I've updated my BIOS though.

 

[photonboy]

A few options:
1) try going into POWER OPTIONS and change MIN to 100% (it's under Advanced Power Options)

if that fails

2) try disabling (again not deleting) things in Device Manager (like NETWORK driver)

if that fails,

3) experiment with MSCONFIG (Start Menu), go to "Services" , check "Hide all Microsoft Services" then check "Disable All"

You'd have to experiment by turning say HALF on at a time (if error goes away) and experiment

*It sounds to me like a bad driver, virus or bad application but it's hard to say. LatencyMon is just guessing and I highly doubt it's a CPU throttling issue but probably some interrupt.

If really stumped you can also try to:

4) restore a RESTORE POINT prior to the problem starting (create a Restore Point first so you can go back to it if it doesn't help)...you may not have a Restore Point.

5) run Malwarebytes and other antivirus cleaning software

6) worst-case you need to reinstall Windows

*When problem is fixed make sure to create a BACKUP IMAGE. I use Acronis True Image (paid) to make automated, weekly backup images (using Incremental, 2nd highest compression and auto-delete of older backups)

 

[AtomicSnipe]

A few options:
1) try going into POWER OPTIONS and change MIN to 100% (it's under Advanced Power Options)

if that fails

2) try disabling (again not deleting) things in Device Manager (like NETWORK driver)

if that fails,

3) experiment with MSCONFIG (Start Menu), go to "Services" , check "Hide all Microsoft Services" then check "Disable All"

You'd have to experiment by turning say HALF on at a time (if error goes away) and experiment

*It sounds to me like a bad driver, virus or bad application but it's hard to say. LatencyMon is just guessing and I highly doubt it's a CPU throttling issue but probably some interrupt.

If really stumped you can also try to:

4) restore a RESTORE POINT prior to the problem starting (create a Restore Point first so you can go back to it if it doesn't help)...you may not have a Restore Point.

5) run Malwarebytes and other antivirus cleaning software

6) worst-case you need to reinstall Windows

*When problem is fixed make sure to create a BACKUP IMAGE. I use Acronis True Image (paid) to make automated, weekly backup images (using Incremental, 2nd highest compression and auto-delete of older backups)

Thanks, sorry for the very late response.

So I disabled this network driver "Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
" and there is no more any crackling, well for the most part. When actually listening to something, no crackling can be heard, but when I pause/unpause, or move the video forward (using the arrow keys), there is crackling. That's not a big issue though.

 

[photonboy]

Enable what you disabled, then try UNINSTALLING (from "Apps and Features"):

1) Smartbyte (if there disable what exists... may be two programs), and if that doesn't help,

2) the Realtek audio drivers which should revert to basic Windows audio drivers to see what happens.

You can get the latest Realtek audio drivers to reinstall starting here (can't link directly):
http://www.realtek.com/

Then "HD Audio Codec Driver"... and the latest EXE is v2.82 for 64-bit and should be this size "264424k"