Crackling, Skipping Sound

[tonybradley]

One of the computers in my house is suddenly having issues playing music.

It crackles and 'skips' or pauses randomly andjust generally ruins the whole experience. It didn't use to do that- just started in the past couple of months.

I thought it was just when we played music from a separate computer over the wireless connection, but it happens even with CD's or locally stored MP3's.

I thought it was the speakers, but it happened with other speakers.

I thought it was a short in the onboard sound, but it happened with a new sound card.

I thought it was memory, but I doubled the RAM from 512Mb to 1Gb and it happened with the increased RAM. Plus I have other computers with less RAM and 512Mb is plenty to play music as far as I can tell.

I thought it was interference or issues with the new wireless-N adapter, but I tried 4 other wireless network adapters and the problem still exists.

I have looked at task manager and I do not see any specific process using too much CPU or memory. Looking at the performance tab it does not appear that the memory or CPU are maxed out, or even overly taxed.

Any sound / hardware experts have any other clues for me?

[Und3ertak3r]

Ok Tony,

What happens with video content? saimilar problems with the sound and the picture ok, or even problems there?

I take it that you have tested useing a couple of different media players.. not just the one and only (which ones were you useing)

A probable area of cause is HDD access speed.. yeh yeh I know you used network.. and youve boosted the RAM.. but some other part of the os (explorer.exe) may be trying to fiddle with the hdd while your playing the music.. this will certainly cause audio glitches ..

Also.. anti virus.. when you first noticed this problem was it after an upgrade or installation of an anti-virus suite?... have found several of the latest offering willl run a pc to >30% cpu on idle.. this witth a hungry media player will take things to the limit....yes I have yead your comment on useing task manager

You could also have a hardware conflict..yes twice.. onboard and plug in card.. have you tried removing any extra plug in cards..esp any installed around the time the problem was first noticed..

Just an observation.. the task manager is not a realtime/all the time monitoring tool.. it only reports 3 or 5 time per second.. an audiable click or stutter is about that speed or quicker..

[Relyt]

Good Morning,

My hand held portable telephone causes similar problems with my box, but not my wife's; as does the door bell and the dishwasher. Same frequencies for the phone & electronic door bell and the dishwasher is on the same circuit. Took me forever to find out what was causing it. The ham operator down the street causes some once in awhile as well. Just some ideas to consider.

cheers

[Aspman]

Reinstall the sound drivers.

Sounds silly but I have seen(heard) cracking caused by sound drivers throwing a wobbly.

Check the speaker jack isn't the problem (give it a wiggle).

[acidtone]

is the file stored on the hard drive.? If so have you tried playing it from the CD? and vice versa..

[tonybradley]

Thanks for the advice guys. I didn't get any email alerts about your replies so I finally just checked back in. When did AO overhaul the interface???

Anyway, I am going to test it out using different media players aside from WMP.

There is no AV on this particular system, so that isn't the problem.

I have watched video clips. I am going to double-check, but I am pretty sure the video was fine but the audio was still glitchy.

I have tried playing files from CD, from the local hard drive and across the wireless network - they all have issues.

I will fiddle around with some of the ideas here and let you know how it goes.

[nihil]

Hi Tony,

The update is this week............ still a wee bit of teething to go

Tell me, does this problem start from cold boot, or after the box has been on for a while.

If you are using an independent sound card please go into BIOS and turn off the onboard sound

Also, put the sound card in the furthest PCI from the video.