e6500 crackling audio

I'll have to take back my words.. The sound definitely crackles even when using the Ethernet cable and the wifi card turned off. I also have the nVidia card so it might have something to do with that..

This is extremely annoying since I always have Winamp playing when working If Dell doesn't quickly come up with the solution I'll send this back.

PS. I have emailed Dell about this issue and hope they'll answer soon..

 

I'm also using Winamp to play through some external speakers at the moment.
It all sounds good to me. The ethernet on and I've tried wireless on and off. Aside from the GPU, where else might we differ in our hardware? I don't have Bluetooth. If you've got then try disabling it in Device Manager.

John

 

It seems to me as if there are problems with both the nvidia cards and the WIFI cards. To clarify I have integrated graphics and a Dell Wlan 1510 abgn card. Sound to me as if the new Latitudes have poor management of noise coming from sources outside the motherboard itself. On my unit (e5500) the crackling is definitely only present with the WIFI on.

 

Any crackling while running Linux?

 

It's most likely caused by a ground loop issue. Dell's notebooks are notorious for this. Google 'notebook audio ground loop'. You can usualy pick up a cheap AC filter for it at your local electronics shop.

Worth a shot.

 

At the moment when I'm playing music then I'm running my E6400 on the 65W auto/air/AC adaptor which has no ground. The easy test for the ground loop problem is to check if the crackle goes away when you pull out the AC adaptor? Normally, the ground loop problem is a mains frequency hum, not a crackle.

BTW, I've got the Intel 5100 wireless.

John

 

is this a constant crackling like all the time or every few seconds?

 

The solution for this problem is to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager!

Seems the cleaner as clean clean install is the problem

It's no ground-loop, I got a ground-loop-noise when I had a D630, this is different. I noticed it is really bad, when you do some harddisk-intensive-work. Then I realized that the crackling always apears, when the harddisk-access-led blinks. After installing the matrix storage tool, the crackling disapeared!

 

I think that actually only solves one problem, the massive stuttering you likely get without the storage driver installed. You can still experience popping/crackling after this is installed - I have, though it's not consistent when it happens for me - sometime it's worse than others (and no, it's not file related, I'm using the same song to test at different times).

However, I think there may be two or three different circumstances to people's audio problems. I think mine is driver or AHCI related (even with the manager installed) rather than electrical, and am still experimenting.

 

Does anyone think this audio problem would be a good way to get a concession coupon out of them? (They are still doing concession coupons, right?) I just have irregular and infrequent popping with the WiFi on, so it's not enough for me to return the laptop, but I kind of want a good deal on a 2408WFP.