e6500 crackling audio

Have to admit I've only noticed it during startup but it shouldn't be that way!

 

If the sound is only during startup then it might well be the hardware or drivers getting themselves organised.

John

 

I've installed the Intel SATA Matrix app and drivers as well as the IDT drivers after SP1 upgrade, but I'm still having the crackling problem.

I was excited when I found this solution and people said it worked, but alas, nothing comes easy for me.

I have the e6400 with GMA 4500MHD and 1397 WLAN.

Any ideas?

Also, does the Matrix app have to be installed or just the drivers? I'm under the impression only the drivers are needed since the apps should not in anyway be related to the audio.

 

I was getting a few random clicks/pops eveyr minute, and quit ebad skipping when doing somethiung which used a burst of CPU time, was also getting the odd handup in MMC.exe so decided to do a clean install of XP rather than the Dell factory install.

I slipstreamed SP3 to an XP CD with nLite and added the Intel Matrix Storage (drivers only not the app) then installed as many drivers as possible direct from Intel rather than the Dell versions (X4500, Gigabit, WiFi 5300) and finally the Dell drivers (I checked but IDT don't release drivers to end users) for all the yellow question marks.

I now have 200MB less memory taken up, and absolutely no clicks/pops/skipping. Unfortunately I still have non-existant bass (unless I use external speakers and disable the internal speaker - the one place where Dell seem to have skimped too much on this machine).

 

After my "clean" install I realised I hadn't loaded enough parts of ControlPoint to enable use of the fingerprint reader to logon to XP, or to use the 3G WWAN.

After installing various BLOATED bits of the controlpoint software the audio skipping came back, so getting rid of as much of controlpoint as you can live without might help anyone having audio problems.

 

Agreed. I got rid of almost all of the audio skipping / crackling with clean install, but the audio is still not as good as in my old D510 with XP. I think that the truth is that Dell shipped the E-series with crappy software and that the final solution may (or not) only come when they sort out the bugs and ship properly tested and finished drivers and other software. It just seems that the trend is to let the customers be the testers..

 

Just as I was ranting about Dell's poor software I noticed that they had released a new BIOS (A05) for the E6400. After installing it I have to be somewhat optimistic, because the general performance "seems" to have been improved A LOT and also the audio skipping / crackling is gone. I'll keep my fingers crossed..

 

Well, installing the latest Intel Matrix Drivers (downloaded from intel.com) helped a lot. The skipping/crackling was kinda rare. Then after browsing through BIOS settings I saw that it is possible to change SATA modes: IRRT, AHCI and another one which I can not remember ATM. So, I changed from IRRT (default one) to AHCI (be aware that you will need to reinstall Windows) and problems with the sound became less common. However it isn't working 100% free.

Oh and Windows start-up sound is always played without any cracks and pops.

What the heck is IRRT? As I understand it gives only RAID support or am I missing something?

 

See the attached for the SATA options on my E6400. I expect the E6500 to be the same.

IRRT is described here.

My E6400 was set to IRRT by default, which meant that when I booted with a HDD plugged into the eSATA for the boot options (press F12) included setting up a RAID system. I switched to AHCI without any need to reinstall anything. IRRT is just an extension of AHCI. It is the switch between ATA and AHCI which causes the BSODs.

John

 

Can anyone else confirm any improvement in AHCI mode rather than IRRT mode?