E6x00 Audio Skipping / Crackling Solutions Help

Frustrated by my audio skipping on my E6500 I started going through various threads (some quite large) trying to gather solutions that people say worked for them. I wanted to start a new thread contain solutions and links to the referencing thread to help centralize the data. Hopefully someone might find this more useful than digging through pages and pages of conversations!

I have tried most if not all these solutions and none have worked for me. I still have 1 skip every minute or 2 and cannot listen to a single mp3 without it at least having a single skip somewhere in it. This is VERY annoying.

I also must note there seems to be 2 different issues at hand. One is a crackling audio problem which happens every couple seconds or so and the other is a popping or skipping issue which happens occasionally (every minute or 2). At the moment I am focusing on the skipping issue as that is the only one I am experiencing and have tried fixing.

A program many users are using to test with is DPC Latency Checker (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml). A high latency may help diagnose the crackling / skipping. While I have not found any evidence that a high latency correlates to skipping, this may be a worthwhile tool to have in your arsenal in combating this issue.

Anyways.. on with the solutions.

1. Disable eSata in BIOS
Some users report that disabling the eSata port in the BIOS helps or eliminates the issue. This has not worked for me personally. But it is worth a try.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4322714&postcount=153
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4203462&postcount=110
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4176373&postcount=103
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4157271&postcount=89
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4121577&postcount=76
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4144003&postcount=79
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4145340&postcount=81
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4157271&postcount=89
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4200311&postcount=109
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4203462&postcount=110

2a. Disable / Remove Wifi
While this may not be a solution (this is a laptop, people need wifi), it may help to find out if this is causing the skipping.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3932605&postcount=18
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3944999&postcount=23

2b. Disable A band in Wifi
If the Wifi may be the source of the issue for you, maybe disabling just the A band could also be the cause.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4030546&postcount=54
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4035866&postcount=61
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4076029&postcount=71
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4319788&postcount=152
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4351016&postcount=163

3. Install Intel Matrix Manager / Driver
Some users have said that Installing the latest Intel Matrix Manager available from Dell may solve the issue. There are 2 separate downloads for this, the driver and the manager application (which contains the driver also).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3946423&postcount=28
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4024033&postcount=48
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4029049&postcount=52

4. Try setting SATA mode to AHCI instead of IRRT.
I saw no difference with this. However some users noted an improvement in audio reliability.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4034851&postcount=60

5. Uninstall Dell ControlPoint Software
At the moment I am running no ControlPoint software and still have skipping. This may help some users.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4052312&postcount=66

I am also trying to compile drivers and settings comparisons relating to the skipping audio problem. If you have any related information on solutions which might solve either the crackling or skipping problem please post and I will gladly update my post to keep all the solutions in a central location.

 

Physically removing my DVD drive completely solved my audio issues

 

Which kind of drive do you have? Is it the read-only dvd drive, or the dvd-rw drive? I have the dvd-rw, and removing it resolves the issue. No matter what driver or settings I use (except WLAN: disabled A-band helped).

The main question here is, if the issue is on the drive itself or on the bus by which it is connected to the system. The latter would extend the problem to the whole mainboard. Kind of nasty.

 

yup, I also have the dvd-rw. I tried at least twenty other fixes, but only removing the drive cured my audio issues

 

Using ATA insted of IRRT solved mine. I prefer to do a fresh Install of the OS after that however. I'm running 7 atm and not a crack or stutter yet!
The Dell person i spoke to thinks the image dell uses on new machines is stable on IRRT but a new fresh OS (with out dell crapware) is no suited for IRRT - since i dont need to mirror my drive and there is no performance insentive to keep it i diabled IRRT and switched to trusty old ATA - I dont use eSATA yet so this is a non issue - when there is micro eSATA flash storage device i can afford im going to have to consider AHCI im sure it is a driver issue and one that needs to be sorted out before an OS is installed.

Best of luck people.
+1 here for a solution in Disabling IRRT (and reinstalling the OS)

 

I don't use IRRT. AHCI is my setting.

 

I have the PLDS DU-8A2S and get the high latency with AHCI + Matrix Storage 8.7(and XP), plus the latency dropping when the burner is removed. However, an eSATA HDD will also cause the high latency, even if the ODD is removed.

IMO the problem is something to do with the Matrix Storage software communicating with external, removable, SATA devices (my latency is OK with the previous Dell version of the matrix storage driver). However, the high latency is not causing me any audio problems so my concern is more about the wider implications of this high latency.

John

 

For the record, I have poor latency (>10,000) per DPC but no apparent audio problems besides tiny speakers. As posted previously, I have fine performance running simultaneously YouTube sports videos in two IE windows, F-Prot virus scanning c:, a music CD playing in WMP, and recording a webcam video at max res... no problems.

My system and install is documented in my sig.

GK