Weird sound whenever I open a program.

I don't know where it's coming from, but I also only hear if I'm in a quiet room with no sound. I load up a program, like Steam, and then I hear this slight popping sound. I don't know if it's coming from the speakers or what.

 

Like in this post here or not?

Weird Noise

 

Yeah I guess. It's very hard to hear or notice though.

 

I'm getting this too, but it isn't the fan noise. It's almost like a "popping" noise.

It happens when a sound is played through the speakers. It's annoying and I'm not sure what's going on with it.

I thought it could be the microphone, so I disabled it but it still persists.

 

Someone should look in to this it's the little things that bother me xD...

 

I think it's definitely a sound/microphone issue because if I open the "Recording Devices" section where the microphone is listed, it no longer does it.

I've tried disabling the microphone but it's made no difference. Hmm.

Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

 

i notice the sound module turn off whenever it's not use.. perhaps try disable that?

 

you can disable that in the realtek sound tool under power-saving.

 

I notice the 'popping' sound too, but only when i first try clicking through folders, or when the UAC try to pop up. And it happen only when i've a headphone plug in.

 

It is the same problem I was talking about here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/586824-sound-when-you-use-touchpad.html

I am not the only one then, it seems to be a common issue.

 

Anyone found a fix yet?

 

This might sound weird but I think the noise is coming from the sub woofer because now that mines is broken it doesn't do it anymore.

 

This is not good at all...

Jasilv21 I read that your subwoofer is now BROKEN, do I have to guess that eventually the subwoofer of every unit with this issue will eventually die???

BTW how did you figure out that it was broken?

 

I took the lid off while playing music and saw it but you could tell it was broken because of the terrible sound it made

 

Hmm, if the sound really comes from the subwoofer, then this is something that not just happens to the m14x, but also in hifi sets, radios, TVs and vehicle entertainment systems.

My best guess is that when you run an application or click around folders or UAC pops up, the subwoofer circuitry is activated from sleep and a sudden release of static build up causes it to pop. A high quality capacitor and good grounding in the circuit usually solves this but being relatively cheap laptop speakers compared to real audiophile quality, we can't expect that much anyway.

So in conlusion, just treat it as a "functional" design of the speakers.

Some people mentioned it coming from the microphone and I vaguely remember reading about this within the forum from some other brands of laptops. Have to go dig it out then

 

A weird thing is that on my unit, if I turn the Sounblaster off, I no longer hear the popping sound, it will happen only when I turn the computer on, in the beginning, and will not happen when I simply navigate through folders as it happens when the Soundblaster is active.

When the SB is active, I also don't hear the Windows sound while I navigate through folders, but just the popping subwoofer...

 

It's doing it on mine even when sounds are muted.

But again, if I keep this window open:



It no longer does it. As soon as it closes, the sound comes back; muted or not.

EDIT: Ok, problem found. Visit this thread.

I wasn't hearing it on the microphone window because the sound card was kept activated.

Same fix, although the registry files have a slightly different path, so don't use the .reg's provided in the thread.

Realtek power management settings can be found in the Realtek Audio Manager.

I'm unsure how much of an effect disabling this will have on battery life, I'll keep you posted.

Part of me still wonders if it is certain hardware trouble as well, seeing as only a few of us have noticed it...hmm.