Annoying sound card pops/clips/flutters...Advice??

It seems basically every laptop I've ever had has this problem. I'll be playing something in Itunes or some other media player and the sound will "clip" every so often, sometimes very often. This happens particularly when I'm using the scroll function on a webpage.

I've got an Inspiron 1520 with an HD Sound Card. I'm almost certain I've got the right drivers.

How do I get rid of this problem? Any solutions???

 

Make sure you don't shake your laptop or anything while your playing back the music. (ex. Using it on your lap, etc.) Also make sure there is nothing metallic that might be attracted to a magnet around your laptop.

The MOST common cause of that problem is due to a program running in the background such as Norton. if it is doing its periodic scan in the background, it may be what is causing the clipping.

Most likely solution is disable whatever antivirus scan you've got on there.

If that doesn't work,make sure to play some other music too to make sure that the music files are ok. if thats not it either, please post so. I'm pretty sure its a background process such as avast or norton or mcafee that is the issue.

 

Forte,

You're absolutely right that I do have an antivirus running; the full version of AVG.

I turned it off, and while it curbed the severity of the problem a bit, it's still not gone. I remains very noticeable, especially when I am doing other tasks while listening, even minor ones like surfing or editing Itunes entries.

I forgot the mention that the problem is especially bad when my computer is set on "Power Saver" mode. At that point the music becomes barely listenable, because there is so much frequent popping and clipping. It seems there isn't enough processing "juice" reaching the audio software/hardware...I don't know...

?

 

Power Saver mode probably lowers your CPU speed to save power, but it also would mean, as you said, there is less "juice" or processing power to go around which is causing the distortion.

Grand Admiral

 

did you try setting the priority to a higher setting

 

Happens to me too on my XPS M1530. It's been bothering me ever since I got this laptop and I've read on it here and tried few methods such as disabling drivers, programs, configured sound enhancements, etc. No luck so far.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=247833

 

Which media player are you guys using? I'm not having problems using Foobar + ASIO4ALL ASIO driver.

 

I use both Windows Media Player 11 or Winamp and they both have the pops/clips/flutters.

 

Try foobar, it may seem very simplistic but it's a very good program.

 

Oh and this is a great guide on ASIO4ALL, a very good, free sound driver:

 

ASIO has worked well with my portable amplifier, but using it with the integrated sound still gave me slight pops, which were less severe.

Are all of you that experienced popping music own a Nvidia card?

 

I, for one, own an Nvidia 8600m.

I'll try using Foobar, although the stripped down interface turns me off.

 

I had a similar problem, and fix it disabling tha "a" protocol on the wifi card, read the solution in this forum, i dont know if this is the same problem

 

Do you have bluetooth adapter and headset to see if it still pops over bluetooth?

 

Yes i have adaper and headset, and it has no problem.