D630 sound issues revisited - XP

Hey there, first post ever for me, but I just wanted to see if you knowledgeable folks can help me out. Just received my D630 a few days ago, and it's perfect, except... the sound is crap! Whenever I start to play an audio file in Winamp or Media Player, there is a distinct click sound. Then the file skips and pops intermittently while playing; it's driving me nuts. I know it's not the MP3 encoding because it skips at different places each time, and these files worked fine on my old Inspiron 6000.

I read a couple of threads on here with similar problems, but it seems those were all in Vista. I'm using XP Professional, so I can't do the "disable enhancements" thing or whatever. The computer uses "Sigmatel High Definition Audio." Here's what I've done so far to try to fix it: disabled wireless and bluetooth, downloaded latest Sigmatel drivers from Dell Support, played around with all the control panel advanced settings in the Volume and Sounds and Audio Devices area. Nothing has worked. Any ideas? Or better yet, any new D630 users with XP have similar issues and fixed them?

 

I'm having the same problem on a D630 I just got. I call it a blip or skip. It is very annoying. I'm still trying to determine the source of the problem.

I have a D620 and it doesn't seem to have the problem. The D620 isn't mine so I am still testing.

Both systems are XP Pro SP2 with the latest drivers from the Dell website.

I had Process Monitor open when I was doing a listening test and can see a "Deferred Procedure Calls" process pop up right about the time of the skip.

 

That sound is possibly software related. I also had the infamous skip on my D630, and tried everything suggested on this board to make it go away with no success. A few months into ownership I migrated into Vista x64, and voila the pop was gone. I tried stressing the computer many different ways to reporoduce the pop, but it never did come back.

I'm not saying you migrate to x64, only that in my limited case, a software solution was the fix. May not necessarily have been the OS itself, but rather the drivers associated with Vista x64.

Regards,
Paolo

 

I agree that it is software related. I've seen people mention when loading a Linux distribution on the D630 and not having sound problems. I'm pretty sure it is an issue the the XP drivers from Dell for the D630 audio. Just haven't found a solution yet.