Didn't help, so they sent a brand new XPS. Re-installed drivers, disabled onboard audio in DM, disabled in BIOS, updated all drivers from Dell and Creative to no avail. I just purchased a Dell XPS 710 in June 2007. Has anyone had the crackling problem for audio played off the hard drive? I am waiting to try installing uypdated drivers for the DVD drive.

I believe this is a problem ONLY with the drivers for the DVD drives, not a problem with the soundcard drivers (SigmaTel or others) since if it was the soundcard then ALL audio would be affected, not just audio playing off the DVD drive specifically. I have tried every sound setting combination in the control panel (different playback sample rates and bit-depths) with no improvement. But if I play it back from the laptop's DVD drive the pops, clicks and glitches come back (randomly).

If I burn this file to a CDR and play it on my home stereo there is no crackling. If I rip audio using Windows Media Player 11 into wav or mp3 or wma formats, the audio plays back with no crackling from the hard drive of the laptop. On my system, it ONLY happens when audio is playing back directly from a CD, or DVD. I am a sound engineer with a brand new Dell Lattitude with Windows Vista Business, also experience the crackling sounds. Any and all information or suggestions from the eggheads would be greatly appreciated. Some people have suggested downlaoding the chipset for the MoBo with the Intel interface, instead of the Sigmatel one - but since this is a new set-up, I'd prefer to avoid ripping the drivers right away. Oddly enough, the motherboard and sound driver information is not provided by the Vista Experience Index, so here's that information: Mobile Intel 945GM and Sigmatel High Definition Audio CODEC, respectively (that is about all the information I can get out of the Device Manager for audio driver information). Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection While I am comfortable with computer software and hardware, some of the deeper aspects are still a tad forgien to me.īroadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller I found someone referencing Larry Osterman's blog about the audio stack change in Windows Vista and how it may or may not cause a problem since alot of audio drivers try to use DirectSound (?). I have not really gotten any real answers from Dell Support, so here I am. Any audio coming through output is periodically crackling. It's been running flawlessly with one minor problem. I have just purchased a new Dell XPS m1710 recently.

Sigmatel audio device drivers