Laptop Sound problem

ganon95

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7567357qnI

I made this video to demonstrate the problem i have been having.

I have heard many different things from many different people on what the problem could be so I need to be absolutly certain before I go spending a bunch of money on fixing it

So, If possible, Can anyone identify what the problem is?

mordeith

Could be dodgy speakers maybe? Have you tried connecting your laptop to a pair of external speakers? If the problem occurs with external speakers as well then it's most likely a software problem (actually you can just check that with a pair of headphones). Might be worth reinstalling sound drivers. Get ASIO drivers and use them for FLStudio as they are much better than the standard drivers you would have.

bette

mordeith wrote: »

Could be dodgy speakers maybe? Have you tried connecting your laptop to a pair of external speakers? If the problem occurs with external speakers as well then it's most likely a software problem (actually you can just check that with a pair of headphones). Might be worth reinstalling sound drivers. Get ASIO drivers and use them for FLStudio as they are much better than the standard drivers you would have.

Similar to my problem. Sounds like gurgling. I changed from Avast to AVG and sound restored. What do you have to lose. It won't cost you anything.

ganon95

mordeith wrote: »

Could be dodgy speakers maybe? Have you tried connecting your laptop to a pair of external speakers? If the problem occurs with external speakers as well then it's most likely a software problem (actually you can just check that with a pair of headphones). Might be worth reinstalling sound drivers. Get ASIO drivers and use them for FLStudio as they are much better than the standard drivers you would have.

Its not my speakers as It still does this through headphones.

I just reinstalled sound drivers and it did nothing, it still has the sound problem

I have ASIO and it only helps a little bit

ganon95

bette wrote: »

Similar to my problem. Sounds like gurgling. I changed from Avast to AVG and sound restored. What do you have to lose. It won't cost you anything.

I use norton and i did an entire system scan, are you saying a scan with AVG might fix it?

Razzuh

Try turning off hardware acceleration if you're using windows XP. Go to sound settings in control panel and you'll find a slider. Slide it all the way to none.

If you're not using XP or that doesn't fix the problem, reply with your OS and the make and model of your sound card. The best thing for this would be to click start and type 'dxdiag' in the search box (or click 'Run' and type it in there on XP). Go to the sound' tab and take a screenshot if you can and attach it to your reply. If you can't take a screenshot, you can click 'save all information' and attach that file, or just copy and paste all in the info in.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Try turning off hardware acceleration if you're using windows XP. Go to sound settings in control panel and you'll find a slider. Slide it all the way to none.

If you're not using XP or that doesn't fix the problem, reply with your OS and the make and model of your sound card. The best thing for this would be to click start and type 'dxdiag' in the search box (or click 'Run' and type it in there on XP). Go to the sound' tab and take a screenshot if you can and attach it to your reply. If you can't take a screenshot, you can click 'save all information' and attach that file, or just copy and paste all in the info in.

This isn't XP, here is the dxdiag info

Razzuh

Nothing obvious in that.

Sound problems can often be caused by interference with other components. Wifi cards in particular are often culprits. You said above that you reinstalled the sound drivers already. Your next step would be to go to the HP support page for your laptop model and update all of your device drivers, including the latest BIOS if necessary. Be sure to get the latest WLAN driver as first priority.

After updating everything else, it would be no harm to reinstall your sound drivers once more just to be sure. Restart your computer and see if the problem persists.

Let me know if this works or not, and I'll try to come up with something else if necessary.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Nothing obvious in that.

Sound problems can often be caused by interference with other components. Wifi cards in particular are often culprits. You said above that you reinstalled the sound drivers already. Your next step would be to go to the HP support page for your laptop model and update all of your device drivers, including the latest BIOS if necessary. Be sure to get the latest WLAN driver as first priority.

After updating everything else, it would be no harm to reinstall your sound drivers once more just to be sure. Restart your computer and see if the problem persists.

Let me know if this works or not, and I'll try to come up with something else if necessary.

I updated everything i could including the WLAN first and the sound driver twice and it still didn't fix it

Razzuh

Unfortunately, it is possible there is a problem in the hardware. Is the laptop still under warranty (preferable) or covered by consumer rights law (more hassle unfortunately)?

One more thing to try:

Do you know where the switch for your wifi adapter is? Sometimes this is an actual switch on the top or side of the laptop that you can move to disable wifi. If not, there might be a function key you can press or else a button on the wifi manager you have to disable the WLAN card.

If you can't find it, just google something like 'disable wireless' and your laptop model for instructions.

Try playing something with the WLAN card disabled and see if you still have the problem.

ElectricGirl

If you are using Windows 7 and Realtek:
Here is a link to get the driver files that work. This should sort it all out.
ftp://ftp3.realtek.com.tw/5898_PG281_Win7_TurnOff_PullMode_Upd.zip

The username is enduser and the password is enduser256

Remember - this only works for Realtek AC'97 and Realtek High Definition Audio Sound Cards.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Unfortunately, it is possible there is a problem in the hardware. Is the laptop still under warranty (preferable) or covered by consumer rights law (more hassle unfortunately)?

One more thing to try:

Do you know where the switch for your wifi adapter is? Sometimes this is an actual switch on the top or side of the laptop that you can move to disable wifi. If not, there might be a function key you can press or else a button on the wifi manager you have to disable the WLAN card.

If you can't find it, just google something like 'disable wireless' and your laptop model for instructions.

Try playing something with the WLAN card disabled and see if you still have the problem.

I disabled the WLAN card and it still has the problem.

I should probably mention when i took it to the geek squad at best buy they said something like it was the hard drive or motherboard, but i took it in several times and got people telling me several different things...I don't wanna pay for something that isn't wrong with it

ganon95

ElectricGirl wrote: »

If you are using Windows 7 and Realtek:
Here is a link to get the driver files that work. This should sort it all out.
ftp://ftp3.realtek.com.tw/5898_PG281_Win7_TurnOff_PullMode_Upd.zip

The username is enduser and the password is enduser256

Remember - this only works for Realtek AC'97 and Realtek High Definition Audio Sound Cards.

I think I have IDT high definition audio, will this still work?

ElectricGirl

Unfortunately not, when the sound distorts do you notice in Task Manager if the CPU is spiking in usage?

Lazarus2.0

ganon95 wrote: »

I think I have IDT high definition audio, will this still work?

Aye , your sound card is IDT HD Audio so Realtek drivers wont work .

HP Pavilion dv7-3100 .. there's an earlier version (2009) of the audio driver available on the support site - no harm in rolling back to see if that helps .

Dont suppose you have a USB soundcard there ? Not that it would resolve the issue but might be a workaround at least .

When did this start to occur btw ? Any windows updates that coincide with when the problem arose ?

ganon95

ElectricGirl wrote: »

Unfortunately not, when the sound distorts do you notice in Task Manager if the CPU is spiking in usage?

Actually yes, it does spike sometimes when the sound is distorting.

ganon95

nessyguin wrote: »

Aye , your sound card is IDT HD Audio so Realtek drivers wont work .

HP Pavilion dv7-3100 .. there's an earlier version (2009) of the audio driver available on the support site - no harm in rolling back to see if that helps .

Dont suppose you have a USB soundcard there ? Not that it would resolve the issue but might be a workaround at least .

When did this start to occur btw ? Any windows updates that coincide with when the problem arose ?

I tried rolling back before, it didn't help

I do not have a USB sound card nor any other external sound cards, i find them inconvenient since i take my laptop pretty much everywhere and having extra stuff hanging off doesn't work well for me

It started a while back...I had my computer on standby and when i brought it out the audio started to crack a little and just got worse and worse. i don't think there were any updates

Adyx

I fixed a laptop with a similar problem recently except it was constant distortion and the whole computer was slowed down by it as well. Basically the ATA/ATPI controllers were running in PIO mode instead of DMA mode.

Anyway, re-enabling DMA mode fixed the problem with the sound and the general sluggishness of the laptop. You can check by going into Device Manager, expanding ATA/ATPI Controllers and viewing the Advanced Settings in the Properties for any controllers there. The exact method will depend on your OS, as will the solution to re-enable DMA mode if necessary.

ganon95

Adyx wrote: »

I fixed a laptop with a similar problem recently except it was constant distortion and the whole computer was slowed down by it as well. Basically the ATA/ATPI controllers were running in PIO mode instead of DMA mode.

Anyway, re-enabling DMA mode fixed the problem with the sound and the general sluggishness of the laptop. You can check by going into Device Manager, expanding ATA/ATPI Controllers and viewing the Advanced Settings in the Properties for any controllers there. The exact method will depend on your OS, as will the solution to re-enable DMA mode if necessary.

I just tried what you said, none of the "Enable DMA" boxes were un-checked

I went into IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, these were the options

--

ATA Channel 0

Advanced settings > Device properties, Enable DMA box is checked
It also says

Target ID: 0
Device type: ATA Disk
Current mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

--

ATA Channel 1


Advanced settings > Device properties, Enable DMA box is checked
It also says

Target ID: 0
Device type: ATAPI Cdrom
Current mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

--

ATA Channel 4


No options for anything in this one

--

ATA Channel 5

No options for anything in this one

---

Intel(R) ICH9M/M-E Family 4 Port SATA AHCI controller - 2929

--

All the "Enable DMA" boxes were checked.

Ill provide pictures if you need em

Adyx

ganon95 wrote: »

I just tried what you said, none of the "Enable DMA" boxes were un-checked

Sorry, that's my theory out the window. Other than the other suggestions here, all I can suggest is make sure no effects such as 3D, Surround Sound, EQ or Reverb are enabled for the sound card and try to keep the volume at a fairly low level. Other than that, I'd say it's a hardware problem.

ganon95

Adyx wrote: »

Sorry, that's my theory out the window. Other than the other suggestions here, all I can suggest is make sure no effects such as 3D, Surround Sound, EQ or Reverb are enabled for the sound card and try to keep the volume at a fairly low level. Other than that, I'd say it's a hardware problem.

so what would you suggest I get fixed? If i need to pay for something to get fixed i want to make sure its correct so the problem doesn't come back after i payed for it to be fixed

Razzuh

If it's a hardware problem, which is looking increasingly likely, it's almost impossible to say where the fault might be. I'm not convinced yet though that it is a hardware fault.

Can you describe the problem again as accurately as you can? Do you sometimes have perfect sound? Does the sound ever go away completely? Does it come and go by itself or does it come and go each time you restart the laptop?

When you say the CPU spikes during the problem, does it go all the way to 100%?

The suggestion above about DMA was good. It's possible though that Windows is using PIO instead, even though you have DMA ticked. It does this if it has a driver problem. Try going to device manager and right clicking on each of the active ATA channel items (channel 0 and channel 1) and select 'uninstall'. Restart your computer and windows will reinstall the drivers itself.

You could also try booting windows to 'safe mode' and see if the sound works without the problem? It is possible you will just have no sound.

Last, sometimes sound distortion can be caused by interference from unlikely sources. Take your laptop somewhere other than where you usually have it (another building, and leave your phone and any other electrical devices you carry behind!). See if it works.

Let us know how all that goes for you.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

If it's a hardware problem, which is looking increasingly likely, it's almost impossible to say where the fault might be. I'm not convinced yet though that it is a hardware fault.

Can you describe the problem again as accurately as you can? Do you sometimes have perfect sound? Does the sound ever go away completely? Does it come and go by itself or does it come and go each time you restart the laptop?

When you say the CPU spikes during the problem, does it go all the way to 100%?

The suggestion above about DMA was good. It's possible though that Windows is using PIO instead, even though you have DMA ticked. It does this if it has a driver problem. Try going to device manager and right clicking on each of the active ATA channel items (channel 0 and channel 1) and select 'uninstall'. Restart your computer and windows will reinstall the drivers itself.

You could also try booting windows to 'safe mode' and see if the sound works without the problem? It is possible you will just have no sound.

Last, sometimes sound distortion can be caused by interference from unlikely sources. Take your laptop somewhere other than where you usually have it (another building, and leave your phone and any other electrical devices you carry behind!). See if it works.

Let us know how all that goes for you.

The best i can describe it is its not always having problems, sometimes the sound will be perfectly fine for a while but it never stays sounding ok. When i first boot up the computer the sound problem is really bad but after having it running for around 30 mins to an hour it will clear up. it never completely goes away tho, it just becomes less frequent as time passes.


The sound never really cuts out completely tho sometimes when its distorting the sound might go out for 1-2 seconds. it never stops working tho.

During the heaviest distortion the CPU will stay at 100% almost the entire time during it, i did notice it sometimes went down a little bit about halfway through the bad distrtion. when its just a small ammount of sound distortion the CPU will mostly stay in the upper 60% area but will ocassionally hit 100%

I uninstalled all the Channels and restarted the computer, then restarted it again when they re-installed, it did not do anything

I brought up safe mode and there was no sound nor any way for me to turn the sound on.

Its not caused by interference as i take this laptop everywhere, with or without my other devices

Razzuh

ganon95 wrote: »

During the heaviest distortion the CPU will stay at 100% almost the entire time during it, i did notice it sometimes went down a little bit about halfway through the bad distrtion. when its just a small ammount of sound distortion the CPU will mostly stay in the upper 60% area but will ocassionally hit 100%

Ok, this is important. It's possible that your computer is being kept so busy by an application on it that it simply can't process sound properly. Your laptop shouldn't be so busy all of the time.

The next step is to find out what is hogging all of your processor's time. Take a look at the list of processes in task manager when your CPU is at 100% and see if their is one obvious culprit taking >50%. You can pretty much ignore anything taking less than 15%.

Task manager can be tough to look at. I suggest you download process explorer for this, it's free and much better:

http://download.cnet.com/Process-Explorer/3000-2094_4-10223605.html

Let me know what you can see.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Ok, this is important. It's possible that your computer is being kept so busy by an application on it that it simply can't process sound properly. Your laptop shouldn't be so busy all of the time.

The next step is to find out what is hogging all of your processor's time. Take a look at the list of processes in task manager when your CPU is at 100% and see if their is one obvious culprit taking >50%. You can pretty much ignore anything taking less than 15%.

Task manager can be tough to look at. I suggest you download process explorer for this, it's free and much better:

http://download.cnet.com/Process-Explorer/3000-2094_4-10223605.html

Let me know what you can see.

here is a comparison



looks like we might have something

Razzuh

Yep, it looks like there's a service in that svchost on top responsible for some serious CPU use.

Instead of sorting by CPU, you will need to look at the process tree. Click view at the top, and select 'view process tree'.

Find the svchost.exe with the high CPU usage and expand it out until you can see the name of the sub process that has high CPU usage.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Yep, it looks like there's a service in that svchost on top responsible for some serious CPU use.

Instead of sorting by CPU, you will need to look at the process tree. Click view at the top, and select 'view process tree'.

Find the svchost.exe with the high CPU usage and expand it out until you can see the name of the sub process that has high CPU usage.

I should note that the number next to CLMLSvc.exe changes constantly, its sometimes high and sometimes low

Razzuh

Try right clicking on CLMLSvc.exe and select 'suspend' and see if the CPU usage drops significantly.

If the above doesn't cut out CPU usage, please do this:

Right click on the svchost.exe with the high CPU usage and click 'properties'. A window should open up with many tabs.

Please take a screenshot of the tabs called 'services', 'Threads' and 'TCP/IP'. Post them back here and I'll take a look. We will probably need to find the service that's causing problems.

This process might take a while unfortunately, since their are a lot of services and applications that might be responsible.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Try right clicking on CLMLSvc.exe and select 'suspend' and see if the CPU usage drops significantly.

If the above doesn't cut out CPU usage, please do this:

Right click on the svchost.exe with the high CPU usage and click 'properties'. A window should open up with many tabs.

Please take a screenshot of the tabs called 'services', 'Threads' and 'TCP/IP'. Post them back here and I'll take a look. We will probably need to find the service that's causing problems.

This process might take a while unfortunately, since their are a lot of services and applications that might be responsible.

I suspended the process and the sound cleared up a bit but it still cracks and distorts every now and then..but since i suspended the process its not as often

here are the tabs

Razzuh

Sorry for the slow reply. Great work on the screenshots by the way.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything there that shouldn't be. It's possible there's a problem with one of the services, but it's more likely that the real source of the problem is elsewhere. All of the services are windows own services anyway so getting rid of any of them isn't really a good idea, they're all there for a good reason.

Since suspending CLMLSvc.exe has had a noticeable impact, I'd suggest you go ahead and uninstall that software (Cyberlink Media Library) from control panel. It's probably something HP had already loaded on the laptop when you bought it so it's hopefully not an application you actually use?

Restart and see if the problem's solved.

Next, I'd suggest you check out your hard disk. The high CPU usage might just have been coincidental with high hard-disk usage which might really be the source of your problems.

Do you know the HDD activity light on your laptoop? It's usually beside all the other little LEDs like the one for your battery (lit when it's charging). Does it flash a lot when your doing nothing? Does the light stay on constantly when the sound problem occurs? Please keep an eye and let me know.

First, you can check the health of your hard drive using this (free):

http://download.cnet.com/Speccy/3000-2094_4-75181811.html

Download and install it. When you open it, select 'Hard Drives' from the column on the left. In the section on the right, you'll now see info about your hard drive. Look under the heading: 'S.M.A.R.T'. At the bottom of the list of readings, it will give a 'status'. Let me know what it says please.

Do you ever defragment or run scan disk? Windows 7 should by default be defragmenting regularly anyway. You can check this by clicking:

Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Defragmentor

It will tell you when it last run. To run scan disk, open windows explorer ( or 'my computer') and right-click on the 'c:' drive. In the menu that pops up, select 'properties'. Click on the 'Tools' tab and then click the 'Check now' button under error-checking. Make sure both options ('Automatically fix...' and 'Scan for and...') are selected and then click ok. It will tell you it can't do it now and has to be scheduled to run the next time computer starts: select the schedule option. Restart your computer and let the disk check run. It will take a few hours.

Let me know how this goes. If none of the above is working, next you can try using a Linux live boot CD to test if the sound works ok under a different OS. This should reveal if the problem is actually in the hardware or if the problem is Windows or software related. Let me know the above results first anyway and then I can give you directions on how to try this.

ganon95

Razzuh wrote: »

Sorry for the slow reply. Great work on the screenshots by the way.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything there that shouldn't be. It's possible there's a problem with one of the services, but it's more likely that the real source of the problem is elsewhere. All of the services are windows own services anyway so getting rid of any of them isn't really a good idea, they're all there for a good reason.

Since suspending CLMLSvc.exe has had a noticeable impact, I'd suggest you go ahead and uninstall that software (Cyberlink Media Library) from control panel. It's probably something HP had already loaded on the laptop when you bought it so it's hopefully not an application you actually use?

Restart and see if the problem's solved.

Next, I'd suggest you check out your hard disk. The high CPU usage might just have been coincidental with high hard-disk usage which might really be the source of your problems.

Do you know the HDD activity light on your laptoop? It's usually beside all the other little LEDs like the one for your battery (lit when it's charging). Does it flash a lot when your doing nothing? Does the light stay on constantly when the sound problem occurs? Please keep an eye and let me know.

First, you can check the health of your hard drive using this (free):

http://download.cnet.com/Speccy/3000-2094_4-75181811.html

Download and install it. When you open it, select 'Hard Drives' from the column on the left. In the section on the right, you'll now see info about your hard drive. Look under the heading: 'S.M.A.R.T'. At the bottom of the list of readings, it will give a 'status'. Let me know what it says please.

Do you ever defragment or run scan disk? Windows 7 should by default be defragmenting regularly anyway. You can check this by clicking:

Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Defragmentor

It will tell you when it last run. To run scan disk, open windows explorer ( or 'my computer') and right-click on the 'c:' drive. In the menu that pops up, select 'properties'. Click on the 'Tools' tab and then click the 'Check now' button under error-checking. Make sure both options ('Automatically fix...' and 'Scan for and...') are selected and then click ok. It will tell you it can't do it now and has to be scheduled to run the next time computer starts: select the schedule option. Restart your computer and let the disk check run. It will take a few hours.

Let me know how this goes. If none of the above is working, next you can try using a Linux live boot CD to test if the sound works ok under a different OS. This should reveal if the problem is actually in the hardware or if the problem is Windows or software related. Let me know the above results first anyway and then I can give you directions on how to try this.

I went into control panel and "Cyberlink Media Library" was not in there, the only thing from Cyberlink was "Cyberlink DVD suite"

I watched the HDD light and here's what i got

-Heavy distortion: The light flashes very fast, but does not stay solid

-Mild distortion (sound cracking): the light flashes fast but not as fast as the heavy distortion

-no distortion: it flashes every now and then, much less then the mild distortion

- Doing nothing: occasional flashing, about the same if not less then no distortion

Ill have to do that "check now" and defragment later when i have more time, so ill get back to you on that

here is the Speccy picture:

ganon95

I ran disc check and defragmented but it didn't change anything

ganon95

Any more help? the problem seems to have come back even tho i stopped that process

ganon95

My computer is taking 4 minutes to start up now...i enter the password and it gives me a black screen for 4 minutes before finally getting to the desktop. it just recently started doing this