Constant Crackling Sound

[CrankyCarrot]

Hi tech heads, can anyone shed any light on this?:

Laptop model: Asus Pro61sf

Issue: Sound scratching/crackling

Details:

I've had this laptop for about 18 months now and it's always had this problem with the crackly sound. I tried to deal with it a couple of other times but with no joy. Now I'm taking another crack.

What I already know:

1. Regardless of the power setting (balanced/high performance etc) I get the crackling.

2. The crackling is especially noticable when there's graphical animation on screen, like a flash based ad in yahoo and I have music playing, it's crackle-rama every time.

3. Updating the sound drivers only makes the problem much worse. I don't know what it is about Realtek, but their latest drivers and software seem to make the sound as crackly and distorted as possible.

4. It's nothing to do with how hot the laptop gets – ie the prob is there from the second I turn it on and doesn't get worse or better over time.

I have just updated the Nvidia drivers to 275.33 and the problem remains. I've never upgraded any of the components from those that came with the laptop originally, so surely the stock standard bits wouldn't be conflicting with each other?

On Asus' support site they have BIOS updates 203 and 204 (mine is 202), which I'm planning to flash update to today. If that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas.

[Spoonman]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

[sulasno]

got a pair of extra speakers? plug them in and see whether the problem persists

[Supernova]

Sounds like a driver issue to me.

Would be helpful if you could supply the device id for the audio device. BTW, what version of Windows ? Vista or Win7 ?

[CrankyCarrot]

@Spoonman - "sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters" I don't know exactly what platters are, but this kind of sounds like it might be the problem.

@sulasno - It's definitely not the speakers. Same same problem with headphones or the internal speakers.

@Supernova - I'm running the 64 bit version of Windows 7 - will check on the audio specs and post back in 5 mins

[sulasno]

in this case it is a a hardware problem; check the mobo

I just remembered that there's one laptop with similar problem;

the problem went away after a reinstall

[Supernova]

@Spoonman - "sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters" I don't know exactly what platters are, but this kind of sounds like it might be the problem.

Whilst using your computer, do you experience random lockups, severe lag, or have problems booting into Windows? If not, you can rule out hard disk issues.

[CrankyCarrot]

I'm thinking flashing the BIOS is worth a go, but I've heard a lot of people end up "bricking" their machines by doing this the wrong way.

Also I don't really know the best way to do it. I have a flash drive, and I've copied the BIOS files from the Asus support centre onto it. I read somewhere that Asus has it's own BIOS flashing utility which you can access during startup, but that guide said to use .ROM files.

The files Asus provides are not .ROM. The file looks like this: F50SfAS.203

One other thing I should mention is that this system came with Vista on it and a coupon to upgrade to Win 7 Home Premium, which I later used. The crackling sound was present with both Vista and Win 7 OS installed.

[Supernova]

I'm thinking flashing the BIOS is worth a go, but I've heard a lot of people end up "bricking" their machines by doing this the wrong way.

Also I don't really know the best way to do it. I have a flash drive, and I've copied the BIOS files from the Asus support centre onto it. I read somewhere that Asus has it's own BIOS flashing utility which you can access during startup, but that guide said to use .ROM files.

The files Asus provides are not .ROM. The file looks like this: F50SfAS.203

Copy the BIOS file to C drive. You should be able to access the BIOS quick flash utility from within the BIOS or by hitting one of the function keys during POST.

FWIW, the BIOS file doesn't have to have a .rom extension. Just make sure you download the correct version for your computer.

One other thing I should mention is that this system came with Vista on it and a coupon to upgrade to Win 7 Home Premium, which I later used. The crackling sound was present with both Vista and Win 7 OS installed.

Many folks (myself included) had experienced crackling audio in Vista. After I got rid of Vista and performed a clean Win7 install, problems went away...

[CrankyCarrot]

Does it count as a "clean windows install" if I upgraded to Win 7 from Vista - ie didn't personally format the HDD and install it from scratch?

In Device manager, the audio card identifies itself only as a "High Definition Audio Device" btw -- I can't find the VIN number or whatever it was from that link.

[CrankyCarrot]

Having issues getting into BIOS here too - it goes straight to the Windows screen after the ASUS logo shows, and hitting F8 and Del don't seem to be getting me in like they usually do. Maybe it's a dif F key on this notebook...

[Supernova]

Does it count as a "clean windows install" if I upgraded to Win 7 from Vista - ie didn't personally format the HDD and install it from scratch?

You can't use "upgrade media" to do a clean install.

In Device manager, the audio card identifies itself only as a "High Definition Audio Device" btw -- I can't find the VIN number or whatever it was from that link.

Double-click on it, then click on the "Details" tab.

In the Properties pull-down menu, select

Hardware Ids, or

Compatible Ids

Include the alpha-numeric string(s) with your next post.

[CrankyCarrot]

@ SNova - Got it.

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0663&SUBSYS_104315D3&REV_1000

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0663&SUBSYS_104315D3

However - I just took the plunge and updated the BIOS to 204 and...

...I'm blasting Muse's Uprising and scrolling up and down on the browser and NOT hearing any crackling.

I knew it was the dam_n BIOS!

Muddled through Smart BIOS tool thing (accessed with F2 btw) and installed 203, then got a checksum error on reset, then installed 204 and didn't press F4 (which the BIOS had told me to do to invoke something after flashing to 203) and voila - working system, sans crackle.

This has been on my to do list for over a year - VERY happy to cross it off.

PS Did I need to flash to 203, then 204 or is each a cumulative update?

[CrankyCarrot]

PS Thanks everyone - beer Changs all around!

[astral]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

If that were the case, the disc would be dead and the machine with it.

[Spoonman]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

If that were the case, the disc would be dead and the machine with it.

Really, my PC at work is clearly dragging the head on the platter, has done for ages and is more noticable when under load, it is still live.

[astral]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

If that were the case, the disc would be dead and the machine with it.

Really, my PC at work is clearly dragging the head on the platter, has done for ages and is more noticable when under load, it is still live.

Only in your imagination.

The disk heads must "fly" and

if the head are indeed scraping the surface of the disk all your data would be destroyed

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_crash

and similar article under Google Disk Heads crashing

[Sateev]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

If that were the case, the disc would be dead and the machine with it.

Really, my PC at work is clearly dragging the head on the platter, has done for ages and is more noticable when under load, it is still live.

More likely, you're hearing a bad cooling fan bearing in the power supply. As Astral and others point out, by the time you heard a head 'dragging' on a platter, the drive would be complete toast.

[Spoonman]

Make sure everything is backed up, sounds like the HDD head is dragging on the platters.

If that were the case, the disc would be dead and the machine with it.

Really, my PC at work is clearly dragging the head on the platter, has done for ages and is more noticable when under load, it is still live.

Only in your imagination.

The disk heads must "fly" and

if the head are indeed scraping the surface of the disk all your data would be destroyed

See http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Head_crash

and similar article under Google Disk Heads crashing

The HDD "rattles" badly when it spins up and it has 40% bad sectors on it, it is only used for emails/basic document work and general web browsing nothing is stored on the PC so if it dies it dies, I'll just use my laptop which all my main work is done on anyways.