Dell xps 15z audio scratching

Hi pierrescarlet,

Welcome to the Community,

Check with a earphone to confirm if scratching is only through the system speakers.If the audio issue persists with   earphone also, uninstall and reinstall the Audio driver.

To uninstall the driver,go to Control Panel,System,Hardware,Device Manager,expand Sound,Video and game controllers,right click on Audio device listed,click uninstall,(if it gives an option,,put a check mark on the box for Delete this driver software),Click OK.

Reboot the system and reinstall the Audio driver from the link below:

www.dell.com/.../DriverFileFormats

Hope this helps,

Thank You

Did you try using earphone?How is the sound from earphone?

the sound from the earphone is the same.

I did what you told, but  it did not helped me, the sound scratches randomly.  Please someone help me.

Hi  pierrescarlet,

Since you've already uninstalled and reinstalled the Audio driver  and since the issue is both through the speaker and ear phone,run the hardware test for audio.

Refer to this Wiki from Jimco to run the Audio test:

en.community.dell.com/.../19768710.aspx

Thank You

i downloaded "DPC LATENCY CHECKER" .(DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS, BUT  I SAW IT SOMEWHERE ON INTERNET) THE SOUND SCRATCHES WHEN THE LATENCY GOES HIGH. Could you please tell me what causes the latency to rise.

Hello. Excessive DPC latency is usually caused by a driver hogging the cpu thereby preventing the audio driver timely access -- this results in audio glitching. Many XPS 15z owners think the bad driver is the Atheros Ethernet Controller (only the 15z uses it -- the other XPS 15 models do not). The main thread about the issue is: XPS 15z Audio Crackling/Stuttering with network traffic over wireless (Latency Issue)

In the first post, James2K explains how to update the driver to a version that does not cause excessive dpc latency. Unfortunately there can be other reasons for excessive dpc latency so the update might not fix your problem, but it is the first thing I would try.

Hello. jimco

The driver didn't help me at all. The eeerrrn sound still comes.

Please provide me a moded sound driver.

Please provide me a moded sound driver.

Hello. I don't know of any modded audio driver for the XPS 15z and anyway the audio driver itself is rarely the cause of excessive DPC latency. Try this: replace the Realtek driver with the native Windows audio driver. To do that, go to Start>Control Panel>Uninstall a Program. Find the Realtek audio driver then right click on it and uninstall it. When you reboot the computer Windows will install its native audio driver. Check that it is installed by go to the Sounds properties. If it says "High Definition Audio Device" on any of the tabs then it is the native driver. If it says "Realtek High Definition Audio" then it is still the Realtek driver, so repeat the procedure. If you have multiple versions of Realtek drivers on your hard drive, Windows will install them before the native driver. When they have all been removed then it will install the native driver. Here is a screen shot of the Recording tab of the Sound properties with the native driver installed:

Now if you get the same noise while the native driver is installed, then you can rule out the audio driver as the cause. A modded audio driver will not help. On the other hand, if the noise disappears when using the native driver, then either continue using it or go to the Realtek site and download a driver directly from there instead of using the Dell supplied one.