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At a crossroads with the Latitude D830 (re skipping Sigmatel audio)
I have a brand new Latitude D830 and the audio skips at the drop of a hat. Here's some background:
Configuration:
Intel C2D T7500 2.2GHz
2 GB RAM
Quadro NVS 135M 128MB video
120 GB 7200 rpm hard drive
WSXGA+ display
Dell 1395 b/g wireless
Dell 360 Bluetooth
Windows XP SP3
Docked to a D/port with USB2 hard drive attached
History:
The factory configuration gave me error messages on every shutdown, so I did the following:
1. Updated the BIOS to version A13
2. Reformatted and reloaded Windows XP SP2 from the included CD
3. Installed latest device drivers (freshly downloaded from Dell's website last week; note that I did not install the Intellisonic driver--what is that, anyway?)
So I had a fresh install of XP with the latest drivers (and this is before I ever connected it to the dock and external hard drive), and the audio already skipped. Sometimes the Windows startup sound would skip and crackle. MP3s (played with WMP or Winamp) skipped and hiccupped about twice per song.
Since then, I've tried disabling the Bluetooth radio; I've tried turning wireless off completely (I have a "b/g" card so no "disable a" fix here). Installed SP3 just for S&Gs. Still skips. This is a 2.2GHz machine that can't play a 128kbps MP3 when all other processes are idle. (BTW, no CPU spikes when the audio skips so it's not a problem with background processes.)
Some thing reliably make it skip:
1. Dragging an explorer window around quickly (sometimes the window actually lags behind the mouse cursor, too)
2. My external USB2 hard drive spinning up (even when the MP3 is on the local drive)
3. But it will skip on its own if given about 60 seconds
This D830 is replacing a five-year-old D600 with a Pentium M 1.4GHz, 1 GB RAM, Dell 1300 b/g wireless, and the mobile Radeon 9000 chip. The D600 has no trouble playing an MP3 while multitasking or doing the things above. My thinking is that there must be something really wrong with the D830. So it's going back.
Now my question: Have the audio problems been reported with the Intel X3100 graphics? I don't play 3D games; I only paid for the discrete GPU and VRAM because I thought that it would ensure that this type of problem didn't happen. Reading these forums, it seems that only the nVidia machines have popping/skipping/crackling audio problems. I'm also considering downgrading to WXGA resolution for a few reasons that aren't important here. Should I give another D830 with integrated graphics and a lower native resolution a try?
Thanks for any input.
Jake
Jim Coates
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August 19th, 2008 01:00
Jake,
I'm glad you started the new thread and laid out your problem in full detail. I compiled all of those workaround solutions because I am not an expert on this subject and I felt I needed a resource to refer to. In my reseach I found that although wireless card type was much discussed, video card type was not. Only in recent months has it come out that the drivers for the cards could be problematical re the noise. For that reason video card type was not a datum I gathered. I will research this further but cannot do so tonight. One thing I can say now is that it is not only nVidia cards, but also ATI that had choppy/skipping. Don't know about Intel though.
The current expert on this is our moderator, Chris_B. Perhaps he will see this thread and have a comment.
Jim
PS the 60 second cycle (or 59 secs) was widely believed to be a symptom of the wireless.
dml2912
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September 5th, 2008 23:00
Hopefully my post isn't so late in the day that it isn't any use to you Jake...
I found your post here by Googling the problems I was having with the audio on my laptop and your symptoms were uncannily similar to my own.
I don't have a Latitude D830, but I do have a Precision M4300 and, as far as I understand it, the systems are very very similar - it seems to be that the only thing different on the motherboard is the graphics chip. I got to find this out because, while Dell were trying to help me fix the audio problems, I ended up getting a replacement motherboard - which turned out to be a motherboard for a Latitude D830. And, apart from me still having the audio problem, it worked fine!
This motherboard has since been swapped out again for the correct one and, 2 futile motherboard replacements and OS reinstallations on from when I first got the machine, I think I've finally got a solution to my audio problem.
After more Googling, I found some details this evening about the Powermizer feature of the graphics chip. This is supposedly an "intelligent power management system" that can save you laptop battery power. However, it also seems to be responsible for a whole bunch of latency-type problems - including skipping audio.
So I figured out where this was, turned it off and, hey presto, no more skipping audio!
The setting is configurable via the NVidia Control Panel. You should be able to get to that via the appropriate icon on your Taskbar, via an option on the menu that appears when you right click on your desktop, or through your advanced display settings. The only option in the Mobile group is "Change Powermizer settings" and I disabled it there. I also adjusted my 3D settings for Peformance (as opposed to Quality) in the 3D settings group, as that was a recurrent, associated suggestion in posts about Powermizer problems.
If you've still got your Latitude, hopefully you'll be able to switch Powermizer off and this'll work for you too. I'm also running XP SP3, but my graphics chip is different (it's an FX 360M) and I guess access to the feature might be dependant on the graphics drivers etc. I got a sense of this from some other posts - i.e. that some people had chips with Powermizer, but couldn't turn it off - but I *think* those people were running Vista.
The other thing to bear in mind is that, without the Powermizer feature turned on, you're very likely to get less time out of your battery. This isn't an issue for me, as my machine is almost always plugged in somewhere.
I'm really please to have fixed this problem on my laptop as, that aside, I think it's a great machine, and I was dreading having to return it. But I wasn't sure I could live with the shame of having an expensive and supposedly super-duper laptop that couldn't successfully play an MP3 :smileyhappy:
Good luck!
jakew8
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September 8th, 2008 14:00
Ha--unfortunately, I already returned the laptop. I never thought to check any sort of power-saving settings because most laptops disable those measures when running on the AC adapter. It's a bummer but at the end of the day I felt that I had to return it even if I found a workaround. $1500 should buy a machine that can play audio under any power conditions, not just at full throttle.
I am glad to hear that you solved your problem, though. Enjoy the new machine!
Jim Coates
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September 20th, 2008 11:00
dml2912,
Thanks for sharing that tip. I had already mentioned changing power settings in Choppy/Skipping Audio Workarounds but yours is the first post about a setting specific to the graphic card. I can't add your tip immediately because my thread is locked, but at some point in the future I am going to revise and repost it and I will include your tip at that time. Thanks again.
Jim