Dell xps 13 speakers crackle every few days, audio driver install fixes

Are you checking the version of the drivers you are installing.  It almost sounds like you install earlier drivers and the Dell utility will reinstall the latest?

do you have the version numbers of the Realtek drivers?

Are you using any enhancements or other changes to the Default settings?

Hi,

Welcome to our community. Share the exact model of the system, so that we can check for more details.

Let us know,
1. How far away from the laptop do you hear the noise?
2. Can the noise be heard in an office environment or over playing music?

I have the same issue with my Dell XPS 13 (9343) the speakers crackle intermittantly, whether using headphones or not (XPS Speakers). So it's not a speaker issue but other internal hardware or drivers related.

If I run Sound Troubleshooter, then during the detection phase of the process, it resolves the crackle for a few moments but then it'll come back again.

It occurs for any audio, including YouTube videos, Skype, Google Play Music stream, Audio file stored locally etc.

It's so annoying and renders sound useless on the XPS.....it's just out of warranty and I feel that this has seriously let an otherwise great laptop down.

I have the same issue with my Dell XPS 13 (9343) the speakers crackle intermittantly

Hello. I saw your solution in the other thread you posted in last night. I have added your solution to the XPS 9343 section of the Recent Issues FAQ.If the crackling comes back, please post an update. Thanks.

So its back to having the same issue.  I followed most of the suggestions you had in that thread jimco and it still has this issue.  it happens gradually, usually it will work fine for a short period of time and then the issue pops up.  Restarting whatever application is playing sound sometimes fixes it.  I think it may be an issue with cpu or memory as it seems to happen more often when I have multiple applications up or running.

I followed most of the suggestions you had in that thread jimco and it still has this issue.

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately there are no confirmed solutions that I know of -- solutions that worked for several XPS 13 owners.

Hi Jim,

The crackle/hiss is back :(

Only intermittently but its driving me crazier !!

This would seem to be a hard problem to find.  But you say either reinstalling the drivers or running the troubleshooter stops the noise, for a while.

So, it seems some event is occurring with causes the noise to resume.  Tracking that event down is going to take some acute system awareness.  If there was a time involved in the noise after resetting or some utility or file type resulted in the noise restarting.

Hard drive activity, how far apart or duration of the noise could be important.  Is there something in your environment going on and off, or something not even associated with the system?

Does it happen outside or another location.

Have you been able to record the sound or does even opening the Voice Recorder make any difference?

Are there any events showing on the Properties dialog Events tab for the Realtek device in Device Manager?  Keep track of the time associated with events, whether time of day or time between occurrences.

I'm keeping an eye on it and trying to figure it out.  As I said I think it has to do with memory usage simply based on the fact that opening new folders or other apps while playing audio occasionally causes it.  I'll update here as I figure anything out.  I do software development so I have some know-how, however I don't know all the nuances of hardware haha.  Thanks for the suggestions, I think keeping some kind of a log of occurrences and situations may be my first step

Update: when the issue occurs, pausing the video/audio and unplugging the charger from the laptop fixes it most of the time.  If it doesn't, pausing it again and plugging it back in seems to do the trick.  So I think this is an issue of computing power/memory allocation.  The plugging and unplugging changes the power mode depending on your settings, and it re-prioritizes.

Check my possible solution in this thread. No guarantees!

en.community.dell.com/.../20977293