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Crackling audio on XPS-13 7390
Whenever there is any sound playing on my laptop, it makes a terrible crackling/interference sound that makes it completely unlistenable. I have already updated my BIOS, chipset, and realtek audio drivers from the Dell website, and I have also tried a method I found in one of the already existing community posts that suggesting you replace the driver of some intel audio controller with a stock microsoft "high definition audio controller" driver. Nothing has worked at all and music is still impossible to listen to.
What should I do?
connortul
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September 11th, 2020 07:00
DELL-Cares
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September 10th, 2020 20:00
Thank you! We have received the required details. We will work towards a resolution via private messages to ensure the security of your information. In the meanwhile, you may receive assistance or suggestions from the community members as well.
AdrianG001
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September 11th, 2020 06:00
Your laptop would have have a Realtek audio driver pre-installed. Assuming that driver is still installed, switch to the Windows native audio driver to test the speakers.
1. Open the Device Manager (type devmgmt.msc in the Windows search box).
2. Expand the "Sound, video & game controllers" and right click on "Realtek High Definition Audio".
3. Select to "Update Driver Software".
4. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Click "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer".
6. Put a check in the box "Show compatible hardware" if not already checked.
7. In the list of devices, click "High Definition Audio" (the native driver).
8. Click "Next".
9. On the Update Driver Warning box, click "Yes" (install the driver).
10. Restart the laptop if prompted. If not prompted, then no need to restart.
[To get back to the Realtek driver, do it again but reverse the names in steps 1 and 6.]
If the speakers crackle even with the native driver then it could well be hardware failure. Contact tech support to have it repaired.
connortul
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September 11th, 2020 06:00
DELL-Cares
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September 11th, 2020 10:00
Thank you for confirming this. Just for the remainder of the session and for testing purposes. Could you please check if Maxx Waves is installed on the computer. If so. Could you please uninstall it and check if the same noise you hear is present?
Danielowski
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August 30th, 2022 14:00
I've been struggling with this issue for over 8 months. I bought Dell XPS 9510 in December 2021, and now in August 2022, still cracks. I spent about 150 hours of "support" with dell in mails and in WhatsApp. Each time with a new "supporter", I explained numerous times what the issue with crackling and latency was, and all they managed to do was recommend OS reinstall (which I did 6 times), motherboard exchange (which I also did twice), no help, driver reinstall which I also did no change. Then they told me "it's a software issue, and we don't deal with those". Hours spent on nothing, and on "solutions" that don't do anything but waste time. Dell support is really one of the worsts. I event sent them movies and videos with sound crackling, but they didn't care about that. All I heard was "reinstall your OS", "reinstall your drivers", "Set your processor to 99% power usage", none of it ever worked.
However there is one thing that should help you. Apart from ACPI.SYS DPC latency, Dell also is really really, terribly so much with IRQ interupts. What might help you is set certain applications on different Cores, than others.
To me, I chose that Cores 1-11 would be my "normal cores", and Cores 12-16 would be my "work cores". You can read more about IRQ here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/kernel/interrupt-affinity-and-priority
This fix will take you a long time, and it's manual, but it's worth it. Download "Microsoft Interupt Affinity Tool" from here: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/microsoft-interrupt-affinity-tool/
You will see a list of all drivers and services, by default their affinity is set to "any available core". What you must do is this:
- Find anything related to sound: "Sound output", "Intel Smart Sound for Bluetooth", "Realtek Service", "Intel High Definition", "RtkUniversal Service" anything that looks like related to sound, click "Set mask" and set it to cores 1-12.
- Find anything related to ACPI.sys, power or lid action: "System of ACPI.sys", "ACPI controller", "ACPI lid close action", "Power management", click "Set mask" and set it to cores 13, 14, 15, 16.
- If something doesn't look related to sound nor power, don't change its mask.
There is a lot of them, and sometimes they're duplicated. On my Dell XPS I found something like 30 "things" related to sounds, and around 18 "things" related to power and ACPI.
Of course you don't have to go 12 cores sound vs. 4 cores ACPI, you can choose any ratio you want. But don't do 1:15. Do 4:11, 5:10 or maybe 3:12. The most important thing is that these two "types" of processes work on different cores.
The program will prompt you for a reboot each time you set a mask, but that's unnecessary, click "No". Set masks for everything that looks related to sound, and related to ACPI or power management. After you check all that look interesting, then reboot. After you start, Crackling sounds should go away.