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November 25th, 2020 03:00
m17 R3, audio crackling/popping
Hello!
I recently bought an Alienware m17 R3(About a week ago), the type with all the upgrades and best hardware in it, and I just noticed I'm having issues with my left speaker. I usually use headphones so I didn't notice it until I was watching some youtube videos in bed without my headphones and started hearing a crackling/popping sound from my left speaker. I looked online if other people were having similar issues and I can see there are some people with the same issue. I tried a bunch of the tips everyone else has received but it continues to persist, including...
- Changing the speaker properties to a lower format/disable audio enhancements/disable exclusive mode
- Updating to the latest drivers and BIOS (I checked in the dell support website)
- Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers
- Attempted to install an older version of the Realtek Audio driver (I'm not sure if I pulled this off correctly though)
- Messing with power settings
I have managed to make it stop (or make it unnoticeable if it's still technically happening) by forcing to use the standard, non-Realtek audio driver, but I'm not sure if this is really a good, permanent solution for my problem. I can confirm that I do not hear these pops from my headphones and my right speaker, It's only from my left one. I had also a few days before noticing this updated windows 10.
Any assistance with this issue would be greatly appreciated!
bbobjs
2 Posts
1
April 4th, 2021 21:00
Hi, I don't know if you're still experiencing issues with this problem or not, but I recently bought a "Dell Gaming G3 15" and had a similar issue to the one you're describing. I tried many of the fixes you described above. I tried; using generic drivers, manually updating drivers, changing power management options, several different registry edits, disabled enhancements, disabled exclusive mode, disabled hdmi audio...
Some of it made the problem less common but I'd still get frequent random audio glitches (every 5-30 minutes or so). Ultimately I got things to a point where the glitches were uncommon enough that I committed to just living with it. Completely unrelated to this problem I decided to start optimizing my system by disabling services that weren't essential to my usage needs, and while I was doing this I noticed a service called Nahimic. It completely lacked a description so I disabled it (along with several other things).
Due to the nature of these audio glitches I didn't immediately notice, but my audio problems COMPLETELY disappeared. Long story short I eventually isolated the problem to Nahimic. Anyway long story short, I'm still not exactly sure what Nahimic does, supposedly it's some type of 'gaming' audio software that I assume has something to do with directional sound processing... but it's also commonly held in low regard and is apparently know to cause conflicts with Realtek drivers.
^TL;DR:
1. Run "Services.msc"
2. Disable "Nahimic Service"
I haven't seen this solution offered elsewhere but it worked like a miracle for me. If it exists on your laptop I recommend trying it.
crimsom
9 Technologist
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6.1K Posts
2
April 4th, 2021 23:00
Hi @bbobjs the Nahimic Service is a well known Dell irritation and this PUP should be removed. Nahimic malware is categorised as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP).
Bernasaurus says: type services in Search, select and right click the app and run as administrator, in services scroll down to Nahimic and right click for properties, change startup type to disabled, stop the service. Keep an eye on this every time Dell pushes updates, as may be upgraded and enabled again.
AdrianG001
6 Operator
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4K Posts
0
April 5th, 2021 06:00
Let's try these procedures:
A51-06
7 Practitioner
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3.1K Posts
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13.7K Points
0
April 6th, 2021 06:00
If any of those dont work then just uninstall the drivers and use the microsoft basic ones. they allow up to 32Bit 192000Hz sound.
Korrozion
1 Message
0
November 23rd, 2022 14:00
Thank you from the high heavens! May the Tech Gods watch over you!