XPS 15Z Audio issue

cmaye35: All of it is unnecessary in my opinion! The face recognition logon software is useless, quicker to type a password. Also, that Dell 'Stage UI' interface that sits on the desktop is just clutter in my opinion. I can't remember what else was there, but I haven't reinstalled any of it.

My advice is to initially only install the basic components that make the laptop work and see if your issue is resolved. I installed Windows 7 and all the latest drivers downloaded from the Dell website, and the issue was gone. I have since installed lots of other software that I need without recurrence of the problem.

It is possible that you could achieve the same result by just removing bits of software until you find the culprit, but I wouldn't guarantee it. There may be changes that are not reversed by this process, and you could spend days messing around and get nowhere.

I think a clean install of Windows 7 is the quick solution, one evening and you're done, but only if you know what you are doing and take note of the following:

1. Get all the drivers downloaded from the Dell website onto a USB stick before you start.

2. Once Windows is installed, only the USB2/eSATA combo port will work initially because the other ports are USB3 and require drivers. These drivers are of course on your USB stick... Right?!

Steve :-)

I have no idea what I am doing.  I would royally screw that up.  

I think reinstalling to a clean OS is installing drivers that aren't causing problems. I have a friend who has the same exact laptop and he doesn't have this problem. He hasn't updated any drivers.

Hi there,

I have a new XPS 15 (L502X) and have the same crackling sound.

I tried many different drivers. I even reinstalled windows. All of my tries didnt worked well, but the problem apperaded different frequently.

The "best" drivers for me is the one from 19.11.2010 verison 6.1.7601.17514.

I think that the problem is connected with the wirless lan but I`m not sure about that. Perhaps other wirless driver will solve the problem.

Anyway I hope new drivers (sound drivers or others wich might cause the problem) , which will work will appear for all dell systems in a few days, but i´m afraid they wont.

Cause I have my 14 day send back time I,m realy thinking of giving that notebook back allthough it would be realy great without that issue.

A statement of a Dell Member would be nice. Will there be new drivers for the XPS 15 (L502X) soon?

found out the issue!!!

My speakers were shut off...i had to set the realtek speakers are default speakers!  But, if I have any issues going forward I will post them here.  But for now, that fixed my issue.  No driver issue.

i wrote a support mail 2 days ago, didnt got an answer until now... maybe i will phone them tomorrow... but i guess i will send the notebook back... cant get it, that dell dont fix such an issue and that the  notebooks arent tested on a known problem...

Arrrrgh !! So frustrating !! Since day 1 my audio is making a static noise. I cannot listen to music, youtube etc.. Same static sound all the time. I called tech support and I brought my xps 15z to a cerified store. They called me 2 days later to let me know that they changed the sound card and that it was fixed. Got back home, tried to play music and THE SAME STATIC noise again !!! How can that be ?? Please Dell find a solution !!

I tried even by connecting my earphones and the problem is still there..

I stumbled across this thread while looking for people that have rebuild their notebooks from scratch, but that's another issue for another thread.

I know the frustration when you don't get assistance from support and thought I'll share with you some troubleshooting techniques to locate the culprit application.

Start by dumping some music or videos on a usb key. Ensure that the usb is excluded from antivirus or spam scanning. Make sure that the drive letter of the usb is excluded from windows indexer.

Open the task manager and select the processes tab. Sort the columns CPU.

Open windows explorer and browse to the files on the usb key. Double-click to open any song or video. Monitor the activity on the task manager and make sure than your music or video player is the highest on the list.  

If any other process is higher than your player, investigate that specific application. You can right-click on the process and

select "Open File Location" from the menu.

Good luck

I think I may have found a "solution" to this audio crackling issue.

I stumbled across a similar thread on a competitors support site (Hotel Papa) where the culprit is the "Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)"; the same ethernet driver on this XPS 15z laptop!

The fix is to disable that driver either through Network Connections or via the Device Manager.  In my opinion however it's not a true solution because you're effectively crippling a feature to make another work better.  Luckily for now I'm more of a wifi user.

Let me know if it works for you.  My audio has been steady lately, and I will continue to monitor.  I am using the latest R2.63 HD audio driver I got from the Realtek support site.  

Per that support thread I mentioned:

<

To verify this:

Open up the little tray window for network connetions (left click the icon where you have the signal strength of your wlan) and keep that window open.

You will notice that Windows will try to "Identify" the ethernet network even though you have no cable inserted. While windows does this, you will get the stutter.

Even though the Atheros drivers reports to Windows that the Network Cable is unplugged, Windows keeps asking the Atheros driver to identify the current network. It appears that this will cause the Windows NDIS driver to be blocked, so all calls which wants data from the network i.e Firefox,MSN messenger, Spotify etc. will occupy more cpu-time while the stutter occurs (you can see this in the task manager).

Workaround for this is to DISABLE the Local Area Connection (Atheros driver) in Network connections.>>

http://bit.ly/qJPTFb

OH MY GOD ! It worked !! Seriously thank you very much for taking the time to post this solution !!! I cannot believe that such a simple step would solve the problem !! You are a genius !!!! Thank you thank you thank you :)

Yes, Works for mine too. Now..the wireless connection problem. Seems like it's never gonna fixed

Thank you cmespinoza for pointing out this thread.  

I have a few questions regard those of you that are still having the audio problems with your 15z

Have you noticed the problem from the integrated speakers?  Have you tried external speakers or headphones and noticed the problem there?

Did you notice the problem running audio diagnostics?  Start the system tapping F12, allow the basic diagnostics to complete and then choose hardware diagnostics, then choose custom tests, and then audio tests, do you notice the same problems while in diagnostics?

When are you noticing the audio issues, all of the time or only playing music is there specific programs that the audio problems are worse while running the programs?

Have you updated the audio driver to the latest version? The newest driver may be found from the following link.

Have all of you with the problem noticed that disabling the Ethernet adapter as cmespinoza mentioned earlier in this thread has helped with the audio problems?

If you have noticed that disabling the Ethernet adapter has helped have you updated the etherent driver to the latest driver has helped?  The link to the latest Ethernet driver may be found on the following link.

Thanks

TB

I have had my xps 15z for about a week now and today I just started having this same problem: music, voice, audio starts our fine but then fades to silence while sporadic static is heard. This happens when using both the laptops speakers and with headphones. The speakers were working just fine yesterday.

I seem to have fixed my problem and I have no idea how what I did would be able to fix this. At any rate I seem to be getting crystal clear sound from both my headphones and laptops speakers (though still tinny - headphones are fine). So what did I do?

At the suggestion of one of the previous posts are started trying to find out how to make the HD Realtek speakers the default. I had just assumed they would be and I really have no idea how to set that. But what I did was to right click on the speaker icon in the lower right corner and choose Volume Control Options. Then I checked off each of the three available boxes (All devices currently playing sound; The default communication device; Speakers).

Then I clicked on the arrowhead in the bottom right hand corner to show hidden icons and double clicked on the Realtek HD Audio Manager icon and changing the MaxxAudio setting to gaming (I just prefer that setting over the others for sound quality in general). However, I don't know if that really did anything because when I restarted the laptop, the setting had reverted from gaming back to music.

However, I notice under the Advanced tab of the Realtek HD Audio Manager that there is a power management setting which turns off system audio devices when there are no sound events. Is it worth trying to turn this feature off?

For what it is worth from someone who really has no idea what they are doing. All I know is that it seems my problem is gone and I now have great sound again [well... at least over headphones... wish Dell had used that prime real estate on the keyboard for a numeric pad rather than these very tinny sounding speakers. But that is another issue  :)  ]

Aras1

Thanks for the post.  If you find that you dont use the system much on battery power, yeah give it a go and disable the power saving feature in the Realtek drivers. Otherwise monitor the system just to make sure that the issue was not just a one off.

TB