I have check all drivers, audio settings and sound formats. I have a 2 yr old dell laptop with ESS Maestro sound card. Just recently all my audio files play with crackling/skipping every 5secs or so. Any ideas?
could also be that your harddrive can't keep up the audio transfer rate...are you running defrag or something at the same time ?
seriously tho, your should see if you can defrag your drive thoroughly (as your files might be fragmented all over the place, forcing the HD to do a lot of seeking), and make sure there's no disk-activity-intensive stuff running at the same time (or any other traffic on the ide channel, like cd access).
if it's mp3s, it could also be related to the processor...are you running anything processor-intensive ?
oh...the possibilities...
Good advice from Redux and Astericks...
If it worked fine before it should still work now. Has anything changed recently with your hardware or software config? Have you introduced any new software lately? If so, try uninstalling it to see if this may be the culprit.
Try listening with earphones. This will isolate speaker problems or loose speaker connections.
What audio source are you using? Are the files MP3s, wav, etc. This will impact the processor load. Turn off your anti-virus software or any other TSR programs that use RAM and processor resources to see if this may be at fault. Also exit other apps.
Try playing a CD (if you have a built in CDROM) or play audio from an external source via the line-in jack. If this plays ok, chances are it's your hard drive. Try defragging.
Last but not least, laptops are prone to over-heating, as everything is really packed into these tiny cases. Give it a good cleaning (compressed air, etc) to ensure vents are not clogged with dust and that air can circulate under and through the case (flick the little feet out). If the problem appears after the laptop has been on for a while then the audio chip may be de-stablizing due to excessive heat.
P.S. Get well soon.....
Last edited by Seldom Seen; Jun 12, 2002 at 20:52.
Good advice from Redux and Astericks...
If it worked fine before it should still work now. Has anything changed recently with your hardware or software config? Have you introduced any new software lately? If so, try uninstalling it to see if this may be the culprit.
Try listening with earphones. This will isolate speaker problems or loose speaker connections.
What audio source are you using? Are the files MP3s, wav, etc. This will impact the processor load. Turn off your anti-virus software or any other TSR programs that use RAM and processor resources to see if this may be at fault. Also exit other apps.
Try playing a CD (if you have a built in CDROM) or play audio from an external source via the line-in jack. If this plays ok, chances are it's your hard drive. Try defragging.
Last but not least, laptops are prone to over-heating, as everything is really packed into these tiny cases. Give it a good cleaning (compressed air, etc) to ensure vents are not clogged with dust and that air can circulate under and through the case (flick the little feet out). If the problem appears after the laptop has been on for a while then the audio chip may become de-stablizing due to excessive heat.
oh yeah...forgot the heat bit at the end of seldom's post...
i had a system skipping like a demented kangaroo because the airflow wasn't sufficient in my tower to cool the components enough...in the process, it also completely killed my network card...oops
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