Crackling/Popping Sound from Two Different Speaker Sets

Sir_William707

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Mar 7, 2017
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Whenever I play music or videos on my computer, there is sporadic crackling/popping noise. It's not constant, but it does get irritating when it happens several times within a couple minutes time frame.
One thing that I've noticed is that it happens with my computer speakers and with my TV (connected via HDMI on my graphics card). So basically the sound is output through two different avenues: via my USB external sound card (I just bought an EXTERNAL one to stop the interference, but to no avail) and via my graphics card. So it seems as if the problem lies with my actual computer. It could be that both components' cords could be getting interference from the electrical cords they are near. But I'm stumped. I would appreciate any help with this. I spent a lot of money on a new external sound card from Creative to try to get rid of this interference I'm having, but that didn't work. Thank you for your help!
 
Solution
Sorry you're having the same trouble there. I actually do want to say though that I did finally figure out what the cause was for me. It may be the fix for you, but it might be one of those updates as you said.

I had read about it before, but certain programs and features on the computer can cause your CPU to throttle. Basically the CPU speed goes way up and then way down. Settings in the BIOS can tell the CPU to do this for power-saving or for temperature control. On the other hand, my problem happened to be with a program that came with my Gigabyte motherboard, called EasyTune 6 (for overclocking, checking temps., etc.). This is actually a well-known program for causing these sound glitches, only I didn't know simply exiting it out...
1. connect some headphones to the PC and see if it is still present - so you can Isolate the source as the PC - if it is not present with headphones then it is something external to the PC.
2. Move all of the power cables away from the sound cables.
3. Try replacing the PC power supply with a spare one to see if that works.


 

Sir_William707

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Mar 7, 2017
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I tried plugging in headphones to the external sound card headphone port and my speaker system port as well. But still heard the sound. I guess I'll try moving the cables next then or replacing my power supply. You think it could be my power supply going? It's now over 3 years old and it's not a very high quality one I dont think. It's made by a company called ULTRA. It would kind of make sense since it seems like the actual computer is the culprit.
 

maarkr

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Dec 7, 2012
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do you get the noise when u use each sound source separately? can u increase the buffers on your sound blaster? lots of stuff can cause interference... fluorescent lights, wifi cables, bad usb cables, improper circuit grounding, heaters and transformers... sometimes it's tough to figure out.
 

Sir_William707

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Mar 7, 2017
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Well, good news!...kind of... I figured out today that it is my actual computer tower causing the crackling. I plugged a laptop into my speakers, and it did not do the same thing that my desktop computer was doing. I even tried different scenarios with the laptop, like making sure that interference wasn't coming from electrical cords near the audio cables. What further proves my point is what I said previously--that my TV speakers hooked up to my computer by HDMI does the same crackling. It has to be something within my desktop computer. Any ideas on what it could be anyone? Someone had mentioned the power supply, which makes sense because it's made by ULTRA (not the BEST brand) plus when I first got it, whenever you'd plug the cord into the power supply, it would crackle when you'd move it around a little. Also, I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but when you flip the switch to the power supply to the on position, you hear a small pop in the power supply. So, it might be the cause; it might be something else. I don't know what it is in my computer yet (that's the bad news :). I just don't want to be spending money every which way in order to figure this annoying thing out. Thanks for your guys' help!
 

jdlech

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May 31, 2016
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I wonder why nobody thought of this yet. Try turning the volume on your computer down and then turn your TV volume up to compensate. It could be the computers amp is over-driven.
 

Sir_William707

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Mar 7, 2017
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Well, I finally put in a new power supply that I bought, but the bad news is that I still have the same crackling and popping sounds with my audio. (It was probably a good idea anyway for me to get a new and better PSU, yet it is somewhat irritating that I bought it partly for this audio problem and it didn't even do anything for it.) I also remembered that I had some spare ferrite cores to reduce RF interference. I tried those on my usb cable from my external sound card, but still no fix, not one bit.

I have read lately that sound problems can develop from latency issues with certain drivers on the computer. I know it is not interference anymore since the ferrite core did nothing, so latency might be the cause, unless anyone has any other suggestions. I've actually done a latency check with LatencyMon, and the program actually found a few things that could be causing the problem, some of them being a directx kernel driver, NVIDIA driver, and usbport.sys (being the most). I'm thinking the usb driver might be the problem, so I tried resetting all of the drivers with an app but that didn't fix it (hopefully I did it right :) ). Plus, I noticed it starts causing latency when I use my USB WIFI adapter.

So that's where I stand right now. I don't know what is causing this problem; the crackling is so bad that it's unpleasant to listen to music that I play on the computer. I'd appreciate any help from anyone! Thanks!
 

subduck9

Honorable
Aug 16, 2012
2
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10,510
William, I wish I could help but I too am having that issue. Seems to be latency issues as well; Whenever I listen to music on any program its fine, as soon as I load into a game as well it begins crackling. I noticed a new update I had and it started. Only problem is Windows and NVidia had an update around the same time. And it's so faint I probably didn't notice it at first.
 

Sir_William707

Prominent
Mar 7, 2017
8
0
520
Sorry you're having the same trouble there. I actually do want to say though that I did finally figure out what the cause was for me. It may be the fix for you, but it might be one of those updates as you said.

I had read about it before, but certain programs and features on the computer can cause your CPU to throttle. Basically the CPU speed goes way up and then way down. Settings in the BIOS can tell the CPU to do this for power-saving or for temperature control. On the other hand, my problem happened to be with a program that came with my Gigabyte motherboard, called EasyTune 6 (for overclocking, checking temps., etc.). This is actually a well-known program for causing these sound glitches, only I didn't know simply exiting it out after startup wasn't enough. I had to totally disable it from starting up at all. Problem solved! It was all due to CPU throttling. Sound is back to normal again. If you wanna to try my fix or if you need help, just let me know.
 
Solution