Crackling sound randomly while listening to music or videos on pc

[cogger1234]

For about the past week I've had a problem where I randomly be playing music or watching a video and the sound starts to crackle and sometimes skip. I've all ready tried multiple different headphones and speakers. I've tried using my motherboards sound card, my front port jacks, and then finally my internal sound card which is a Sound Blaster Z and the problem still happens on all of them.

My PC specs are:
CPU: i7-4790k
GPU: GTX 980
RAM: 16GB of DDR3
Soundcard: Sound Blaster Z
Hard drive:2x 500 GB SSD's and 1 4TB harddrive

 

[AdviserKulikov]

Is this sound loud compared to system audio when windows sound is turned to 100%, or background noise?

If it's background noise, I am fairly certain that you're experiencing electronic noise which usually is a result of high end audio picking up minor interference from USB devices or spikes in power usage from CPU/GPU. Motherboards without sufficient power isolation will constantly have USB power interference, my USB mouse hisses in my headphones when I scroll or move it if I have my amp turned up enough.

If the noise is major, then the connectors are possibly being rattled physically.

These are the most common causes in my experience. If neither of those cases seems to fit, there are many more obscure problems.

 

[smorizio]

try making sure have the newest intel chipset drivers also check the mb bios see if there any updates. with the power off reseat the audio card and check that the video and ram are locked in. if you have a wifi card or wireless keyboard or mouse see if the speaker wire to close.