XPS M1330 audio playback skipping and popping.

I have been having similar problems with my Optiplex GX620, where music skips and pops in playback. I did notice that every time this happened was synchronised with my hard disc being accessed. By changing my computer's physical internal configuration to make the hard disc master and optical drive slave (both on the same IDE cable), I have fixed the problem BUT only for playing music off the hard disc.

I haven't tried it yet, but my thoughts would be to next try changing my configuration so that the hard disc plugs up to a different IDE cable than what the optical does, making them both master on their own cable.

Another avenue to try is changing the IDE cable itself. I did read a successful story of this fixing the problem in a thread elsewhere. I believe an IDE cable is worth about 4 or 5 dollars, so I'll be trying that too.

I'll let you know how I go.

Anne,
I had the same problem for ever. They wiped it, changed the motherboard, the optical drive and had me on the phone for hours and hours. I'd be talking to someone from Indai and I'd have to put the phone by the speakers and say "there! did you hear that?!" The problem is with the wireless card. This is the fix:
1. Start / Ccontrol Panel / Device Manager
2. Expand "Network Adapters"
3. Right-click on your wireless adapter and select "Properties"
4. Go to the "Advanced" tab
5. Select "Disable Bands"
6. Pull down "Disable 802.11a"
7. Click "Apply"

Thanks to DeaconBoogie!

Anne, I had the exact same problem. This solution worked for me, thanks to DeaconBoogie on a thread somewhere. The problem is with the wireless card:

1. Start / Control Panel / Device Manager
2. Expand "Network Adapters"
3. Right-click on your wireless adapter and select "Properties"
4. Go to the "Advanced" tab
5. Select "Disable Bands"
6. Pull down "Disable 802.11a"
7. Click "Apply"

dicky -- there is no "disable bands" option under the advanced tab. Any suggestions?

Anne, I don't know if we have different cards or what, but the directions I pasted yesterday ultimately took me to the above-posted window. One thing you might try if you cannot disable 802.11a is to turn off your wireless altogether just to confirm that it is, in fact, interference from that wireless card, as was the case with mine, that is causing the pops and crackles. I can't describe the relief and unburdening I felt when I finally arrived at this solution. Please let me know what happens. You might just google "disable 802.11a" to see if there are any different steps; or call Dell and ask them how to disable the band on your machine (yikes!). Good Luck!
Dicky

I had the exact same problem with them and sometmes I thought it was solved, only to realize later it wasn't. Please do try disabling your wireless and play some soft music files and see if the problem goes away. If so, try having them send you a new wireless card. You've got me crazy now and I won't rest until you're OK too!

I know, I know--the exact same things would happen to me with Dell--even when the guy came to my home for 4 hours. It would seem like it was fixed, only to happen again when they were out of the picture. Please do at least try to disable your wireless (not 802.11a, just the whole deal) to see if the problem doesn't happen when your wireless card is not on. If that's the case, have Dell send you a new wireless card and you'll be good to go!

Dicky -- I am testing out your theory. I'll let you know how it goes. I really appreciate the help. I got very discouraged when Dell tried to tell me that it was a spyware problem, and I had given up on ever finding a solution. I hope this proves fruitful.

Thanks!

Well, that took all of five minutes. I disabled the wireless card and I still hear the popping. Ugh. Any other ideas? I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and call Dell back, as much as I hate to think about spending more time on the phone with them. At this point I am just furious about the amount of money I spent on this computer. NO MORE DELLS!

Oh, I'm crushed. i was so sure that would be it. One thing I should say, since I did this I don't hear any pops/crackling when I stream on internet or when I play music files from a CD or mp3's that have been ripped to my hard drive. BUT, i do get popping when I play music via iTunes (as opposed to Windows Media Player). Just thought I'd mention that on the off chance that you used iTunes to assess the result of your troubleshooting. Please keep me posted,
Anne.
Dicky

Anne, another thing you might try is to turn off your router/modem to see if you still have the popping. I don't know if your wireless card is different from mine, but to be sure that there is no wireless interference which might cause these symptoms, you might try this...

My xps m1330 is having the same problem to. It comes with a Dell wireless 1395 WLAN mini-card.

To add on, the distortion also occurs when Im using an external sound card, Cretive Xfi notebook.

Disabling the wlan card from device manager doesn't help. I'm gonna try switching it off using the switch on the side of the laptop.

Disabling the wireless card from the switch didn't work as well. How's your problem coming along Anne?

I haven't made any progress on it. I need to set aside the time to call Dell and work through some things, but I keep putting it off because I hate spending the day talking to them and getting nowhere. Let me know how your efforts turn out, and I will keep you posted!

Anne, here is a fix for your problem I have a M1330 with a
Dell wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card and was also having problems with intermitent clicks amd pops. You must do basically two things: First, go to control panel and click on
the sound icon. Select the playback tab and disable the digital HDMI output. Then select Speakers / headphones > Properties > Enhancements and select "disable all
enhancements" Click on apply to save these changes. Second, turn off the wireless card with the switch on the front right side of the computer. The problem involves the SigmaTel audio card's vista driver and resource conflicts with the wireless card.

I did what John suggested but it didn't seem to work.

I also reformatted my laptop. The sound was fine until I installed the drivers and software, and I kind of missed the chance to identify which specific driver was causing the problem.

However since so many of you suggested that the problem lies with the wlan drivers, I will try installing another wlan card...

I will probably call Dell tomorrow morning and try to work through some of this with them. I know that they will probably ask me to reinstall Vista, which I am not looking forward to, but I will let everyone know what happens. My personal theory is that the hard drive doesn't have enough memory. With 3 GB, it theoretically should be fine. But that is my suspicion. Any thoughts?

By the way...where are all of the Dell employees who are supposed to be frequenting this site? I thought at least one of them would have spoken up about all of this by now. Strange.

We all have the same model but have different software cofigurations and options. Not many other people are reporting this audio problem so we simply bought lemons and don't expect much help from Dell. Sandwich, you experimented with an external audio card but did you first disable the SigmaTel audio device? I tried using an external USB audio device and it completely fixed the problem, no clicks or pops with the wireless card turned on, so on my M1330 the SigmaTel audio device and / or its driver is causing the resource conflict(s). Although I have an effective work around for my M1330 it is still annoying to have to turn off the wireless card and when streaming audio from the internet I'm in trouble. I will continue to research this problem. Good luck to all of you.

I ordered a brand new 435 MT last month (2/09) from Dell, it's the latest fastest computer out in the market as of now. I have the popping and crackling as well. Just google '435mt and popping' and you can read my posts on this as well at the Dell forums site. Like you all I seem to think it involves my wireless card that i have from Dell preinstalled on the system. I made an interesting discovery the other night. I use my computer for audio stuff that I produce (podcasts etc.) so this crackle/popping has been driving me nuts :) My laptop that I got in April 09 from Dell does the same thing and it has a preinstalled wireless n card from Dell as well along with both systems having the 'realtek' audio onboard sound cards. Now onto my discovery... The other night I had my Plantronics USB mic/headphones on instead of my regular Sennhiesser headphones that plug into the sound card directly or my front audio port, and with the audio coming through the USB only headphones which are really nice in themselves, I had no popping or crackle at all even at very loud volumes with listening to music via USB headphones.. The same music I listen to via the 'normal' audio headphones, I get the popping incredibly much so. So I don't think it's the peripherials at all like the motherboard or wiping Vista clean or anything like that. All this is a waste of time in my opinion. The problem lies either with the audio card itself or the plug ins where you plug headphones in .. but the popping is also heard on my system without the use of any headphones so I have to blame the 'realtec' audio card or the connnections to it. Many people are bothered by this and something should be done about it! I spent 1500 bucks for a machine that goes.. bing ..ping... cling..pop ... pop .. crackle... pop.... and I am not happy or amused by it and if I had my right mind about me, I would have returned the entire system within the 15 day return window... but I got such a great deal on the system I didn't do that. :(

I've just tried the fix specified above by turning the 'Wireless A band' off and I must say.... I think that has corrected my problem.... !!! Jump for joy... I haven't heard a pop yet and my music has been playing for about 10 minutes already! I am surfing just fine with no popping.. something that before wasn't possible. Thanks for the fix, I think that has done it for me!

I have got this problem for a month with M1330 onboard audio. I 've bough a x-fi surround 5.1 usb external soundcard for solving this problem but instead it was big problem with about randomly 2 seconds cracking sound while playing mp3 files.

I 've tried to update all driver but it still not working.
I 've tried to use windows XP , the popping sound was decreased but it 's still found.
I 've tried to setup windows 7 , disable onboard audio, disable wireless and I got the same problem as windows Vista.

Today, I've just solved this problem by disable Nvidia powermizer feature at nvidia control panel, here is the way to disable it :

Open the Registry editor and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{**unique to you for nvidia**}\0000\

find PerfLevelSrc and change it from 0x3333 to 0x3332.

and the popping sound on my dell xps m1330 has gone forever.

You can find other ways to solve this problem here
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t...

Dell just replaced my motherboard and built in speakers yesterday and it didn't help at all. Can't believe how hopeless the Dell technical support is. I'm in the UK btw.

aiaikawa you're my saviour. I've tried changing the value to 0x2222 which is supposed to help when running on battery as well. Just to add, we must restart our laptop after changing the value for the change to take effect. Everything is working well now.

Dear n00b Anne Zehner,
I'm sorry your having this problem, it sounds like the person you spoke with doesn't know basic troubleshooting... It happens sometimes. Try this. If its out of box, find the disk that says drivers and utitilys and pop it in. Then power off the machine and as soon as you start it up agian tap (F12) as you startup, just keep taping until you see the boot menu. Once there choose to boot off the cd rom. Once you do, then choose a custom or systom tree. And run the audio/sound test. It wll play sounds and stuff outside of the os. If its hardware then you will hear it here. If not then it might be a driver/os issue

I also have the audio clicks / pops problem on my new XPS m1330 and this is quite problematic, since I use audio on a daily basis with external soundcard for creating dj mixes, music production etc.

I have tried everything listed here and at the provided by -aiaikawa- dell community link.

THE only thing that actually fixes the problem is disabling the wireless card.
For all of you that are experiencing issues with audio, it's a great idea to read this http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun08...
and run DPS latency checker. This way, you can easily pinpoint which device is causing the problem.

Now, while I know what the issue is, I very often need to use wireless internet and be doing music stuff at the same time - this problem prevents me from doing so and I am rather annoyed. I haven't spoken to DELL, but what could they possibly offer me !? I dished a good chunk of $$ for this brand new, loaded machine and now I cannot use audio and wireless at the same time?? My last Dell purchase for sure.

If anyone has had a similar issue with the wireless card causing the audio drops and has found a way of making both work at the same time (besides everything already listed here), please let me know....it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Sorry, the specs are:

XPS M1330
Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 Ghz
4 GB Ram
320 GB hdd
Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Card (the problematic device)
SigmaTel HD Audio (internal)
SB Live! 24bit External (external)

Windows XP Professional SP2
BIOS version A15 (latest?)
No quickset utility installed

I spoke to a friend who has a similar config but with an Intel Wireless 3945 Card and no issues with sound whatsoever...interesting?

I have pinpointed that the wireless card IS in fact the problem but want to at least attempt to have sound and wireless working at the same time :)) and I have also tried all the small tips and tricks with no success...

Thanks again.

My audio problems have been solved. I replaced the Dell 1395 WLAN card with an Intel 3945 WLAN card. Windows recognized the card and installed a suitable Intel driver so I have not bothered to install the newer driver downloaded from Intel’s website. I have enabled all of the computer's audio functions and its working fine. Here are some specs for my M1330's original configuration.

Intel C2 Duo T8100 2.1 GHz, 4 GB Mem
Windows Vista Home Premium
Western Digital 250GB hard drive
Display - Integrated Intel 965 chipset
SigmaTel HD Audio device
Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Card

If anyone tries to replace their wireless card make sure that you use a 3mm Phillips screwdriver or you might strip the heads of the screws. You can get a set of small Phillips screwdrivers at Radio Shack for $7. My thanks to all of you for posting your audio problems and solutions.

After fiddling for quite some time, the other day I decided to load Linux on to my computer. Since then, I have not heard a single glitch in my sound, with or without the wireless network connected. This raises the idea that this problem may be either in the drivers for the sound card or the wireless network card, otherwise an issue with an integral part of the windows operating system. I would rule out the wireless drivers, seeing as I'm using an aftermarket card (D-Link Rangebooster N 650 [DWA-547]).

Others seem to be using different types of sound cards, with little, or no improvement on the problem.

On the flip side, some seem to be finding replacements in hardware to be effective. The only thing that remains consistent in any of this is a windows operating system. Perhaps there is an update or patch for windows that addresses issues with sound/wireless?

I am also having this issues with clicks and pops. Turning off the wireless does not work. Using an external firewire Echo sound box does not work. I checked systems during the clicks. I did not see any issues. Does Linux support 64 bit software like Sonar?

XPS M1330
6 gigs mem
Vista 64
128 gig SSD
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.5 GHz

Horsepower is not the problem.

Hi I'm back.

Finally solved my problem after a long long loong exchange of emails and phonecalls with Dell UK.

I found that the clicking was caused by 2 sources in my M1330. 1) The geforce 8400m video card, 2) The Dell wireless 1395 network card.

To solve 1, follow the solution stated in the previous posts abt changing the registry value to stop the power stepping of the card.

To solve 2, get Dell to send u a replacement wireless card of another model, I got an Intel 3495 which works fine now.

Hope u solve your problem soon Michael.

I too have had the clicking and popping problem with the Inspiron 1525 I bought for my husband for Christmas (to do music production work on, of all things!). Thank you all for writing about your problem and solutions, because Dell was not able to diagnose the problem over a period of several months, during which time the motherboard was replaced twice and everything reformatted a couple of times. I got past basic customer support by writing a letter of complaint to the corporate headquarters, which resulted in my case being transferred to the Escalation Office, but still no results. I found this site, tried disabling my Dell wireless 1395 network card, and voila, no more popping. I reported this back to Dell, who replaced the card with another of the same, popping continued, and just this week, seven months after purchasing the laptop, it was finally replaced with a factory refurbished model with a different wireless card, I believe the Intel 3495. No popping so far, and hopefully the saga is ended.

I have to say, I am very annoyed at Dell's initial poor design and the subsequent cluelessness on the part of tech support. I'm glad I found this site and was able to correctly diagnose the problem, but I shouldn't have been the one to have to do that. I will write them a follow up letter and suggest that this problem be added to the sound trouble shooting scripts used by customer support. I don't imagine I'll be buying a Dell again, though.

I have a problem my computer has been taken over by hackers who have given themselves permissions and I can not get rid of them or the transfering of my files that they take even when I turn the wi-fi off. How can I stop them and change my permissions. I have tried everything, I have rebooted hundreds of times. But they continue getting back on. I am thinking I have to do something through the command screen to stop them. Help