Zombievac wrote:
Is this issue not still happening to everyone? I see the sticky with a supposed fix on the main forum page, is that not a full fix?
The two are separate issues. This one occurs regardless of whether or not you're using the speakers - it's a crackle from the left hand side of the system before and after a sound plays. The issue described on the sticky is a sound imbalance that was resolved with a driver update a while ago. The best way to notice this one is to:
(0) Ensure that you're in a quiet space.
(1) Close
all applications which maintain a continuous audio input. This is important.
(2) Mute the speakers or turn the sound to a minimum. If you decide to mute, don't
deactivate the speakers - mute them. This is simply so that you can hear the crackle better and is
not a cause for said crackle.
(3) Play the Windows 'test' noise or otherwise activate any system notification which plays a brief sound. You can hear the crackle when you open or close
any application with an audio input, but it's most noticeable with brief sounds. This is because when you open for example a video file there's a tendency to keep it open for a certain period of time before closing it again. The issue is still there but perhaps less obvious because of this.
You'll hear a crackle from the left side of the system just before and after the sound. As far as anyone can tell, this is due to the Realtek HD Audio driver's power management component which 'turns on' and 'off' the sound whenever there's an audio input. The problem could be resolved by telling the driver to
always keep the sound activated. This has been an issue with Realtek drivers for quite some time (see for example
here for a registry fix by a Windows 7 user. Note this fix
does not work in the Windows 8 environment).
Very likely every owner using this driver has the issue but either because of step (0) or (1) hasn't taken notice of it.
