digital audio initial skips snaps crackles pops

[John A Grandy]

Does anyone what could cause skips and static and other brief distortions
when playing digital audio (mp3) on my high-end laptop ?

This occurs for mp3, etc. files played directly from my hard drive via
Windows Media or iTUnes, and also for Pandora and other streaming audio. ( I
have Comcast cable modem in a metro area. )

It started doing this a few weeks ago. Restarts don't help. I also
re-installed the latest versions of the BIOS and the sound driver (
downloaded from Toshiba's website. )

Note that the problem seems to get better as the song plays. In the initial
few seconds very bad, in the next 30 seconds still bad, the next 30 ok, and
after the first minute only minor annoying (generally).

What else can I do? This is a very high powered laptop (2ghz dual cpus, 2gb
ram).

 

[Paul]

Does anyone what could cause skips and static and other brief distortions
when playing digital audio (mp3) on my high-end laptop ?

This occurs for mp3, etc. files played directly from my hard drive via
Windows Media or iTUnes, and also for Pandora and other streaming audio. ( I
have Comcast cable modem in a metro area. )

It started doing this a few weeks ago. Restarts don't help. I also
re-installed the latest versions of the BIOS and the sound driver (
downloaded from Toshiba's website. )

Note that the problem seems to get better as the song plays. In the initial
few seconds very bad, in the next 30 seconds still bad, the next 30 ok, and
after the first minute only minor annoying (generally).

What else can I do? This is a very high powered laptop (2ghz dual cpus, 2gb
ram).

There are a bunch of possibilities, and I'm not sure I can give a
recipe for each one.

At one time, there were some BIOS settings that affected audio.
Things like "Delayed Transaction" [Enabled], and setting PCI Latency
to a reasonable value like 32. But stuff like that tends to be the
default, and it's been a while since anybody needed fixes like that.

Another possibility, is if the hard drive has slipped into PIO mode,
instead of DMA. That can slow the rate that data comes off the disk,
and if the OS has several things it needs to do, there could be
a few bumps in the road.

(Workaround section of this KB article, has a suggested cure)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

(Run HDTach to verify transfer rate of your hard drive. A tilted
line, with decent data rate, is normal. A flat line at ~4MB/sec
implies transfer mode limitations and PIO mode. In PIO mode, the
CPU transfers every byte itself.)
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

Other possible issues could be changing power states on the dual
core processor. But somehow I doubt it at this point.

Maybe you can do control-alt-delete and bring up Task Manager.
See if, when the computer is idle, usage is 0%. See if there
are any tasks pinning one of the cores. Start playing a tune,
and either watch the Task Manager via the CPU chart, or look
at the task list, to see what is busy at the time.

You should also think back, to any software you added at that
point in time. Perhaps some multimedia application, burner
software or the like.

Paul

 

[John A Grandy]

I ran HD Tach. The sequential read speed was steady at 2 MB/s until coming
into 1325MB , where it had a downturn to 1 MB/s, then at 130 MB, a sharp
upturn back to 2 MB/2.

Is there some way to post the results here ?

Does anyone what could cause skips and static and other brief distortions
when playing digital audio (mp3) on my high-end laptop ?

This occurs for mp3, etc. files played directly from my hard drive via
Windows Media or iTUnes, and also for Pandora and other streaming audio.
( I have Comcast cable modem in a metro area. )

It started doing this a few weeks ago. Restarts don't help. I also
re-installed the latest versions of the BIOS and the sound driver (
downloaded from Toshiba's website. )

Note that the problem seems to get better as the song plays. In the
initial
few seconds very bad, in the next 30 seconds still bad, the next 30 ok,
and
after the first minute only minor annoying (generally).

What else can I do? This is a very high powered laptop (2ghz dual cpus,
2gb
ram).

There are a bunch of possibilities, and I'm not sure I can give a
recipe for each one.

At one time, there were some BIOS settings that affected audio.
Things like "Delayed Transaction" [Enabled], and setting PCI Latency
to a reasonable value like 32. But stuff like that tends to be the
default, and it's been a while since anybody needed fixes like that.

Another possibility, is if the hard drive has slipped into PIO mode,
instead of DMA. That can slow the rate that data comes off the disk,
and if the OS has several things it needs to do, there could be
a few bumps in the road.

(Workaround section of this KB article, has a suggested cure)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

(Run HDTach to verify transfer rate of your hard drive. A tilted
line, with decent data rate, is normal. A flat line at ~4MB/sec
implies transfer mode limitations and PIO mode. In PIO mode, the
CPU transfers every byte itself.)
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

Other possible issues could be changing power states on the dual
core processor. But somehow I doubt it at this point.

Maybe you can do control-alt-delete and bring up Task Manager.
See if, when the computer is idle, usage is 0%. See if there
are any tasks pinning one of the cores. Start playing a tune,
and either watch the Task Manager via the CPU chart, or look
at the task list, to see what is busy at the time.

You should also think back, to any software you added at that
point in time. Perhaps some multimedia application, burner
software or the like.

Paul

 

[Paul]

I ran HD Tach. The sequential read speed was steady at 2 MB/s until coming
into 1325MB , where it had a downturn to 1 MB/s, then at 130 MB, a sharp
upturn back to 2 MB/2.

Is there some way to post the results here ?

If the transfer rate is as low as you say it is, I'd try the workaround
in the "CRC error" article.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

And if you don't like the Microsoft explanation, here is a more
pictorial guide to setting things right. This will reset things,
by having the system redetect the hard drive and install the
driver for it. Which should clear the counter that counts errors.

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=61905

Your hard drive might be on some other controller, in which
case the recipe will vary a bit in the details.

Paul