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I have a problem with the Realtek HD Audio speakers driver. Everytime a sound is about to be play, the speakers of the laptop make a crackling sound, similar to the sound of static electricity.

I am using Windows 10 and have the latest version of the Realtek HD Audio driver.

I ran the Latencymon v 6.50 to check for latencies, and I get the following result:

"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one problem appears to be network related. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."

These results appear to be spot-on, however I'm surprised it mentions that at least one problem is network related, since I have the latest network drivers, and even when disabling the network adapters I still get the crackling sound.

I reckon the CPU throttling mentioned is related to the CPU exectution cap which I already set to 100%.

The other thing I need to mention is that this is a new laptop, and from the first day, even with the old drivers I noticed the crackling sound, and I assumed it would go away after I updated the drivers. I have all the newest drivers and I still get this problem.

The funny thing is that when I plug-in the laptop, it somehow does not give the crackling sound, but when I approach my ear to the speakers, I hear that they are on, even when nothing is playing ( I know because they emit some kind of barely distinguishable white noise). When the laptop is not plugged in however the speakers make the crackling noise before playing sound, and when they finish playing the sounds, the speakers go off ( when I approach my ear the white noise isn't heard anymore).

Notice that the crackling sound is heard only once: after I click on some audio to play; then the crackling disappears, only to appear when I got to the next song ( or audio file).

What do you suggest I do about it? In the beginning I thought it was a hardware problem, but given the fact that during playback the speakers do not exhibit any weird behavior, I am led to believe it is a drivers' problem.

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  • from screenshots, latencymon can be very specific regarding which drivers have high DPC time etc. not sure why you would omit that information if you think its a latency issue.
    – Yorik
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 20:13
  • A pop or crunch type of sound that only occurs when any new file is played or ends, could be an "offset", a crackle that continued beyond the first "sound" comming out , would be different. It sounds like your saying that it never crackles during the playing of the sounds of the file? but Only at the start and end?
    – Psycogeek
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 20:16
  • @Psycogeek yes, exactly.
    – CFLAGS
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 20:28
  • @Yorik It mentions something about : (ACPI.sys - ACPI Driver for NT, Microsoft Corporation), but I don't know what driver it is.
    – CFLAGS
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 20:30
  • @Yorik Thanks,that made the crackling go away. By the way, I noticed that I didn't have the newest drivers for "Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI) Driver ". I think that is the only driver I didn't update, and that was because I couldn't install it. Even now, I download te driver from the Lenovo website, give permission to run the exe then nothing happens. What is going on here ?
    – CFLAGS
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 21:14

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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You can try disabling the "ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery" in device manager and see if that helps. This will also disable the battery status icon. ( see for instance: http://www.virtualdj.com/forums/155414/PC_Version_Technical_Support/Disabling_acpi_sys_under_hardware_management.html ) Don't disable or delete any ACPI stuff without reading up on it first, though as disabling the wrong things can potential render you laptop unbootable (require a reinstall)

One other thing: I do guitar audio and I actually had better results with latency (not on a laptop) when I set the Realtek audio to 96k. So you might look at trying to adjust the sample rate for audio (control panel). Try 44K, 48k, and 96 and see if there's any change.

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  • 1
    That did not work for me.
    – Shailen
    Commented Jan 8, 2018 at 13:14
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I've got the exact same problem and been googling around for solutions. It's likely to be driver-related. Uninstalling Realtek Driver and let Windows uses its native driver fixes the issue for me. Please try it, if it works for you too then it's the Realtek Driver that causes the problem.

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  • The drivers were updated, I don't think it would be the problem.
    – Roke
    Commented May 27, 2017 at 4:32
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SOLUTION: Disable Fast Boot

STEPS: Control Panel - Power Options - (Left) Choose What The Power Buttons Do - Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable - Now Uncheck or Deselect 'Turn On Fast Startup' - Click Save Changes and then fully Shut Down Computer (not restart) - Power Computer Back On - PROBLEM SOLVED. Your computer will obviously boot up just a little bit slower with this option disables, but it instantly solved this problem that I had been putting up with for a year!

I spent hours scouring the net following every set of instructions I found, from disabling ATI HD Audio Device to updating sound, video, and motherboard drivers, to adjusting the CPU minimum usage settings - and NONE of them did ANYTHING - until I found someone on some obscure forum that mentioned this fix did the trick for them. As a bonus, I've noticed that my download speed is now faster than it was, and my computer no longer lags while downloading or while on YouTube. I can multitask again!

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  • If you understand the actual ramifications of that change, you would not make this comment as there is zero overlap between the components in question.
    – Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
    Commented Nov 24, 2018 at 0:22
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Your going to have to disable it and after that remove the realtex do not REBOOT the computer/laptop yet.

Follow these last steps if not Realtex is going to keep auto install your drivers and the cracking sound will come back regardless what you do

Go to Program file

Click on Realtex Click on Audio Click on HDA

Right Click on file RTUPD64 Something like that click on properties after that your going to look at the tabs look for SECURITY, Click on SYSTEM click sure you (DENY) when your done apply the setting and ok. Your safe to Reboot.

Once the computer is rebooted it should have other sound drivers to the computer This is for Windows 10

FYI doesn't matter if you update your drivers, and power setting, CPU the problem is going to stick around until Realtex fixes their issues. Follow the steps I've you and cracking sound will be gone

Enjoy No Cracking Sound....

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Bluetooth and Wifi controllers or Drivers are usually built in together. So try disabling Bluetooth, I was getting a lot of lag from the bluetooth controller even if it's not being used.

Here are some interesting guides on this topic:

Other things that interfere with the network device process is the Firewall as it processes a lot of the packets at various levels. So, try to see which one you are using and if turning it off helps.

I have this crackling sound problem too when using wifi or the cpu is busy on a Lenovo S145, which other people have as I've seen on their forums.

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