Sounds Skipping and Distorting

[MagGnome]

I have been having a lot of problems with sound on my PC for the last week or so. While watching videos using WMP or VLC Player or listening to music in WMP or iTunes, the sound skips and distorts as if I'm listening to a really scratched up CD on some janky old CD player. Sometimes it happens rarely, and sometimes (like today) it happens so often that I can't even stand listening to music.

Any idea what could be causing this? I've upgraded my video and audio drivers, but neither of those helped. I don't have any of the audio "enhancements" turned on. I'm really at a loss as to what this could be.

FWIW, Youtube videos play without a hitch.

[SilentScreams]

Go into device manager and try uninstalling your sound card. If you restart your PC after doing so it should automatically reinstall on boot up. I had a similar sounding problem before and this fixed it. I think it was being caused by some kind of driver conflict.

[MagGnome]

Go into device manager and try uninstalling your sound card. If you restart your PC after doing so it should automatically reinstall on boot up. I had a similar sounding problem before and this fixed it. I think it was being caused by some kind of driver conflict.

I'll try that, thanks!

[MagGnome]

If anything the problem is now even worse! :(

[biosc1]

Ear wax?

Can you check your processor when you are playing something? Just curious if it is maxing out or not. Don't have much of a solution, but it may be a symptom.

[MagGnome]

My system doesn't seem to be particularly taxed, so I don't think that's the problem. It seems to happen at random intervals. Everything will be fine, then suddenly it all goes to pot.

[Badger]

I had a kinda similar problem on my old rig. I noticed the cpu usage would peak randomly, and discovered that it was the media sharing service built into windows media player. It seemed to clog my cpu even when not actively transferring any data, I think something was corrupted and my os install was pretty far gone by then anyway.

Even if it's not chugging along at 100 % usage, random peaks can cause annoying sound distortion. Worth just going through and de-activating all software and non-essential services one at a time, see if it highlights any pesky programs.

[Karak]

My system doesn't seem to be particularly taxed, so I don't think that's the problem. It seems to happen at random intervals. Everything will be fine, then suddenly it all goes to pot.

Ok sir.
Lets walk through this.

What happens:
Sound begins to chop up and it doesn't have anything to do with the media type. MP3, OGG? But it is audio and video. Resolution of the video? HD or SD?

When:
Random. Sometimes works fine, other times does not. Sometimes occasional, other times very high frequency of occurance.

Things you have done:
Reinstalled driver, if anything worse now.
Rebooted

For me this indicates either the driver or the device but lets look at other stuff first-

So lets check a couple things:
CPU impacted during this? Goes high and low in Task Manager
Filesharing services running?
Harddriving being thrashed? Read/writing from the same drive you are playing on.
Right click the speaker in the windows toolbar. Anything strange, shows an error?

Physical issues with system:
Check the connections just because and wiggle them.


Back to the driver-
Look up the device and install the newest driver again.
Also find the device name and go to google and do a "device name + choppy sound during playback" search and lets see if someone has the issue.

IRQ settings in Windows. Is this a stand alone card?

Lastly:
Lets trace what you installed in the past couple days/weeks/months that this began to happen. EVEN if you have to just go to your program files and sort them by created to see if you installed anything that began to conflict.

Also you can reinstall codec packs to see if perhaps you maybe wrote over something. This can occur.

Next-

Download Media Player classic, KMplayer, and one other and run the SAME media files through all 3. Same stuttering?

[Shjinta]

With Win 7 my sound will get skippy and distorted a lot. What fixes it for me is going to Sound in the Control Panel. Then double clicking your device that you use for sound. Then go to Advanced and Change the Format.

[MagGnome]

It seems to happen more often when I'm surfing the web.

My guess is that either Firefox 4 or the new version of iTunes screwed something up, as I installed both programs around the time the problems started happening. I was using iTunes before without a hitch, as well as Firefox, but perhaps the updates hosed me.

[Karak]

It seems to happen more often when I'm surfing the web.

My guess is that either Firefox 4 or the new version of iTunes screwed something up, as I installed both programs around the time the problems started happening. I was using iTunes before without a hitch, as well as Firefox, but perhaps the updates hosed me.

Yep that could easily do it. Try reinstalling codec packs. See if it overwrites...whatever occured.

[MagGnome]

Thanks for all of the suggestions! I didn't see Karak's or Shjinta's comments last night, so I'll definitely try your advice!

[Stoke]

Any luck? The suspense is killing me! :p

[MagGnome]

Oh, sorry! The issue seems to have been resolved. I haven't had any sound issues for a few days now.

[MagGnome]

The problem returned yesterday out of the blue, and today it is worse than ever. Games/programs are also having issues. Terraria keeps hiccuping and screwing up.

It appears to be directly linked to my internet connection. For some reason the internet has been really slow today, and this seems to cause my computer to run like shit. Why would that be?

[violent]

When your audio stutters, does the video?

[MagGnome]

Yes, it does. The whole computer seems to stutter.

I can't figure it out.

[Seika]

Maybe some service running in the background spiking your CPU.

Run something like Sysinternal's Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653) at the same time and check if something is messing with your CPU. Then start killing unnecessary processes, see if that helps.

BTW, one of the AVG services caused stuttering in one of my games, and this is how I found out what it was.

[violent]

Yes, it does. The whole computer seems to stutter.

I can't figure it out.

How much ram? While you are running these stuttering videos, what does Task Manager report as your CPU and ram usage?

[MagGnome]

I have 4GB of RAM. The issues have once again cleared up for reasons I can't figure out. If/when they happen again I will note what is running at the time, CPU usage, etc.

[MagGnome]

It started happening again. I'm listening to music on iTunes and it keeps skipping. The CPU usage definitely spikes when this happens, but it doesn't come anywhere near 100%. More like 20-30%. RAM usage is around 1.67GB when normal and rises only slightly during the spikes.

[Karak]

Did you reinstall the K-lite codec? I would reinstall your codec just incase. Uninstalling it and choosing to remove all settings. Then reinstall it with the full install and see what you get.

Also a recent virus I got(3 weeks ago) on another computer would connect to the net and slow down the CPU as it burst data and did...something:( I am not sure what it was doing but combofix removed it. I don't have my notes available right now for what it was. But I think my firewall/antivirus was tackling it.

Also do you have anyway to see what services you are running. Check to see if you have any on access virus scanning.

[Karak]

It started happening again. I'm listening to music on iTunes and it keeps skipping. The CPU usage definitely spikes when this happens, but it doesn't come anywhere near 100%. More like 20-30%. RAM usage is around 1.67GB when normal and rises only slightly during the spikes.

Also can you run itunes without it connecting to the net. To see if itunes, running and downloading something is possibly the issue?

[MagGnome]

I really don't think iTunes is the issue, as it wasn't running most of yesterday when the problems were occurring. It could be the K-lite codec, but why would the issue only pop up intermittently then? Also, how do I uninstall and reinstall a codec? I've never had to do that before.

As for anti-virus, I have avast running in the background at all times.

[Karak]

I really don't think iTunes is the issue, as it wasn't running most of yesterday when the problems were occurring. It could be the K-lite codec, but why would the issue only pop up intermittently then? Also, how do I uninstall and reinstall a codec? I've never had to do that before.

As for anti-virus, I have avast running in the background at all times.

K-lite usually leaves a start menu item but you could also just download it and double click the exe it will take care of it even if something is already there.

Well you have 2 intermittent things actually.
The randomness of the time
The randomness of the symptoms.
Sadly, something that sometimes happens to some programms some of the time is HARD to diagnosis. That doesn't even include the broadband weirdness. I just like starting with what is in your face. Audio problems. Reinstall the device drivers for the audio and hey while you are at it the network card and reinstall/install k-lite. Its as good as anywhere to start.

[PathMaster]

I would def disconnect from the web next time it happens to see what happens.

[fitbabits]

For problems like this, it's best to try a process of elimination. Remove all hardware that is not required for Windows to start (video cards (if you have onboard video), sound cards (same), etc.). Basically you're trying to determine whether it's hardware or software -related.

If you can determine it's software-related, next thing to try is drivers for everything that requires them - including printers, cameras, etc. Replace them all - removing the old ones first.

[Farsight]

It doesn't really sound like an audio issue. That kind of hiccuping definitely sounds like a background task spiking the CPU. Sound is usually given a low priority, so when something else demands CPU time, it backs off and hiccups. Unless you have a Restore Point that predates the issue, I wouldn't worry about it until it happens again, then just start shutting things down and see if it continues. Start with the big stuff, like the web browser, and work back from there.

If it's an audio driver issue, many people should be having it, so Google should kick back results. If not, it's probably something more unique/peculiar.

[MagGnome]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone. I really appreciate it.

I just like starting with what is in your face. Audio problems. Reinstall the device drivers for the audio and hey while you are at it the network card and reinstall/install k-lite. Its as good as anywhere to start.

I already reinstalled the audio drivers with no improvement, but I will definitely reinstall the K-Lite Codec and my network and wireless card drivers. I wish I could just connect to the router via Ethernet, but unfortunately that isn't feasible.


For problems like this, it's best to try a process of elimination. Remove all hardware that is not required for Windows to start (video cards (if you have onboard video), sound cards (same), etc.). Basically you're trying to determine whether it's hardware or software -related.

If you can determine it's software-related, next thing to try is drivers for everything that requires them - including printers, cameras, etc. Replace them all - removing the old ones first.

I really don't think it's hardware related. I only have one piece of hardware in my computer that I could actually start up without, and that's my wireless card. I guess I could start up without my videocard, but it wouldn't be pretty, as the on-board video is really bad. I actually shut it off in the BIOS as it was causing issues when I first built the machine. I don't have a dedicated sound card. I definitely think that something is happening in the background that's causing the issues.


It doesn't really sound like an audio issue. That kind of hiccuping definitely sounds like a background task spiking the CPU. Sound is usually given a low priority, so when something else demands CPU time, it backs off and hiccups. Unless you have a Restore Point that predates the issue, I wouldn't worry about it until it happens again, then just start shutting things down and see if it continues. Start with the big stuff, like the web browser, and work back from there.

If it's an audio driver issue, many people should be having it, so Google should kick back results. If not, it's probably something more unique/peculiar.

I'm almost positive that you are correct. As I said earlier, the issue seems to crop up only when the internet connection is slow. For example, it was slow yesterday and the sound/video issues kept occurring. Yet today the internet is back to normal and I haven't experienced the problem at all.

When the net is slow and I start loading a bunch of tabs in Firefox, I get the sound issues. However, I also get the issues when I'm not browsing, so during that time something must be running/updating in the background. It could be Windows, my virus scanner (avast), etc. I really wish I could just beef up my connection, as that would likely alleviate the issue. Sadly, the way the net is set up in this house makes that difficult. I did finally get the people in charge of the router to put a password on it two weeks ago, which made a big difference in my connection speed.

[Farsight]

I doubt the connection speed is the issue, except in a roundabout way. Most likely culprits would be the web browser (or plugins - Flash can really go haywire at times) or the virus software (especially if it scans your network activity), or something running in the background.

Easiest test would probably be to switch virus checkers for a while. I've had good luck with the free MS Security Essentials.

[MagGnome]

I had some major issues the last time I tried MS Security Essentials. Granted that was a year and a half ago, so perhaps I should try it again.

It wouldn't surprise me if avast was causing some of the issues. It's been a good program overall, but it definitely updates frequently. It's probably scanning my network activity at all times as well, which could be causing some of the slowdowns.

[Karak]

I had some major issues the last time I tried MS Security Essentials. Granted that was a year and a half ago, so perhaps I should try it again.

It wouldn't surprise me if avast was causing some of the issues. It's been a good program overall, but it definitely updates frequently. It's probably scanning my network activity at all times as well, which could be causing some of the slowdowns.

Mags, FYI that Avast hammered the shit out of my system for some reason. It was so bad I ended up moving to Avira and Comodo. I don't know why I just know it would not let up.

[MagGnome]

Perhaps I'll make a switch then. Have you used Microsoft Security Essentials much Karak?

[Karak]

Perhaps I'll make a switch then. Have you used Microsoft Security Essentials much Karak?

Ya I like it for my Windows 7 machine (alienware netbook). But for my XP/Windows 7 desktop I just use Comodo full(free home version with firewall and with Defense+) with Proactive mode on and settings on "Safe Level".
It can be bothersome trying to install things so you want to switch it to "game mode" when installing stuff. But I really do like Comodo's frontend and its scanning is super lite on my systems plus its Proactive and Defense+ works fucking AWESOME! IMHO.

Avira is also good for a free antivirus.

Problem is, an Antivirus works well for one person and someone else hates it. That's just the way it goes. But for me AVG just hated my desktop I never could find out why but it thrashed my harddrive for maybe 2 days and created some bad stuttering in GTA4(the game I happened to be playing before and after I installed AVG.

Microsoft Essentials is great as well, I mean its light, does what it says and finds a good deal of stuff. Sadly, nothing is perfect so you just have to decide what level is acceptable to you for threats to your system. Also they all impact boottime. Comodo slowed down my boot time more than AVG but once it was booted never thrashed my drive. Since I don't randomly reboot my system just because I am bored, that was fine with me:)

[MagGnome]

I'll check out Comodo. Thanks!

[Karak]

I'll check out Comodo. Thanks!

Sure, I mean, for me at least, it works wonderfully. An excellent balance of newbie helpfullness and hardcore tweakability. And it just works.

Just remember Game Mode for installing and so forth. IF you don't you can end up having to go through a bunch of warnings as the system checks the installers steps every step of the way:)

[MagGnome]

Avast gives me those warnings as well. They are annoying, to say the least. It's definitely borked installs in the past, so if Comodo fixes that...that would be great.

[Karak]

Avast gives me those warnings as well. They are annoying, to say the least. It's definitely borked installs in the past, so if Comodo fixes that...that would be great.

:) I hate that. With Comodo I forgot to turn on gamemode and it was the first time I played Jade Empire after its install. Then Jade Empire started Direct X and Comodo asked if that was ok. The problem was that Comodo's window popped up UNDER Jade Empire. Took me like 9 minutes to figure out why it looked like my PC froze. HOWEVER, what is great is it has stopped a huge amount of trojans, and other puzzling items being installed and put into the startup on boot file.

[Farsight]

The one thing I'll say for the MS Security Essentials is that it requires no hand-holding. Just install and let it go. It has never interfered with my own actions or impacted system performance. Of course, it's hard to tell how well a virus checker is working unless you, ya know, get a virus...

But it updates itself all the time (or Windows Update will update it as well), does its scans and otherwise stays quiet and out of my way. :)

[MagGnome]

I definitely liked it when I had it before, until I hit a weird system issue and had to get rid of it. I may give it another go and see if it works this time, as it's small footprint is quite nice.

[MagGnome]

I installed the K-Lite Codec earlier, but the issue persisted.

I just uninstalled Avast and installed MS Security Essentials. So far, so good. Hopefully that fixes the problem.

[MagGnome]

The problem persists...ugh.

I'm listening to music while surfing the web. The music plays fine until I hit a link, at which point it screws up for a second.

I can play Oblivion just fine if I disconnect from the Internet first, but if I'm online while playing, it hiccups often. Disconnecting from the net is not a long-term solution here. Does anyone have any ideas short of a full re-install of Windows? That's really a last resort, as it's a pain to get everything set up again.

[Farsight]

Sometimes it's the best option, and can save ages of headaches long-term. If you can't narrow it down easily, maybe you should just start over.

You could also try using System Restore to go back a while, if possible. If you reinstall, you might use some backup software (Windows Backup even) to create a backup of your system drive.

Is the web browser always running when the issue occurs? If not, I wonder what you have that is accessing the internet...

[Karak]

The problem persists...ugh.

I'm listening to music while surfing the web. The music plays fine until I hit a link, at which point it screws up for a second.

I can play Oblivion just fine if I disconnect from the Internet first, but if I'm online while playing, it hiccups often. Disconnecting from the net is not a long-term solution here. Does anyone have any ideas short of a full re-install of Windows? That's really a last resort, as it's a pain to get everything set up again.

Hmmm...something seems really really strange here with this internet thing.

If it were me I would do this:

Reinstall Lan chipset driver
Reinstall Audio drivers
If problem persists
Combofix to see if something is weird like Wolvie and my issue with Steam earlier in the last couple weeks.
If problem persists
Rollback with System restore
If problem persists
reinstall windows.
That is if it were me.

[Crittias]

The problem persists...ugh.

I'm listening to music while surfing the web. The music plays fine until I hit a link, at which point it screws up for a second.Have you done simple stuff like clear out your browser cache and defrag your drive?

[MagGnome]

Sometimes it's the best option, and can save ages of headaches long-term. If you can't narrow it down easily, maybe you should just start over.

You could also try using System Restore to go back a while, if possible. If you reinstall, you might use some backup software (Windows Backup even) to create a backup of your system drive.

Is the web browser always running when the issue occurs? If not, I wonder what you have that is accessing the internet...

No, the web browser isn't always running, but the issues only seem to occur when the computer is connected to the net. If I disconnect and play Oblivion, I don't get the hiccups.

A Windows reinstall is something I dread, but I don't have very many choices at this point.


Hmmm...something seems really really strange here with this internet thing.

If it were me I would do this:

Reinstall Lan chipset driver
Reinstall Audio drivers
If problem persists
Combofix to see if something is weird like Wolvie and my issue with Steam earlier in the last couple weeks.
If problem persists
Rollback with System restore
If problem persists
reinstall windows.
That is if it were me.

What is Combofix? I'll try reinstalling the drivers for my wireless card. I'll have to find the discs though, or see if they are online before I uninstall them.


Have you done simple stuff like clear out your browser cache and defrag your drive?

No, but it's worth a shot.

[Karak]

No, the web browser isn't always running, but the issues only seem to occur when the computer is connected to the net. If I disconnect and play Oblivion, I don't get the hiccups.
.

Combofix is a shotgun fixer for malware, hidden registry stuff, and so forth. So much of a shotgun that I don't suggest it unless its a last resort. I have never had an issue with it, used it way over 200 times and it has fixed so much stuff, recently just fixed Wolvie's when I suggested it to him. But when something strange like this happens I get ready to download it.
ONLY get it from http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix

There are other sites that pretend to allow downloads for it but it is actually malware viruses itself.

It is a brute force VERY strong antivirus/maelware/hidden registry remover. So you just need to click it and let it run, sometimes you have to stay in front of the computer because it may ask a question while its working.

[MagGnome]

Okay, that sounds...interesting. I may give it a try, thanks.

[GrenMag]

What motherboard are you using? I know some of the intel boards have quirk that would spike CPU utilization if nothing was plugged into the LAN ports -- either one or both (for dual nic boards). Either disabling the unused port or updating to the latest driver fixed the issue. Just a thought.

[MagGnome]

I'm using an ASUS motherboard. I don't recall the model off the top of my head, but I could try to look it up.

[Crittias]

Mags, did you ever figure things out?

[MagGnome]

The problem has disappeared again, so maybe?

I'm not too confident though. :/