What is wrong with my audio?
June 25, 2009 11:24 PM   Subscribe

Sound trouble on Acer Aspire One netbook: Was working perctly, suddenly it's unlistenably lagging/stuttering.

I tried updating the drivers, to no avail. Running XP. Googling turns up nothing, any ideas hive mind?

(The effect sounds like a certain horrendous glitch remixing style, I briefly thought it was a deliberate effect of the music I was listening to.)
posted by kaspen to Computers & Internet (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
OK, so we have ALL audio stuttering EVEN AFTER A REBOOT that started happening FOR NO APPARENT REASON, correct?
Note that I am completely unfamiliar with the hardware, but if I were to have to try and fix this, this is what I would do:

First thing to check: open task manager, and see if anything is using up an inordinate amount of CPU power. If you find something, kill it.

Next, try setting your music program (iTunes, WMP, etc.) to a higher priority. This is done through the right-click menu of the process in task manager.

What are you listening to the music on? If it's the internal speakers, try headphones. If it's headphones, try the internal speakers.

Make sure the laptop is not overheating! Move it to a flat, hard surface with adequate ventilation.

Go to device manager (Start>Run>"devmgmt.msc"), check to see if there's anything with a yellow exclamation mark, especially anything audio-related. This could indicate a problem with the driver.

Check to make sure the hard drive hasn't reverted to PIO mode - XP does this sometimes. Still in device manager, find your IDE channels - primary and secondary - and open their property windows. In one of the tabs, you should be able to change the mode from "PIO Only" to "DMA if Available". Make sure it's set to DMA.

Try reverting to the original drivers that shipped with the machine, if you still have them around somewhere. Sometimes newer drivers are not fully tested and can cause problems.

Could an automatic update have finished while you were listening to music? Apparently a botched .NET Framework install can cause similar issues.

Unplug all peripherals from the machine. Go to device manager and disable non-essential hardware (e.g. disable the network card, but not the keyboard!).

Try logging in to a different account.

Try a Linux LiveCD, and see if the audio is fine there. If it still stutters, then its a hardware problem.

That's all I can think of for now, hopefully someone else will have actual experience with this problem and can provide better advice. Hope you get it fixed!
posted by wsp at 1:01 AM on June 26, 2009


Response by poster: Thanks for your advice. Everything else is running fine so I don't think it's a CPU overload issue, and it occurs with all sound, including msn beeps and youtube audio. I will try your idea of booting with linux and seeing if the problem persits, thanks, I hadn't considered that.
posted by kaspen at 9:39 PM on June 26, 2009


Response by poster: Yay, problem solved! For posterity's sake, the trouble lay with DMA channels and PIO settings and setting gettings mixed up for a variety of reasons. Over my head, but the full breakdown is here and there's a handy app that solved everything instantly.
posted by kaspen at 9:14 PM on June 28, 2009


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