Weird Audio Problems With Realtek AC97 -- Please Help!

[Creelove]

I have an integrated Realtek AC97 soundcard on my Acer Aspire 3000 (motherboard chipset SiSM760GX) laptop running Windows XP. Sometime in the last 3 months, some problems started occuring with the soundcard. When I play any audio (streaming/mp3/etc), the sounds starts to distort and crackle after a few minutes. Eventually, the audio 'slows down' as if the audio is running at half speed. These both happen intermittently. The effect is present on the onboard speakers, headphones, external speakers.

I've updated the audio driver and video driver, tried uninstalling and reinstalling the audio and video card, slowing down hardware acceleration, but nothing seems to work. I have a feeling something happened after a Windows XP update a few months ago.

Here's some info on the AC97 Configuration:
Driver Version: 5.10.0.6050
DirectX Version: 9.0c
Audio Controller: SiS(7012)
AC97 Codec: ALC203


Any ideas???

 

[Fragrant Coit]

When you installed the new Drivers, did you uninstall the old ones, reboot, then install the new?

 

[tipstir]

You need to update the MOBO Chipset drivers, reboot the system then install the sound drivers for the right model for your sound card and then reboot the system. I had the same problem on desktop as it was driving me crazy.

 

[pyromaster114]

I've been having a similar problem with an HP computer which has a Realtec soundcard.
The problem is that the sound, after playing for a moment, starts to skip, crackle, etc. and in general sound terrible.

I've looked and apparently there is not chipset driver available through HP's website for it, and there is no updated audio drivers... but the thing refuses to play audio files properly.

(Seriously, it's been this way since I got it out of the box... and that's bordering fraud on HP's part you'd think...)
I believe the HP computer is a tx1000 model.
It's my impression that it's the chipset or sound card drivers in both my case and this case could be to blame for this very large problem with audio playback.

 

[Fragrant Coit]

Either pull the side of the case off & have a look at the chipset, or use a tool like http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php to discover what it is you have - a Via xxxx or SiSxxx for instance, then you can visit their website and get the latest {and hopefully fixed} drivers from there.

Uninstall the old crackly drivers before installing the new ones though!

I had the same problem a few years ago & downloaded the drivers direct from NVidia {was an NForce Chipset} and that did the trick.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

I wonder if this post I added last week might have something to do with this problem?

quote
Windows Update screwing up Realtek Sound Card drivers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A recent Windows updated is causing the following error message on machines supplied with Realtek sound cards:

Rthdcpl.exe - Illegal System DLL Relocation

Or

The system DLL user32,dll was relocated in memory The Application will not run properly.The relocation occurred because DLL C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\HHCTRL.OCX occupied an address range reserved for windows system DLLs The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DDL.

Microsoft have released a fix for this problem, which can be downloaded from the following location:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935448/

I suspect that a later Windows Update contains a fix for this, so ignoring the thing may well pay off!
unquote