Acer V15 Nitro VN7-592G Speakers crackling noise

Nickn

This has been driving me mad for a couple of days now. I usually work in the evening after my family goes to sleep. I am sitting in a very quiet room and predominantly just type. Occasionally a notification sound would play through the built in speakers and just before that a crackling sound would be emitted. It happens every time system plays any sound, just before going online speakers would just give out tiny crackling sound.

 

After some research I have found out that this is due to the sound card on motherboard going into power saving mode and once it would go back online that distorted crackling would appear. A problem quite popular amongst laptop owners with Realtek sound on the motherboard.

 

Most of the time the solution is to download a new Realtek driver from the Realtek website, go to the HD Audio Manager and turn off power management from the settings menu. It does indeed work as I have tested myself.

After installing latest Realtek drivers from their website and disabling power management the crackling is gone as card never sleeps. But unfortunately it also uninstalls Dolby features that come standard with Acer audio drivers. Native drivers have Dolby but they don’t have power management settings in HD Aduio Manager.

 

So right now I can either have native driver with Dolby sound (which I really like) and crackling (that honestly drives me crazy) or Realtek direct drivers without Dolby and no crackling.

 

Anyone knows how I can install Dolby separately. All my attempts of installing them on top of the Realetk driver end in missing “PCEE4” dialogue.

Any thoughts?

sharky25k

Hi,

 

The cracking is done as you told by the latest drivers from Realtek. I think they screwed something up.

 

There were some reports in this topic:

http://community.acer.com/t5/V-and-VN-Series-Laptops/VN7-592G-blue-screen-after-installed-Windows-10-Anniversary/td-p/448047/page/4

 

Regarding Dolby, well download the drivers from the Acer webpage http://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers

 

And inside there is a folder called DS1 and PCEE4. In these folders are the installation files for Dolby. Run the installation from one of these folders and it will install Dobly, but it will not replace your audio drivers.

Nickn

Thank you for your reply.

 

I tried installing Dolby from the mentioned folder as per other guides and I get the "PCEE missing" error.

So at the moment only native drivers from acer website that you have linked result in Dolby installing alongside them but have the crackling issue and missing power management setting.

 

If I try to manually install Dolby over the working non-crackling realtek drivers I get the above-mentioned error.

 

Hence my frustration. 

Niaz

I found this topic while I was looking for an answer for this issue,

I have the same exact issue

a crackling sound just before a notification sound

 

no soultion found yet

Shumayal

I had posted this some months back. Can you confirm you are still facing the issue of crackling and if this is similar to the thread posted by me? 

Niaz

sorry for the late reply, yes it's the same problem.

Nickn

Hi all,

 

This problem has been present ever since I purchased the laptop and after multiple driver reisntalls and a fresh windows 10 installation the problem still presists. It can be solved if realtek would make a new driver with power management feature and support for Dolby features, as of today there are still only two options: 1) Install drivers from the acer website which will have dolby and will have the crackling 2) install realtek drivers from realtek website which will have a toggle for power saving mode, which eliminates the crackling, but it does not support dolby features

Shumayal

I had gotten over the crackling and popping noise but today has become worse (or maybe I just started observing it more).

We need somebody from Acer to please advise us! I really want to send my laptop back to the service center as it is under warranty but will warranty fix it? I don't want the unnecessary hassle of having my laptop formatted and data lost only for the issue to persist.

If this & the thunderbolt driver (Part 2) problem is fixed, this laptop would be perfect for most of us!

Nickn

I have spent a lot of time trying to fix this myself, and you are right, this issue at this point requires intervention from Acer. They need to update their drivers and add power management toggle. The feature is there, since it is the sole cause of the crackling, but Acer version of the driver does not have the toggle to switch it off. Maybe someone with more in-depth understanding of how those drivers work could help with force stopping power management via console or registry, but it seems far off at this point. Unfortunately, as far as Acer updating drivers for this machine any time soon.

TokenCDN

What realtek drivers did you try?

I tried DLing drivers from their website a couple of times and never could get them to install correctly. I've never noticed any diff using Dolby and not using it so I'd happily ditch it entirely just to get rid of the popping (sometimes I swear it sounds like I'm blowing a speaker)

Nickn

It has been awhile since I have done this, from what I remember I downloaded it directly from Realtek website. I really enjoy the way Dolby adds to the sound, so I decided to stick with crackling native drivers.

 

http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&Langid=1&Level=5&PFid=5&PNid=13

 

Try that link, if it does not work, let me know, I will look through my downloads and will just share it directly.

TokenCDN

The dl from the link you provided was for ethernet.

 

Tried yesterday again using the 2.81 drivers (all I could find) from realteks site. nothing worked. The setup claimed install was sucessfull, but the drivers didn't install. A manual update through device manager would get drivers installed, but the device failed to start. Other than Acers drivers, the only other that worked correctly are from MS update, and they're basically the same thing - dolby, and no power management

Nickn

Sorry for a wrong link.

After looking around, can confirm current version on Realtek site has no power management.

I have found couple of older driver versions in my backups, I will try to install them over weekend and see if I can find the one that had power management.

 

Just before I go, here is a link to some registry tweaks I managed to google just now, back in a day when I first found the issue I remember tinkering around that direction too, might be something interesting for you to read through while I am trying to recover working driver. https://www.eightforums.com/sound-audio/32229-realtek-audio-issues.html

TokenCDN

Thanks for the effort trying to find those drivers.

I did see another page with those same reg tweaks, but since my machine doesn't even have those entries, I didn't bother with em.

After a whole lot of screwing round, I finally did get the most recent realtek drivers installed. Had to manually install from the device manager using the hdxsst4.inf. Still doesn't get me any power management options, but so far I haven't been getting much popping either.

I also noticed on Acer's driver site, they have a audio driver for the 593g which is far newer (I'm assuming the audio drivers would be compatible). Didn't try it cause I was getting tired of messing with things, but it could be a better performing option

Niaz

up

Shumayal

What happened to your installation of VN7-593 drivers? Why have you edited out your comment?

Can anybody confirm VN7-593 sharing the same drivers with VN7-592? 

TokenCDN

My machine has been pretty quiet so far (pop wise and literally, the volume is much lower at the same setting), so I don't want to mess with it - just in case.

I can't imagine that Acer would've bothered to change the audio hardware between the 2 models so I'd imagine the drivers will work. If its any better is another matter. FWIW, I did install the touchpad and wifi drivers from the 593g without any problems so far… 

 

Nickn

I have checked all my backups and only found dolby Acer drivers unfortunatelly.

I have a clean windows 10 install, not the recovery, but a complete new download and install. It downloaded all the needed drivers itslef during installation and everything works perfectly fine. I don't notice popin with the drivers it has installed itself, but maybe I have become numb to it. Also volume is not an issue with dolby equilizer, I sometimes fail to differentiate if my TV is outputting audio or my laptop next to it.

 

What I would also reccomend as a little trick to make laptop run quiter and cooler is to download Notebook Fancontrol utility, it comes with a profile for acer VN line, it controls your cooling way bettter than anything Acer or windows have to offer.

And also undervolting the CPU to -150 witn Intel Extreme Tuning Utility has dropped average idle and load temperatures by around 10-15 degrees. That is actually a proven undervolt value for the 6700HQ, but your milage may vary.

 

Both tweaks are quite easy to perform and go a long way making this laptop perform better, if you need any clarification, let me know, will be happy to help a fellow vn owner.

TokenCDN

The volume output was a pleasant surprise. With the old setup, I would have to turn the volume down to the low 30s otherwise it's just too loud. Now I have the vol. at 60

 

I'll give those other utils a try. I played round a bit trying some undervolting a while ago, but didn't notice any changes worth keeping. That was with a different program however

 

BTW what exactly were you referring to by undervolting by -150. Didn't see anything that'd let me go down

Niaz

Tried 593G audio driver, problem not solved, still had crackling noise when I got notification message pop ups from messengers, I think the audio device goes to sleep state and when a pop up "dingggg" noise plays, it comes out of sleep with a crackling noise.

also the recording device did not work properly with 593 driver

TokenCDN

I am still having the pop noise, but I also found that if you go into the device manager and check the properties for Intel SST device there is a power management option that can be disabled.

<edit> forgot to mention these devices are in system devices not sound drivers

 

I'll try it out for the day and let you guys know if it helped