lgree

Hi,

I'm new to this site, but hoping I will be able to find a solution to this very frustrating problem. I'll give as much information as I can, and apologies in advance for anything that's missing . . .

I have a Dell inspiron 1521 laptop, which I've had for 2 years. It came with Vista, but I reverted to XP after a year, partially because of the problem that I'm writing about here, and partially because I was already really used to XP.

I teach music classes, and play examples from this laptop for my students nearly every time I teach. Generally I do this from itunes, and plug the computer into the classroom stereo speakers so that everyone can hear. After about 9 months of doing this, I began to notice distortion in the sound coming from my computer. It sounds like a scratchy click, and generally it happens a few times in a row, in rapid succession. These sounds do not correspond to any particular part of any track (i.e. I can play a song twice and it will happen both times, but at different and random parts of the song), and they were happening when I played through the classroom speakers, through the computer's speakers, and with my headphones plugged in. It was also happening regardless of whether I played the example from itunes or Windows Media Player, or through a web browser (usually internet explorer). The distortion was happening on tracks I had downloaded through itunes, amazon.com, as well on ones that I had ripped from CD's I own. Finally, it seemed to be getting worse, i.e. the sounds would happen more frequently, like at least once a minute -- music students really notice and get annoyed by this kind of thing (me, too), so I started calling Dell to ask for solutions.

Dell customer service started with the usual routine, making sure that my speakers functioned properly, etc. The speakers work, I explained, but with distortion. The first few technicians I spoke with couldn't figure it out, but then I got a guy who told me that this was a problem caused by an incompatibility issue between Vista and itunes. He advised me to reformat my hard drive, and then to download itunes, but thereafter to never allow itunes to update to a newer version -- he said there was something that happened in this updating process that caused the distortion in the line. So, I did what he said, and it seemed to work -- I didn't hear any more distortion, and taught the 08-09 school year without hearing any problems or getting any complaints from my students. Also, I switched back to XP a year ago -- always liked it better, and since the whole problem supposedly came from Vista, it seemed like a good idea.

Fastforward to today, and the distortion is back -- I don't remember when exactly it started, but it's definitely been happening for the past 3 months. School starts Monday, so I really want to get this fixed. Thinking back to teh solution that made it go away the first time, not all of that seems to be entirely true -- that is, this doesn't seem to be a problem caused by Vista, because I switched to XP a year ago. I've been using itunes this whole time, so I'm not sure if the distortion comes from some problem with that application. I wasn't downloading the itunes updates, if that makes a difference. Thinking the same routine might fix it, I reformatted my hard drive a few days ago. But, to my complete dismay, the distortion is still there! It happens regardless of the application I use to play music (itunes, windows media player, i explorer -- all the same problem). The one thing I didn't do was to test it before downloading itunes.

What I want to know, beyond the standard can-anybody-help-me, is if anyone knows if itunes chronically causes this problem. I've downloaded a lot of music that I can only play through itunes, so I'd prefer to keep using the application, but will find another way, if I have to.

I have a sound card from Creative (Xtreme Audio notebook, model #SB0710) that I've never installed. Would installing it possibly make this problem go away? My guess is no, but just throwing it out there.

Also, I don't know if this thread really belongs in another forum, so if anyone has an opinion about that, please post it.

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads through all that -- I know it's long, but thought it would be better to give a detailed description.

wracked with audio frustration,
Lara

MikenandezNST

If the problem is related to your card then yes another card would fix the issue, ifrst try updating your current sound card from the manufacturer's website if your laptop vendor does not offer them.

Also have a look here for some tips http://www.fonerbooks.com/speakers.htm