Sigmatel Audio Chipset and Popping Sound

I have an Intel iMac, which I purchased in April of 2006. Ever since I have had it it has had an annoying popping sound problem. The problem happens 4 times at startup. The problem is noticeable at the beginning and end of the computer playing a sound. Such as a system sound or changing the volume. If other audio, such as an mp3 or dvd is already playing the system sounds will not exhibit the behavior. This is because the audio chipset is already active. The problem happens because immediately after playing a sound the chipset goes to sleep and playing a new sound wakes it up, causing the popping sound. I have had it at the Mac store twice and they could not fix the problem. I have asked Apple to fix the problem or give me a refund. They stated that they will not do that. They also stated that they are aware of the issue and that Apple does not consider it a problem. It is a problem for someone like me who is a musician and uses the computer to produce music. You can only imagine how many pops and clicks I here while creating music. Apple released an audio update in July which sounds like it should fix the problem. Unfortunately it did not fix the problem. I know the problem is unique to the Sigmatel hardware or software driver for the device because it has the same problem in other environments. I have Windows Vista installed on this same iMac using bootcamp and I have the exact same problem in Vista. So the problem (design flaw) is either with the Sigmatel hardware or any of the software written for the hardware. I also had an Intel motherboard, the D975XBX2, with a Sigmatel audio chipset on it. This board also had the same problem. I disabled the onboard sound and installed a Creative Audigy 2 ZS and the problem was not present. I do not know which audio chipset is being used in the new iMacs or the newer Macbook Pros, but I hope that Apple has switched to something besides the Sigmatel, because this is a very annoying problem (design flaw).

Hi...OK...Tx for the article...L

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Audio cracking and popping

These are my system specs,
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 3.3GHz
RAM: 4GB Kingston HyperX @ 2000MHz
GPU: Sapphire HD4890 VaporX 1G
HDD: Seagate SATA11 500GB
MOBO: ASUS M4A89TD PRO
PSU: Corsair TX850W
OS: Windows 7 x64bit Home Edition
So i have an AMD system running windows 7. Now whenever i scroll through my music or playlists in itunes my music suffers severe cracking and popping sounds. It also happens when i am scanning photo's and editing them not sure if that helps. I am at a massive loss in why this is happening i have tried rolling back audio drivers and what not any solutions?

hi i just like to say i had a similar fault though i would be surprised if it causing yours,but you never know,my fault was my laptop lid, [9 months old] it contains the mic ,and when the lid was in a certain angle crackles could be heard worse when i had my external sound card in, it was a faulty membrane [ lid to body] easily missed by engineer because it was the same angle all the time it happened,good luck, PS you English is very good
Message was edited by: sido1

PlayStation 3 (ps3) audio crackle and popping bug

I'm curious if anyone else out there has experienced this problem.
For a couple years now, I regularly render my projects to mp4 (h.264) files at 1080p for playback on my PS3. In Premiere Pro CS3, I had made a couple customized presets with all the right settings for smooth playback on the ps3, which took quite a bit of research and experimentation to get just right.
Now in Premiere Pro CS5, the few h.264 default presets I've used work really well out of the box, with one small caveat. On a particular music video I've been working on, the audio has quite a few crackles and popping sounds in it. I've researched the heck out of this, initially thinking it was a problem with my render... deleted my audio peak files over and over, changed projects to 44.1kHz and/or 48kHz, use the original WAV file, etc etc ad nauseum. What was most confusing is that I couldn't hear any of these popping sounds when I played the exact same mp4 on my computer. In fact, it sounded perfect on my computer no matter what I did. In diagnosing the problem, I connected my computer directly to my stereo (bypassing the PS3) and sure enough the audio was perfect... so...
My thinking now is it's some sort of a bug or perhaps a very nuanced incompatibility betweeen the ps3 and the mp4 file. I've re-rendered the mp4 in countless ways, tweaking nearly every encoding setting possible. So far, I've found two things that work and cause the audio to play without any clicks or pops on the PS (again, they all sound fine on the computer)-
1. Rerendered at 720p instead of 1080. Audio plays perfectly.
2. Replaced my video track with a single white color matte, rendered at my original 1080p. Audio plays perfectly.
Anyway, that's where I'm at. Given it plays so well on my computer, I'm half thinking the PS3 is on it's way out as my HTPC solution.
Curious if anyone else in the community has experienced anything like this?

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Good luck,
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I have a Sound Blaster PCI Express X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card?(.04.0000 Drivers) and it makes crackles and pop sounds when:
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Turns out I'm not very familiar with the Xtreme Audio cards which I'm pretty sure don't have an X-Fi chip, just some X-Fi algorithms in software. I'm not sure how much help I can provide. Have you tried CL Support?
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-Dave
?[email protected]

Laptop M500 - ST6422 - Crackling and popping sound. How to resolve it?

Hello
I own a toshiba M500 - ST6422 and from the beginning a had sound issues when i listened to music or watched movies.
I saw that a new bios version (2.50) was released to resolve this issue and I installed it but my problem is still there. I still have crackling and popping sound when i listed to music and watch music. It appears at random. I trie dto catch if the CPU reached 100% but it didn't.
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I really need ansers on how to resolve this issue, untill my warrancy ends.
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so, i went with it at a service who handle toshiba warrancies too. They tested the hardware and said everything is ok, must be a software problem.
So i did what you asked, installed it out of the box, and it doesn't give me the same bad problems, but they still occure but seldom than before.
So it must be a software problem indeed, which toshiba didnt resolve with the new bios version 2.50.
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Reset iPod touch: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
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- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
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Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar
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Replace the jack yourself
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Hi @donnabail ,
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Cracks and popping sound: A never ending sto

A few years ago i had few cumputers (always custom made) in which i always used the same SB Li've! 3.0 card (Windows 98 SE). Worked like a charm without any problem.
Then i upgraded to Windows XP and the problems started. I still kept using that SB Li've! 3.0 but i had cracks and pops in about every sound environment i used (games, CD playback etc). In the end, i got rid of the SB Li've! 3.0 and started using the onboard sound from the motherboard (ASUS at first). This was a RealTek AC97. All problems gone, no cracks, no pops, just great sound without any problems.
I did upgraded again, now to an MSI motherboard also with integrated sound (RealTek AC97). Just as with the ASUS, not a single problem soundwise.
Then a few days ago, i decided to look for an add-on soundcard again to reduce the CPU workload a bit. Guessing the old SB Li've! 3.0 and XP didn't go along fine, i went for cheap SB Li've! Audigy. Disabled the onboard AC97, removed it's drivers, installed the Audigy without any problems, updated the Creative drivers to the latest version and rebooted my system... guess what... the cracks and the pops in the sound are back in about every sound environment i use.
Today, i reverted back to the AC97... No more cracks and pops!!!!
Since i used a varity of hardware with various chipsets which all worked fine as long as there was no Creative soundcard involved, i can only conclude that your product has some serious problem (and regarding the same remarks made on various forums, i'm far from the only one). I tried about every solution i could find, without succes until this date.
Therefore, i decided that this will be my last Creative product ever bought.

Well, i got it working. I tried about everything i came accros (IRQ settings, PCI latency and stuff like that) but nothing really helped. Forcing IRQ's in the MB's BIOS didn't help and Latency was AOK.
Then i did read here somewhere that you can change your computer setting from ACPI to Standard PC in the device manager and that this helped. So i checked that but i could not change to a Standard PC like mentioned in a previous topic. Since i'm planning a complete re-install when my new Videocard arri'ves this week, i thougt "what the heck", let's do some extra testing. The only thing i could do was uninstall the ACPI driver. I did this, rebooted and i had to set a few settings (video and stuff) back to my settings because they reverted back to default. Also, every hardware on the USB asked for a re-install. Since everthing was still install, this was a piece of cake.
So after removing the ACPI driver (although the device manager says that it's still an ACPI PC), and resetting a few setups + re-installing a bit of hardware, i tried and soundcard and BINGO!, no cracks, no pops, no tics anymore. Sound is just as smooth as a baby's ass now.. :-)
BTW: For those interrested in my setup: MSI K8T Neo motherboard, AMD Athlon 3000+ 64bit, GB Ram, GT6600 256MB DDR3, SB Audigy LS, 200GB SATA Harddisk & a 40 GB HD on IDE as back up, Plextor CD 6x burner, HP printer, Cougar stick and throttle (modded), TrackIR, etc...

Audio Drop Out/Popping sound Problem

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I am running logic pro 8 with snow leopard 10.6.2.
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I was just wondering if anyone had any similar experiences or ideas and suggestions on what is best to do?
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It depends, are you running off battery when this happens? If so then morethan likely it is the audio hardware coming back online. In an effort to conserve power, what Mac OS X does is when you are on battery is that it turns off your audio hardware when it has not been used for a certian amount of time. This popping sound is typical of the audio hardware being powered up.

Random Audio Crackling and Popping on playback in FCP and Pro Tools

Hello All,
In both Pro Tools LE through an original MBox (with latest firmware), via USB and Final Cut Pro using an Edirol USB audio interface, I get random cracks and pops in different places that aren't in the actual audio files. They are not in the waveforms, and they never happen in the same spot twice...just random. There's no telling when they will be heard, but they are very loud and sharp, and I'm afraid of damaging my powered monitors, not to mention my nerves as I'm in the middle of an intense sound design for a film.
I've tried looking up this topic, and I've seen some topics mentioning sync/clock....like it's a problem with sync being generated internally, as opposed to using an external word clock generator. I never had this problem before on my older dual 2.0 PowerMac (PPC), and I really can't spring for a word clock generator right now...anyone else experience this with their Intel Mac Pro? I've looked for new firmware updates et al, but everything on the computer is up to date. This is really driving me nuts right now.
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Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 3.0

Interesting point about the winter/static. The only thing is that I never had those problems before with the same setup on my older dual 1.8 PPC G5 PowerMac, through several winters.
My current setup is a dual 3.0Ghz Intel Mac Pro with 3Gb of RAM. the RAM is the right kind and it has checked out as a-okay via numerous tests. The video card is the stock NVidea 7300 GT. For Final Cut Pro and general audio playback, I use an Edirol UA-1EX usb interface http://www.roland.com/products/en/UA-1EX/index.html (w/ updated drivers and all) hooked up through one USB port. For Pro Tools LE 7.3.1, I use an original Mbox, also updated with the latest firmware and all (got rid of the distorted noise problem with firmware update v22), also hooked up to a USB port. I used this exact same setup on my previous Dual 1.8 PPC G5 PowerMac with no such issues for several years. Both interfaces are routed to a Mixer, and onto my monitors. I don't think it's the mixer that's doing it because it didn't ever crackle/pop with my older G5, and still doesn't, which I still use for other things, but routed through the same sound system. I can understand the use of an external clock generator and such, but for many years, I never had this problem with random crackle/pop on playback with other computers that did not use an external sync/clock device. I would think that a computer as new and 'advanced' as the Intel Mac Pro would offer even better results than previous models. Again, the noises aren't printed onto the actual sound files, they come up randomly, but most often after adding a fade/volume change/effect and playing back.
I have just installed a PCI-Express USB 2.0 card for use with both the Edirol and MBox, just in case it was an issue with the built-in MAC USB ports. I will see if that helps.
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 3.0
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.3) Dual 3.0
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 3.0
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Audio Clicks and Pops appearing in clips

In the final stages of editing a project that truly tests your machine, I am now running in to a mysterious problem.
I am nearly completely finished with a semi-complex project. Just in recent hours, certain clips have started developing "Clicks" and "Pops" that are very, very distinct. This might be fine.... if I were able to correct them. But conveniently, it appears that Final Cut Pro X does not give you this capability.
Is there a way to correct Clicks and Pops in FCPX? If not, is there some explainable reason why my audio is creating these problems slowly and surely? (the source media does not have the clicks)
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I'm having the SAME EXACT ISSUE! Been driving me crazy! I had FCPX on SL, then upgraded to Lion a few days ago and it's been hit or miss with the renders. Some of them render properly, some clips sound fine inside FCPX and then render incorrectly, and some are fine until FCPX decides to analyze the clips and then it introduces all the clicks and pops which are then clearly audible inside of FCPX. I've done transcoding on clips that have come out OK in Compressor and they seem to come out fine. I'm not quite sure if there is any work around for those of us who have FCPX and Lion...
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Message was edited by: djoliverm

790i SLI crackling and popping sound issue solv

No, not by a Creative product but by a competitors PCI?sound card.
I am no longer experiencing any crackling or popping sound during movie playback and durring games on my eVGA?790i system in SLI mode on Vista Ultimate 64.
The sound quaility and performance are excellent.
I will be returning my Fatalty Pro this weekend.
I strongly suggest you do whatever it takes to fix your sound cards Creative. At least one of your competitors was able to design a very good sound card that has none of the issues that the X-Fi does with the 790i.
Your continuing to sell a clearly defecti've product has cost you my business, a customer that has been using your sound cards for 0 years.
Gamers dont want excuses, we want results.
If you cant provide them, we will buy from a company that can as I have already done.

so, i went with it at a service who handle toshiba warrancies too. They tested the hardware and said everything is ok, must be a software problem.
So i did what you asked, installed it out of the box, and it doesn't give me the same bad problems, but they still occure but seldom than before.
So it must be a software problem indeed, which toshiba didnt resolve with the new bios version 2.50.
Anyway, the problem is another one. I used to install windows in a custom way on 50 GB so I could use the best of the rest of GB for other partitiions. Now, with out of the box installationg, i cannot shrink too much of C partition (the one with windows), it doesn;t let me , so i am stuck with 119GB on C. Isn't there anything to be able to take like 60GB from C to another partition. I tried to defragment with it was 0 result.
Thanks
I am also waititng for other advices to be able to resolve the software problem with audio.

No Audio, External speakers popping sound. Help Please!

Apple iMac "Core i5" 2.5 21.5-Inch (Mid-2011)
OS X 10.6.8
Having trouble with the audio on my iMac. AppleCare is not an option. This system made a few stops between a non-tech literate PO and myself so I have no history for before the symptoms presented.
Problem Summary:
No sound from internal speakers at any time.
No standard audio from external speakers.
Constant high frequency popping sound from external speakers when hooked up.
External speakers known and tested good on another system.
Details:
Popping sound starts immediatly after startup.
No startup sound with either internal or external speakers.
Tried iTunes and YouTube video played on Safari without success.
In OS onscreen volume control looks and responds normally to volume adjust action.
Popping sound on external speakers volume does not change with in OS volume adjustment.
'Internal Speakers' NOT listed in SYS PREF> SOUND> Output Tab   ( 'Headphones' is listed ).
SLEEP MODE stops popping sound, popping sound restarts with computer but at slower frequency for a few seconds.
Actions tried:
Checked and cycled mute options in APPS> SYS PREF> SOUND & APPS> UTILITIES> AUDIO MIDI SETUP.
Quit process 'coreaudiod' in APPS> ACTIVITY MONITOR. * see note below
Checked that no light visible inside external audio jack.
Reset NVRAM / PRAM process http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Rest System Management Controller http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shutdown / Restart with ALL devices unplugged.
Extra Info:
Apple USB keyboard w/10 key
Logitech Wheel Mouse
'Sample' taken from 'coreaudiod' in ACTIVITY MONITOR
Analysis of sampling coreaudiod (pid 242) every 1 millisecond
Call graph:
2759 Thread_3183 DispatchQueue_1: com.apple.main-thread (serial)
2759 0x1000016a4
2759 0x1000071e0
   2759 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
    2759 __CFRunLoopRun
     2759 mach_msg
      2759 mach_msg_trap
2759 Thread_3184 DispatchQueue_2: com.apple.libdispatch-manager (serial)
2759 start_wqthread
2759 _pthread_wqthread
   2759 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    2759 _dispatch_queue_invoke
     2759 _dispatch_mgr_invoke
      2759 kevent
2759 Thread_3186
2759 thread_start
2759 _pthread_start
   2759 CAPThread::Entry(CAPThread*)
    2759 HALRunLoop::OwnThread(void*)
     2759 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
      2759 __CFRunLoopRun
       2759 mach_msg
        2759 mach_msg_trap
Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
mach_msg_trap 5518
kevent 2759

Have also done an Apple Hardware test. Both levels. Reports there are no problems.

Iphone 4s usb audio crackling and popping

hi my iphone 4s crackles and pops when listening to music using usb audio playback in my car
my ipod is fine just the phone that does it
anyone know of a fix ??

The system in your car is probably not designed for use with an iPhone. The radios in the iPhone can put out quite a bit of interference. If the system is not designed for it, this can result in very poor audio quality. Try putting the phone in airplane mode and see if the problem persists. If it goes away, then it's a compatibility issue with your head unit.

Sigmatel Audio Chipset and Popping Sound

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