Speaker noise during Skype

[Valce]

I'm an IT in the Treasure Coast, FL area and a client of mine purchased an HP 22-b016 All-in-One on February 17 of this year from Staples. I got it set up for her and everything was great until a couple of days ago when she called to tell me that whenever she's using Skype, the sounds and voice of whoever she's talking with crackles and distorts. This problem only began to manifest itself a couple of days ago.

Calling myself from her computer, sure enough the audio sounds robotic. I have tried:

1. Turning off "Automatically adjust speakers/microphone" options in Skype.

2. "Disable all sound effects" for both the speakers and microphone.

3. Turned "Microphone Boost" all the way down.

4. Reset her modem. She gets about 30 mps so I know it's not related to poor bandwidth.

5. Updated the speaker and microphone driver to the most recent version.

6. Installed the newest version of Skype on her computer.

The first three corrected the problem for about ten seconds before the sound became distorted again. Oddly, the Windows voice recorder picked up my voice and played it back crystal clear; video and music online and local are equally fine. It's ONLY with Skype calls. Even the Echo service is affected. A spare (and much older) laptop she has, with the same aforementioned settings and versions of everything has no problem.

I have never seen this problem before and she is adamant about getting it fixed. The two-week return period at Staples has expired and I'm not sure what else to try. Chipset maybe? If this isn't correctable I can only chock it up as some kind of hardware defect and try for a manufacturer's return. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[old_geekster]

@Valce, welcome to the forum.

You have done a very thorough job of diagnosis.  Have you tried using the "Troubleshooting" app / Hardware and Sound" in the Control Panel to see if it finds a problem?  Also, are there any electronic devices near the computer that could be causing interference?  Otherwise, it may be a hardware failure.

Please click the Thumbs up + button if I have helped you and click Accept as Solution if your problem is solved.

[Valce]

I figured out the problem. It WAS Skype. I downgraded her to the version just before this most recent one and the problem no longer persists. Looks like it's a bug. Thanks for the reply!

[old_geekster]

You are welcome, @Valce.  I am glad that you figured out the problem.  I recently had a similar experience.  I updated the driver for the wireless adapter and my Fiber upload speed tanked.  I rolled back the driver and it work perfectly.  Updates are not always problem free.