Crackling Left Speaker on Brand New HP Spectre x360

[SAMSP]

That was my point too. A high end laptop like that should go through rigourous quality check. 

[clubtc05]

Did they ever fix it? I  sent mine in TWICE and I still get a crackling from my left speaker, I don't know what to do, I am a patient guy and I don't get upset easly but this is ridiculous, both times they said they replaced the speakers but I don't think they tested it.

[nbt52816]

for me, they fixed the speaker on the first try. The second time I had to send it back was because of a USB hub so it was totally different. But I agree. I don’t think their quality checks are as good as they should be on such an expensive laptop. My recommendation is call back and throw a fit. That is what I did the second time I sent it back ( since it was like the second time in a month) and they escalated it to a high priority and a bunch of other words that made it sound like it was getting paid more attention than normal. I basically told them that I spent $1400 on a laptop that needed to go in for repairs twice and how poorly that reflected on the quality of HP products and I’d be sure to never buy anything from them again. I really hope it works out for you.

[nbt52816]

Oh, I almost forgot. When you send in your laptop for repairs and even if they are just doing a speaker replacement, they uninstall everything (Symantec, photoshop, adobe, etc) on your computer. I’m not sure why, but they do. So just make sure you still have the executable lying somewhere in your documents

[granitehead]

I think I have the same problem with the refurbished x360 spectre 15-bl012dx I just received. Left speaker rattles/crackles on lower frequencies with certain you tube videos; others ok... it's not constant.  I updated RealTek audio driver to latest dated Dec-2017.  No problem through headphones or external bluetooth speaker. Sounds like blown speaker membrane.

[clubtc05]

Sorry for the late reply! But I called HP back and was super nice and I told them I made a video comparing the speakers with my old laptop and a bluetooth speaker, showing them the problem. Since the issue wasn't fixed, they offered me gift cards for HP.com or send me a brand new laptop ( same one but with 8th gen Core I7) and send in my old one. I choose to send me a brand new laptop with the 8th gen and I got it a few days ago and it's works great! 😄 

[ezcomeezgo]

I bought the 8th gen £1899 laptop thinking it has to be super awesome peice of hardware......but I was wrong

I also heard the crackling sound and thought it might be the way the laptop is configure. Updated all the drviers and still no luck. I missed the return time slot as was travelling. Now I have to deal with repairs and bla bla. 

Stay away from this machine as I returned a machine already with stuck keyboard. 

[wtf222]

   Just to update everyone from my 12/13/17 post.  I had my HP Spectre x360 brand new out of the box for 1 hour before I discovered the crackling speaker issue.  I immediately put it back in the box and shipped it back to HP the next morning 12/14 for a full refund.  I paid way too much money for a top of the line laptop to deal with this kind of nonsense.  HP did refund the money without any issues.

  I will be very hesitant to purchase an HP laptop in the future.  Also, clearly other consumers are having the same issue with the HP Spectre x360  laptop being garbage, and yet it's consistently rated among the top slim laptops on the market.  It makes you wonder if these laptop review websites even do their own research or just copy each others reviews.

  For my next laptop I will strive to keep it under $1,000 to at least try to get the most bang for my buck.  No need to pay a premium for a laptop like the HP Spectre x360 if it's a piece of junk.

Lesson learned.  My brother swears I should have bought an Apple laptop instead.  He loves his Apple Macbook.  I have always used windows and don't want to learn the intricacies of Apple's operating system.  For those of you who are willing to give it a shot, Apple's laptops carry superb ratings and have a fan base like no other.

[ezcomeezgo]

I was not lucky enough as I already ruturned two devices. First one I returned (which also had the issue) but I didnt focus that much on it. I returned it because after a week the price went down £300. I got a new one and it didnt have speaker issue byt stuck keyboard. i returned that one as well and got third one with everything ok but speaker sound like something is blocking it (almost Crackling). But as soon as I got that machine I went out of country so I coudnt arrange the return. Now I came back and its too late to return. I do agree with  you, its an over priced machine whoes quality is not even comparable to an acer machine which I bought for less than £300 pound. 

Also do you guys find it difficult to open the lid of the laptop? I find it a very bad design. 

[Socaldglf]

To confirm you are experiencing the same problem (I found this issue all over the internet looking for a fix, so there is a lot of dialogue below to get everyone to the right solution for your system):

MY ISSUE: Any sound, be it a notification, trying to play music, etc. results in a loud crackling, popping, and/or hissing noise (for me it sounded exclusive to the front-right speaker, but other people have been experiencing from the front-left speaker as well.) I am using a 2017 HP Spectre x360 13t bought a couple weeks ago, without having any drops or spills…still in mint condition (8th Gen i7, 16GB RAM, Bang & Olufsen speakers – Although, this also appears to be an issue with HP laptops using Beats speakers, models other than the Spectre (including Envy), and has been ongoing since at least 2016. The issue initially appears to be with the Realtek driver. This is likely part of the issue, but a BIOS update may be needed as well (more on this below, but this will also allow the continued use of the B&O system rather than moving to a generic driver.) And, you need to find the BIOS update in the right place as well – HP Support Assistant did NOT have it (It was found at support.hp.com.) 

The solution posted in 2016 appears to have worked for most people (I will repost below to ensure that everyone has that available too), but as of February 19, 2018, the generic (non-Realtek) driver was no longer available to select from the Device Manager). Consider the following solution instead (this should work on older models as well, but the old solution may still work for old models, even if this new one does not.)

Also it is a good idea to create a restore point before attempting this in case you make a mistake.

2018 Solution (again, this worked for a 2017 edition HP Spectre x360 13t):

HP Support Assistant did not recognize that the audio driver was out-of-date, nor that there was a BIOS update available. My company’s third party IT support group, LeftClickHere (www.leftclickhere.com), was fortunately able to figure it out for me (Thank you, Adam! And, sorry everyone for the shameless plug, but I wasted a couple hours combing threads before calling Adam, so it was awesome when he was able to figure it out for me…his company is not affiliate with mine, nor am I an investor.) This problem is not unique to HP, either…just an FYI.) Anyway, Adam went directly to support.hp.com when the HP Support Assistant did not find any available updates. From there, Adam updated the sound driver (a new one is available as of this date), but the crackling persisted. Then he updated the BIOS – This fixed the error…no more cracking/popping/hissing/etc.

--

Apparent 2016 Solution to try if the above does not work (I’d give credit where due, but I’ve found the solution form about 20 people on different threads and cannot trace the original):

PERMANENTLY RESOLVE HP SPEAKER COMPRESSION (HISSING, CRACKLING DISTORTION WHEN PLAYING VIDEO, MUSIC, ETC)

The problem is caused by Bang and Olufsen audio correction compression - you need to change the driver from Realtek,

to the normal high definition device driver. This affects a lot of HP models with B&O sound. The first part disables the

Realtek driver - the second deletes it permanently.

It's simple and takes 2-3 minutes.

Click start - go to device manager

In the list click 'sound video and game controlers'

Right click 'realtek high definition audio device' - choose disable - ignore warning and continue

Right click same file choose 'update driver software' then 'browse computer for device software'

Choose 'let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer'

Highlight 'high definition audio' (not realtek) click 'next' again ignore warning and click 'yes' -

Restart / reboot when prompted

Play a file - you now have normal laptop sound!

***IMPORTANT - The driver will revert to realtek the next time you reboot, unless you do the second part below)***

After reboot (to **permanently get rid of the problem**)

Click start - go to the control panel - 'uninstall a program'

Highlight realtek high definition audio device and uninstall

-- 

I hope this helps! Good luck all - Hopefully HP just fixes this before products ship going forward (I mean, it has been a 3 year problem already, with multiple speaker models.)