HP speakers blown out / distorted/ crackly

[bizzybee11]

I've been having issues with my speakers for the past year. I take a crack at trying to fix it and call customer service about it from time to time but nothing ever works and the horrible customer service just sends me round in circles. I had the 4th person i talked to today on the phone tell me he could not hear the problem over the phone therefore i no longer needed help. I was so mad. Of course the problem is hard to hear over the phone? I never want to be rude to a customer service rep but i am getting so frustrated with the poor service i dont know what to do.

[banhien]

@bizzybee11 

HP has hundreds of different models/produced called hp envy 360  machines, what is yours ? Please use the following way to find out the model/product of your machine

                https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00033108

For security reason, please do NOT post its Serial number (s/n) on Internet.

Regards.

[bizzybee11]

It's the touchscreen HP ENVY x360 Laptop - 13-ay0008ca

It is still under warranty for a couple days so I've been trying to get help to send it in for repair because I have done every single troubleshoot possible... multiple times with different people on the phone who have been far from helpful 😕 

[dkwells19]

I have the same exact problem.  I called support once and ran through all the usual "fixes" to no avail.  I own a 15-dw3013dx.  I have always had good luck with HP products in the past, but I think these are poorly designed laptops.  I think I would hear the same distortion on any similar laptop.

[jei13]

I also have an Envy X360 13", model# 13z-ay000. Recently I noticed that my right speaker sounded blown out / crackling when playing audio (music or video) at higher volumes. This was with audio enhancements off or on in the Windows Realtek driver settings. BIOS was up to date as well as audio drivers. Using headphones plugged into the 3.5mm jack, there were no problems so I guessed my laptop speaker had physically blown.

My warranty expired 2 months ago, so I found the speaker part# for my model on the HP support site (L94513-001) and bought it used off of Ebay for $10. It just arrived and after replacing the stock speakers with the one I had just bought, the crackling, popping, blown speaker sound on the right was no more. Playing audio at high volumes was back to normal. It took me about 20 minutes total to change out the speakers (after watching a few YouTube videos on "HP laptop speaker replacement").

So in my case it was actually a physically blown speaker. Don't know how it happened since I rarely raised volumes on my laptop since buying it over a year ago. Perhaps HP decided to use very cheap speaker parts? Hopefully my replacements don't blow out too.

[dkwells19]

Thanks Jei13, your post shows that is is actually a hardware issue with these HP laptops and not a software issue, or (as HP seems to be suggesting) a non-issue!  It's good to know that there is a cheap fix alternative to these problems, but for those laptops that are still under warranty HP should acknowledge the problem and provide an option to fix them.  To be honest, they should issue a recall and replace the speakers in all affected units, warranty or not.

[jei13]

Oh totally. I was disappointed that the right speaker blew just after my warranty had expired. So yes, HP should acknowledge the problems and accept repairs for the units that are still in warranty (there have been several forum posts in the past that show the same speaker issues). I'm just lucky that the replacement speaker part was found on Ebay for an inexpensive price. Anyway, the average consumer shouldn't have to do what I had to do. And again, this happened to my laptop which is barely over a year old. In all my 20+ years of owning laptops, this HP Envy one is the first and only one that has suffered from a speaker hardware issue.

[dkwells19]

I just called a local authorized HP repair shop and was told that they were unable to initiate any repair without prior authorization from HP.  My hope was that I could bring the laptop in and have a technician hear the problem in person.  Unfortunately, whenever a diagnostic test is run on the speakers they "pass".

[jei13]

Really frustrating that HP won't even acknowledge your issue. I assume your laptop is still under warranty, correct? If it is, I would really try to have HP fix it themselves, telling them it is a hardware issue (if you come to the conclusion that it is hardware-related).

If HP support is still ignoring your problem, you can also try an independent computer repair shop. They might be able to diagnose and give you a reasonable quote.

Or you can take the DIY route like I did if your warranty is expired. However, speaker replacement for your specific model might be much more complicated than mine. While there is no dedicated "15-dw3013dx" support page on the HP site, there is one for "15-dw0000". Looking at the Maintenance and Service Guide document, it looks like you'd have to remove the battery (easy) but also some major components such as the system board and display, just to access the speakers (on my laptop, all I needed to do was remove the battery). Personally, I don't trust myself messing with the system board or display. Would rather take it to a technician /  someone with good laptop disassembly experience. But if you do go the DIY route, then the speaker part# for 15-dw0000 is L52040-001, which can be found on Ebay for around $10~$15.

Anyway, if you're still under warranty, I would keep pestering HP Support (tell them that this is a hardware problem) until they give in and issue an RMA.

(FYI, when my laptop was around 3 months old and still well under warranty, it was having battery calibration issues, and HP agreed to take it in for diagnosis after I repeatedly told them that it was most likely a bad battery, even though it kept passing the HP hardware diagnostic test. And the factory did end up replacing it with a brand new battery, which has been functioning well ever since. As for my original blown speaker, it had passed the HP hardware diagnostic test as well, but the way it sounded it was obviously a speaker that had gone bad/blown.)