Speakers make a Crackling / Static / Grinding / Fluttering noise on brand new Hp laptop

[JackShmitt]

Device: Mine a brand new "HP Envy X360 15-CN0003CA 2-in-1 Laptop, i7-8550U" from Costco
It is running running Windows 10 - version 1809

The crackling sound is present on both speakers, more on my left speaker.

The sound in not present when using headphones.
The sound goes away when I mute the sound.
The quality of the sound is a crackling or grinding sound.
The sound is best heard when the speaker sound is set to 1, but not turned off, and any audio is played
The sound is present when playing any audio from any source.  (it happen when audio is played using gaming apps, any audio from any web browser (firefox, chrome, edge, IE), any music player (window media player).

When headphones are plugged in, and a video is played the first 3 second of the audio are not played  (due to another issue that hp messed up) however for the first 3 seconds crackling sound comes out of the Bang & Olfsen speakers on the laptop.

The audio issue does not happen every time. Some times it happen for a bit and goes away. Upon restarting the computer it comes back.

Things that I tried that did not work.

•   I initially thought that the issue was related to the issue caused me to loose the initial 3 second of the audio that I played. It was supposedly due to a power setting that caused a delay. But these issues were not related.(https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/System-Sound-Delay/m-p/6508198#M91186) - No effect on speaker crackling
• Upgraded to most current version for all drivers using Hp Support Assistant - No effect
• Tried installing older versions of the drivers - No effect
• Tried changing all the setting of Bang & Olufsen Audo Control app when older drivers were installed (this app goes away when new drives are installed) - No effect
• Tried changing all the setting of the HP audio control app (which is installed with the new drivers) - No effect
• Tried changing the different setting on the "HP command center" Thermal profile for Hp cool sense, Heavy usage, and cool running - No effect
• Tried changing the "Turn on fast startup (recommended)" in Power Options\System Settings - No effect
• Tried Changing "Processor Power Management -  Mininum Processor State" to 100% under Power Settings - Advanced Power Settings - No effect
• Tried changing the speaker propertis from "sounds" in control panel -  changed Hardware accelleration, and exclusive mode - No effect
• Uninstalled Intel Rapid Storage software - No effect
• Disabled Wifi adapter, Bluetooth adapter, Intel display audio - NO effect
• Disabled "Sound Scheme" in Sounds - NO effect
• Tried different combinations of the above - NO effect

• Installed and Ran Latancymon
• It says "Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks"
• Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              2673.649598
  Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ACPI.sys - ACPI Driver for NT, Microsoft
• Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.138665
  Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework

• Changing battery performance  - No effect
• Changing video playback setting - No effect
• Connected to power or battery - No effect

• Reset Bios to default setting - No effect
•  "Reset This PC" and keep no software or setting, as I had messed up my computer settings too much trying to fix this problem - No effect
  •  However I did notice some interesting things, the 3 second  audo delay that happens when playing videos did not start occuring until the second day, it occured around the same time the speaker problem started.  May be these problems are related.
•  Put A/C adapter directly in wall (making sure it was properly grounded), also removed all other devices that were in the plugged into the wall outlet - No effect

• Booted the computer up in the EUFI (by pressing Ecs) - went to into system diagnostics - checked the hardware - Audio - The speaker were normal (all 5 times). This mean that the problem is with Windows 10, or Drivers or Hp software
• Loaded Ubuntu onto a live disk and the speakers appear normal - This confirms that the problem is with Windows 10, or Drivers or Hp software.

This issue seem to have been been going on for about 4 years now. (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks-Archive-Read-Only/Static-Crackling-from-both-speakers-and-he...). Other computer such as the X360 Spectre are supposedly also having this problem too.

There are way too many audio problem with this laptop that I have to fix myself for this price.

Hp either tell me how to fix this problem in a few days, or I will be returing this $1,500 laptop. 

[Echo_Lake]

@JackShmitt

Thank you for posting on HP Forums,

Echo_Lake is at your service.

I understand you are in need of support,

And to help you out, I'm sending out a Private message to assist you with the next course of action.

Please check your Private message icon on the upper right corner of your HP Forums profile

Next, to your profile Name, you should see a little blue envelope, please click on it or simply click on this link: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage

[Alberto__]

If a solution has been found, please post the details here or contact me. My HP Spectre x360 is affected by similar issues regarding the audio. I posted the issue a while ago here https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/Spectre-x360-right-speaker-crackling-noise/m-p/6914858/....

[dpot]

I used the reset on the hp control beats audio 

1 //click on show hidden icons

2 //click on control beats audio go to advanced and reset

and all work OK 

[JackShmitt]

The problem is that the issue is intermittent and you can do something and think the issue is resolved only for it to come back a day later.

My laptop does not have beats audio, I have hp audio control by bang & olufsen. I have reset it and it did not work.

The problem is with windows 10, or drivers. This problem is also on dell computers.Dell acknowledged the problem and said they are working on it.

Dell reddit discussion.

Problem is also in many other brands.

New acer with audio-problem-popping-crackling-noise

Acer having the same problem

Another acer with same problem

Yet more acer audio popping issues

By the way none of these solution listed in the above forums work. Only solution will be os software patch or new drivers.

If you are having this problem call hp tech support and let them know about the problem and ask them to work on the issue. 

[Alberto__]

Thank you. I will definitely contact HP support. If I manage to get updates or solutions for the issues I will post them both here and on my original post.

[dpot]

sorry for your problem .

we updated all are drivers for the HP pavilion V6 with are driver up daeting software so all drivers were OK.

we notis that when playing sound and speking we could hear it from the spekers as well as the squling so look to the software that runs the microphone and sound and found that the micraphone was on full all the time if you made a noise or not it was on full so we just reset it to fatory setings and it stop // after your post i have gone back and plaed with it and i can get it to start and stop the squling so i am prity sour that it is in the software that controls your sound and microphone // hope this helps  

[Ronax]

There is no HP Support, just a kind of fake "copypaste" messages in response to any kind of problem. And they said in a private message that "If I would like, they would be happy to connect me to a customer service representative"! If I would like! That means this is only my problem, and they don't care, they don't want to understand why their brand new crap doesn't work properly. And when I gave all the data about the problem and the computer exept my home address, they refused to do anything further. 

To tell the truth, I was very surprised to see such kind of "support" in 2018, I have already got used to another kind of service. I have already wrote about that in other forums in my country, people should know about that. 

[JackShmitt]

I totally agree with you. Hp support is an illusion. They will say to contact in private to try to make it appear as if they are solving the problem.

If you manage to call tech support the machine will try to get you to go online and chat with a virtual agent. The tech support will give copy paste responses from some manual. They don't care what you are saying. It is copy paste step 1 then if that does not work copy paste step 2 and so on.

If it is not a simple problem they will make excuses, and never acknowledged that the issue is with their devices. I have never received "support" that was this bad.

[JackShmitt]

I think I did may have found a solution to the popping, however I returned my laptop a day later so I cannot be sure as it was an intermittent issue. (The reason I returned my laptop was the total lack of support by Hp, and other issues that I was facing with the laptop going to sleep.)

Anyways the issue seems to be with "Intel smart sound" drivers. This is in device manager but not under sound, but under "system devices". The problem is that windows will install new drivers for intel smart sound which are not compatible with realtek drivers. Your computer should be using the intel smart sound drivers included with realtek drivers.

The supposed solution is to manually download the sound drivers from hp website. Disconnect from the internet, undo auto connect. Uninstall all sound devices and all intel smart sound devices from device manager, and tick the box to delete drivers from computer. Restart PC. Then install the previously downloaded drivers.  Restart PC. You are done, and can connect back to the internet.

For me the problem was that the latest version of realtek drivers on Hp do not install properly, and installation finishes half way through.

Please post on here to let other people know if this works for you after a few days as the issue is intermittent.