Spectre x360 right speaker crackling noise

[Alberto__]

A couple of weeks ago I noticed my HP Spectre x360 13-ae0xx making crackling sounds while listening to specific songs on Spotify. The crackling is only noticeable at high volumes or on peculiar sounds, one of which (i noticed) is the audio associated with the Windows 10 "Error". Beside this, I wanted to be sure so I tried emitting a full range of frequency form the speakers. The left speaker alone is completely fine, while the audio from the right one is very distorted, like the sound of paper when is ripped (this happened at any frequency). At low volume, the distortion from the right speaker is covered by the audio from left one, and it is barely noticeable. 

I tried reinstalling the Realtek Audio drivers, at first downloading them from the Hp Driver Support, and then from the link given form an expert on a solution (taken from this forum) to a similar problem (link to the discussion: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/Spectre-x360-distorted-sound-on-left-speaker/m-p/685973... ). None of these has either improve the sound nor removed the crackling. I'm pretty sure that the speaker hasn't got in touch with water or liquid in general, but I'm not prepared and not willing to unscrew the bottom of the case to check myself.

Thanks in advance!

[banhien]

@Alberto__

There are few generations of Hp Spectre x360, what is yours ?  Please use the following instructions to find out the model/product of your machine:

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

  Please do NOT post its Serial number (s/n).

Regards.

[Alberto__]

@Banhien

The model is the Hp Spectre x36013-ae0xx. The post has been edited too. Sorry for the inaccuracy

[Thomas98a]

I have the exact same issue. I was wondering whether this is a defect or just a design flaw. 

[JackShmitt]

I am also have the same issue. However I have a new HP x360 Envy. This has been driving me nut trying to figure it out.

Sometimes I think it is a hardware issue and the speakers are defective, but sometimes the speakers work perfectly. Which should not happen if the speakers were defective.

The fact that crackliing noise is so inconsistent makes it hard to pin point the issue. Other times I thinks I figure out the issue and then it reappears, the next day.

What makes it worst is that, there are so many other audio issues plaguing Hp laptops makes it harder.

Issues that I am having with Hp laptop:

• Intermittent Crackling noise
• 3 second audio muted at beginning of videos, and when scrolling to different points of the video
• 3 second crackling noise on speaker when headphones are  plugged in video is started
• Occasionally sound playinig on speakers even though speakers are muted

[JackShmitt]

Please install Latancymon, and have it run in the background for 10 minutes while you use the computer to play audio, and watch videos to check for Latancy issues (http://www.resplendence.com/downloads)

This is most likely has to do with DPC Latancy issues.

[Thomas98a]

It does say that there's an issue when I run latencymon. Any idea how to fix this? my BIOS is already updated

[JackShmitt]

I have not found a solution yet. I have tried almost everything. I am updating all different things that I have tried on my post. (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/Speakers-make-a-Crackling-Static-Grinding-Fluttering-no...). You can subscribe to the post by clicking "I have the same question"

I have confirmed that the problem is not with BIOS since the EUFI system diagnostics were normal, and ubuntu does not seem  to have any problem either.

Next I will try installing try using ubuntu os for a bit longer since the issue was intermittent, and if there are no issues in ubuntu, I will do a clean windows 10 intallation.

If that does not work I will just return this laptop since it  is still within the return period.

I do not work for Hp. This really should be Hp to figure out what is happening. This issue has been going on for quiet a bit, and there are way too many things that could be happening to cause this issue.

[RikTiger]

I had the same problem as well. Non of the driver issue or reinstalling of softwares or windows updates worked. Following a guy on youtube, i came to know it was because of a static charge left on the motherboard. This in particular struck me as the port that I last used for charging had some earthing issues. I did what he did, turned the device off, held down the power and f6 buttons together for about 10sec. Restarted the machine and the issue was fixed. 

[XLTDivingFool]

I've been having the scratchy speaker sound on my HP Spectre 13 (model number E5E03AV) for months now - installed audio driver from HP, from RealTek - no solid fix. I tried the power-off, then power+F6 for 10 seconds,  and then boot normally...

It cleared the scratchy noise for me. No idea what that key combination did, other than maybe clear the BIOS / UEFI config cache, as booting did take a few more seconds longer than normal, but so far, so good, and not even so painful to repeat if it ever come back.