# Laptop sound is fuzzy/distorted!



## jakedavi

*Hi,*

My laptop has just got back from a repair shop because of its constant restarts. They knew about the fuzzy/distorted sound as well. They got a new power adapter and said it works now and that it should have sorted out the sound problem as well.

Thats not true. 1. My laptop did restart last night. It might have been because it was overheated. (Though its never had that problem for the 5 months ive had it). 2. The sound is still fuzzy and distorted! I want to listen to music and watch films but I cannot with this horrible cracking noise coming out of the headphones and speakers. 

Also, the things I am doing on the screen seems to interfere with the fuzziness. Lets say I open a new program like Notepad or firefox etc, the fuzziness reacts and makes more noise than usual. Even when i right click, move the mouse, or minimize screens. Its so strange.

So, what is the problem here? What is making the strange noise and why does it react with what im doing?

*Many Thanks,

Jake.*


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## dai

in the device manager click on view at the top and show hidden devices in the dropdown
then check for any yellow alongside of anything


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## jakedavi

Hi, 

Thanks for your reply. I have checked in device manager and there are no yellow signs/symbols next to anything. Yet its still fuzzy..

Jake.


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## dai

laptops not my area i have asked someone else to take a look


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## jakedavi

Thank you very much.


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## TheMatt

It might (still) be a sound driver issue. Try updating to the latest audio driver for your laptop. What model laptop is it?


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## jakedavi

I did update my soundcard drivers the other day. I will post my laptop model later as I can't remember it. It is a Sony Viao though..


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## jakedavi

Hi,

My laptop model number is PCG-GRS515SP. Sony Vaio.

Thanks.


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## TheMatt

Is your CPU usage in task manager normal, or is it unusually high?


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## jakedavi

No, it seems low around 10% when I'm not running much. Just FireFox..


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## TheMatt

Download NHC Personal from my sig below and post the CPU temp that it displays.


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## jakedavi

CPU Temp - 36'C.

Thx.


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## TheMatt

The CPU overheating can't be it. This seems strange. Try a different media player. That would be my next step. VLC media player has its own codecs for many things so that would be a good place to start.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/


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## jakedavi

Mhmm.. well, the noise starts as soon as I turn it on. When it loads etc. 

I think there's deffo a hardware prob because it keeps restarting all the time. But sometimes it lasts longer when the batterys in.. strange..


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## djscurvy22

Hi,

I had a similar problem. I am running XP SP3 and I downloaded some TV shows to watch. They were playing fine in Windows Media player (although I did not watch very much to check). Then I decided to connect my computer to my TV via S-Video (picture) and RCA to A/V (audio) cables. Well, I have no idea what happened because I had done this to watch movies before, but the sound on my laptop got extremely quiet and distorted, and I mean on everything, not just this video. If I plugged anything into the headphone jack on the laptop there was no sound at all.

I gave up on the TV idea and focused on fixing the laptop sound. I tried:
-checking and rechecking that nothing was muted or turned down
-updating windows media player and all codecs (what I was using to play the video)
-uninstalling sound card driver and reinstalling a new version
-doing two separate system restores
-restarting about 50 times in the process of trying all these things

no improvement. It was not until I stumbled upon a post where a guy said he had a similar, spontaneous audio problem that did not respond to any fixes until he "had a buffer overflow, and had to restart. The rebooting process hung up in the middle as it has a few times in the past, I had to force power off, and turn the laptop back on. Now the sound somehow works fine again..."

So I decided to 'force quit' my computer (is that a term?) by holding the power button down until the laptop shut down, and then turn it back on. THIS FIXED MY AUDIO AND SOUND PROBLEM. I have NO idea why, or how, or how that makes any sense. But maybe it'll work for you too. Worth a try.... I was about to kill myself after spending about 5 hours trying to fix this. Computers are so confusing sometimes.


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