This has been driving me mad for a couple of days now. I usually work in the evening after my family goes to sleep. I am sitting in a very quiet room and predominantly just type. Occasionally a notification sound would play through the built in speakers and just before that a crackling sound would be emitted. It happens every time system plays any sound, just before going online speakers would just give out tiny crackling sound.
After some research I have found out that this is due to the sound card on motherboard going into power saving mode and once it would go back online that distorted crackling would appear. A problem quite popular amongst laptop owners with Realtek sound on the motherboard.
Most of the time the solution is to download a new Realtek driver from the Realtek website, go to the HD Audio Manager and turn off power management from the settings menu. It does indeed work as I have tested myself.
After installing latest Realtek drivers from their website and disabling power management the crackling is gone as card never sleeps. But unfortunately it also uninstalls Dolby features that come standard with Acer audio drivers. Native drivers have Dolby but they don’t have power management settings in HD Aduio Manager.
So right now I can either have native driver with Dolby sound (which I really like) and crackling (that honestly drives me crazy) or Realtek direct drivers without Dolby and no crackling.
Anyone knows how I can install Dolby separately. All my attempts of installing them on top of the Realetk driver end in missing “PCEE4” dialogue.
Any thoughts?