So yeah, my sound is breaking up in places when there is high CPU load. This problem popped up about a month ago and I can't quite make out what's causing it. I thought I would ask around before doing drastic things like formating.
The PC is a Fujitsu-Siemens multimedia type laptop, running vista 32-bit and (presumably) an onboard sound card that uses Realtek HD drivers.
The sound starts breaking up especially when watching HD video (when the decoding takes up much resources) and sometimes when playing music on the background while playing games.
There's nothing wrong with performance otherwise, only the sound is affected.
I've tried updating drivers and also tried downgrading to the ones that come pre-installed, doesn't really change anything.
Funnily the sound only breaks when using external speakers (the onboard ones are a joke, I don't want to hear anything coming out of those
) Whether it's headphones, surround speakers, USB speakers or a television connected with HDMI, doesn't matter.
As a workaround I've reduced CPU load by reducing sound quality and enchantments, and using more efficient decoding methods. That way I can usually watch (listen to) 720p video bearably, but it still doesn't eliminate the problem.
I was thinking this could be caused by 3 things:
1. HDD performance bottleneck: it's a 5400rpm piece of trash and I've clogged it up with a lot stuff on the way.
2. Hardware issue in the motherboard or something I can't do anything about.
3. A driver or settings thing I've failed to notice.
So, any ideas? Thanks in advance.