BleepingComputer.com: Crackling Audio/slight Distortion!

In the last week, all sound on my laptop has started to crackle slightly. I changed headphones, but realized that thats not the problem. If i increase volume, the crackling gets worse, and distortion really sets in. Strange....only started happening last week. I have tried reinstalling my sound card driver, but no change there. Have looked around all my audio settings but cant find any clues. music etc is still listenable, but there is just a faint crackle constantly annoying me. and distortion if i turn the volume up louder.

Does this mean my sound card is wearing out?? or is it a physical prob inside?

my sound card is : Conexant AC link audio
i have windows xp home edition on a HP compaq nx4800

any help would be much appreciated!!

alex

I have a similar problem, I'm thinking its a power problem. Maybe its a virus out there.

Japal you say you swapped out headphones, but does the laptop have speakers ? is there distortion through them ? You say you re-installed the driver but is there an updated driver available for your machine ? Might want to check Compaq's site for latest release drivers. Did the problem start after something was downloaded or changed on your system ?

what you describe does indeed sound like a hardware issue but let's remove as many other options as possible first, you could also try playing the music through another media player and see what happens there. How old is the laptop and does the soundcard get a regular good workout ? It's most likely and integrated card anyway so it may be hard to fix/replace, another possibility is dust affecting the cards components which will cause crackling particularly to output circuits.

Another check you can do is go control panel/sounds and audio devices/audio tab/sound playback volume tab. check that the volume sllider icons are not at the very top of any of the various sound sources and make sure the mic is muted