CDs crackling on my laptop...

[Guido]

When I insert some CDs into my laptop and try to play them or import them, there's a crackling sound which plays which makes them unlistenable. It only happens on some CDs - others are completely fine.

What might be the cause of and solution to this?

[Coopmv]

When I insert some CDs into my laptop and try to play them or import them, there's a crackling sound which plays which makes them unlistenable. It only happens on some CDs - others are completely fine.

What might be the cause of and solution to this?

Do you hear the same crackling sound on your regular stereo system?

[Scarpia]

When I insert some CDs into my laptop and try to play them or import them, there's a crackling sound which plays which makes them unlistenable. It only happens on some CDs - others are completely fine.

What might be the cause of and solution to this?

CD reader is busted or your sound card is busted, or your CD is defective.  Use EAC to copy a CD and look at the report it shows you at the end to see if it reports reading errors.

[Guido]

No extraneous sound on regular stereo. But as I say it's only some CDs, others play completely normally on the laptop... most mysterious.

[mc ukrneal]

Is it just when you play the CD? For example, if you hear it and go back to re-listen, does it still appear? One possibility is that, IF you are jumping around windows and such (opening and closing other windows, loadng or saving other things) while you are listening, you may hear some irritating clicks and such. Sometimes it happens when I just use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down. If you do it enough, it can be annoying (I have experienced this on my computer). The clicks/crackling go away when I stop doing other stuff. Anyway - one possibility to check.

[Guido]

Is it just when you play the CD? For example, if you hear it and go back to re-listen, does it still appear? One possibility is that, IF you are jumping around windows and such (opening and closing other windows, loadng or saving other things) while you are listening, you may hear some irritating clicks and such. Sometimes it happens when I just use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down. If you do it enough, it can be annoying (I have experienced this on my computer). The clicks/crackling go away when I stop doing other stuff. Anyway - one possibility to check.

No, its just always on with some CDs.

[Scarpia]

No, its just always on with some CDs.

It sounds like the data stream is not keeping up with playback. 

You could have a bad CD drive.  Some CDs may be marginal in their quality and play properly on a good drive, but not on a drive that is about to die.   Then you would hear crackle when the drive fails to read a certain passage.   

It may be that your computer/drivers are failing.  Data is read off the CD fine, but the computer is too slow to get it to the sound card in time.

As I said, read the CD using EAC and it will report if there are read failures.  You should also confirm that read speed is good.

[Guido]

Thanks, I'll try and set up EAC... for some reason it's not finding LAME when I try to install it - I downloaded LAME, opened the zip file and copied the contents into the EAC folder like it said I should (no install seemed to be present in the LAME folder itself), but then it doesn't seem to recognise that it's there.

I should point out that I can hear the music, its just that its overprinted by heavy crackling.

The computer was new in January, so it should still be in warranty.

[Guido]

Ok, got it to work.... Sort of. When I try to copy tracks it takes AGES - and says "Sync error" - sounds like you're right. It says it's going to take 6 hours to do one track from this crackly CD, (same when I just select "test" option) so I'm not going to get a status report (as I'm not going to wait 6 hours!)

Is there anything that can be done?

[Scarpia]

Ok, got it to work.... Sort of. When I try to copy tracks it takes AGES - and says "Sync error" - sounds like you're right. It says it's going to take 6 hours to do one track from this crackly CD, (same when I just select "test" option) so I'm not going to get a status report (as I'm not going to wait 6 hours!)

Is there anything that can be done?

Could be the CD, could be the drive.  Try the CD in other drives.  The compact CD drives they put in laptop computers are very flimsy and prone to failure.   The full form factor drives you find in big desktop cases are much more robust.

[snyprrr]

Honestly, it sounds delicious!

[Guido]

That was poor.

[drogulus]

     Go to the laptop site and look for a firmware update for the drive. Also get the name of the drive and see if there's either a firmware update or new driver from the drives manufacturer. You might find both.

[RJR]

Ok, got it to work.... Sort of. When I try to copy tracks it takes AGES - and says "Sync error" - sounds like you're right. It says it's going to take 6 hours to do one track from this crackly CD, (same when I just select "test" option) so I'm not going to get a status report (as I'm not going to wait 6 hours!)

Is there anything that can be done?

Yeah, clean the cd.

[DavidW]

I know that this is an old thread but in case Guido comes back... wish I had seen this sooner...

I've had the same problem on my laptop, doesn't occur on my desktop.  The crackling sound is a latency issue, install the asio plugin or the asio4all driver and the crackling goes away COMPLETELY.