Solved Audio crackling everywhere except Groove Music

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geekolam

PCHF Member
Dec 31, 2021
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Hi all,

I sought help on Reddit a week or so ago and got no responses, so I hope that a more or less direct copy of that post here is OK. I really, really need some help, I'm tearing my hair out and just can't make sense of the issue, if any of you can help I'll be so grateful as it's going to cause major issues when I start back at work.

I have a Lenovo Yoga 730 running Windows 10 and its been quite broken for a while. I really don't want to have to reset it as I have a lot of customizations and programs that I might not be able to get back (I know I should have clone but that has fallen through the cracks).

A few weeks ago it bluescreened and then installed updates and since that I've just been having a range of problems with it, especially high CPU usage that I couldn't really get to the bottom of, I uninstalled the updates that I could identify and rolled-back drivers without success. I think that most of the issues have been corrected after quite a lot of uninstalling and reinstalling drivers. In the end I also reinstalled Lenovo Vantage and that seems to have been key to fixing most of the issues I'd rather not have Lenovo Vantage installed at all, but unfortunately without it I can't keep the laptop in "cool and quiet" mode that stops the fans going constantly, and I can't use the battery conservation option that keeps the charge at 60% when plugged in.

One issue that I can't get rid of though is crackling, jumpy audio. I've tried all fixes I can find suggested online, uninstalling the audio driver and letting windows install one itself. Directly installing the driver from Lenovo. Disabling audio enhancements, changing audio quality etc. The Windows audio troubleshooter doesn't find any issues.

The only program that doesn't seem to produce crackling bizarrely is Groove Music, the same track played with VLC player (or Windows Media Player) will. I don't have the issue in safe mode, but it persists even if I disable all non-Microsoft services on boot.

Here is what I'm dealing with:

Using VLC:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/25e5s1ho7tf0g5p/Thursday at 10-00 am.m4a?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/25e5s1ho7tf0g5p/Thursday at 10-00 am.m4a?dl=0)

Using Groove Music:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmul8dlv49gdbr5/Thursday at 10-01 am.m4a?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmul8dlv49gdbr5/Thursday at 10-01 am.m4a?dl=0)

A lot of places suggest this is just a result of poorly configured software and drivers by Lenovo, and essentially the only option is to live with it. With that in mind I bought a USB to aux cable, thinking that logically the issue shouldn't occur with the external sound card. But it does (again it's perfectly fine in safe mode). The only difference is that that problem also persists in Groove Music when using the adapter in contrast to the onboard audio.

I did have some success is resolving the problem when I directly installed the RealTek audio driver from RealTek, but this was the driver only and as a consequence my audio port stopped detecting my headphones.

Bluetooth audio works perfectly.

What are the next steps to getting to the bottom of this? Any help is very much appreciated and if anything I've said doesn't make sense please ask me to clarify.
 
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Thank you, here are the specs. The BIOS is the most recent version (though a year or so old now). I'm not being offered 21H2, I didn't actually realise I wasn't up to date so I'll definitely try this. I'm slightly skeptical it will help as is seems to be a Lenovo/RealTek issue but worth a go. And yes there are plenty of people complaining about it (I will not be buying a Lenovo again), but very few solutions, mine is slightly different, it doesn't seem to be caused by the charging status or the network.

YOGA 730-15IWL
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz 2.00 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch Pen and touch support with 10 touch points

Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 21H1
Installed on ‎Friday ‎30 ‎Oct ‎20
OS build 19043.1415
Serial number MP1GTKLG
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0
 
Which Windows 10 build are you running 21H2 is the latest version.
Are there any BIOS updates available?
I would download the media creation tool, run this & choose to upgrade now. If you’re already running 21H2 then this will run an in-place repair.
The problems seems to be a well known problem with Lenovo devices: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Yoga-Series-Notebooks/Lenovo-Yoga-920-No-sound/td-p/4003227

Well, I'm tentatively going to say it appears to have worked. It took forever, the installer sat at step 3 of 3 at 99% for about 2 days. But everything seems better, the cpu is idling lower than it was, everything seems a bit snappier and little odd things that I'd just accepted seem fixed (like I couldn't use fingerprint log in the first time I started the machine).

Actually, there are loads of things, Intel is now reporting that all the drivers are up to date, I was never able to install their recommended video driver before because when I tried I was told it clashed with the OEM. So clearly my laptop had some issues :ROFLMAO:

I should obviously just have went with the repair install all along rather than wasting lots of time trying other fixes, I feel really stupid now for putting off doing that. Thank you for pushing that and pointing out the software wasn't up to date.

I'm currently very happy and relieved. If only I could get the keyboard working properly it would be perfect but that's definitely a hardware issue ( and another common to Lenovo issue :rolleyes:)

Thank you so much for your time and patience.
 
Great news. I would recommend keeping an eye on things for the next few days.
It is certainly a good fix to know. It has solved many a problem for me.

I wish I could help with the keyboard, but out of curiosity you could post on the problem.

You’re welcome. :)
 
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