Sound skips snaps crackle and pop

Forget the ASUS website driver and get the driver from nVidia- and don't get Beta drivers, get the latest official WHQL driver.

have you updated your storage controller? (RAID/SATA)
There was a known issue with the original Vista storage controller drivers causing Audio/video skipping and popping.

VIA had this problem in particular.

I've noticed lately that this issue pops off, if the SATA controller is set to RAID/ACHI mode, the motherboard is one of those ATI/ULI chipset boards running native SATA mode drivers. I've noticed this with the stuttering/popping and crackling with the latest Intel Matrix Storage drivers.

What fixes it in some cases, is setting the SATA controller to IDE mode, and leaving it be. NCQ isn't worth it to me, as I wind up with stuttering sound, crackling and so on.

The worst soundcard for this issue, and I tried one earlier this year, is the Creative X-Fi soundcard. I ended up taking that thing back to the store I bought it from.

I can confirm that since I re-installed the Driver of my GTX 8800 the sound is now working perfectly even after few restarts

Registered to say that this mostly worked for me. It was really bad, but now it's barely noticable. I happen to have 4GB ram, had this issue, just updated BIOS (Which made it worse, but now it's better...)

Next to upgrade nForce drivers. Shew.


Thanks!

I got a complete and total resolution.

I pulled the Nvidia graphics card and replaced with a compatable ATI.

Not a hint if a problem the second the ATI card was in place

If any of you all are using the nTune software - ditch it and see if that helps as well.

the newest creative driver helped a lot but not completely. i am getting less static but not enough to put it back in permanently.

i do have an ati x1800xt card. i might try putting that in and see what happens.