fixed: Audio Clicks and Pops with OSD panel enabled AIDA64 v5.30.3500 (Dell SMI + Windows 10 Pro)

[luser]

When "Show OSD panel" is enabled, audio output exhibits clicks and pops intermittently, but appears to be multiple of 5 seconds.

With USB audio (DAC), the frequency is ~ once every 30 seconds. From headphone jack, it ~ once every 1 to 3 minutes.

It occurs when playing music from iTunes or VLC.

A simple way to notice this is to play a test tone, e.g., 1-KHz tone from a test CD. 

 

So far, it's reproducible on multiple Dell laptops, latitude e6430 (i5-3340M), latitude e6410 (i7-640M) and vostro 1400 (T7250). 

 

OS - Win 10 Pro (RTM - Build 10240)

iTunes v12.2.2

VLC v2.2.1

[Fiery]

Try to disable Dell SMI sensor support in AIDA64 / main menu / File / Preferences / Stability, and restart AIDA64 to apply the changes. That way you will lose a few readings on the Computer / Sensor page though.

Regards,

Fiery

[luser]

Thank you very much for your great suggestion.

 

You're right on!

 

The symptom disappear and I also lost a third of my interested readings.

 

Any possibility this will get fixed?

[Fiery]

I'm not sure if this can be resolved, since the audio issues are caused by the Dell SMI BIOS layer that AIDA64 has to handle to read Dell SMI sensor values. We'll try to come up with an alternative access method, although I'm not sure if there's one exist at all. Do you have a Dell software that can read those sensor values without audio issues?

[luser]

I have not used Dell software to read those sensor values.

 

However, on the Latitude E6430 (i5-3340M), using HWiNFO64 v5.02-2575 Sensor Status does not appear to exhibit the clicks and pops so far.

 

Is HWiNFO64 using a different access method?

[Fiery]

HWiNFO64 should use the same access method. But AIDA64 does a few tricks when e.g. CPU temperature cannot be measured via Dell SMI -- and that may just make a difference. Also, AIDA64 supports 2 different interfaces to issue Dell SMI calls, so it would be necessary to understand the exact method used on your system. Please create the following outputs and send them in email to me (I'll send you my email address in private message in a minute):

1) A screen shot of the Computer / Sensor page of AIDA64. If possible, please adjust the window size to show all readings on a single shot. If not possible, then please create 2 screen shots to make sure we can see all information.

2) A screen shot that shows HWiNFO64 Dell SMI readings. I think it's called Dell EC in HWiNFO64.

3) Right-click on the bottom status bar of AIDA64 main window --> Sensor Debug --> ISA Sensor Dump. Save it to a TXT file and attach it to your email.

4) Right-click on the bottom status bar of AIDA64 main window --> Sensor Debug --> Embedded Controller Dump. Save it to a TXT file and attach it to your email.

Thank you in advance.

[luser]

I truly appreciate the quick turn-around with the beta that resolved this audio clicks and pops on Dell laptop.

 

Thank you very much!

[Fiery]

Thank you for your help about this issue. Here's the official beta update that implements the fix for Dell SMI sensors:

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64xebeta