Hi,

Does anybody have any idea why I have sound crackling only (i think) under the following scenario:

WMP 9 is open & playing a video clip
Internet Explorer is open with a page loaded
I scroll internet explorer using the wheel on my mouse

I've had lots of problems in the past with crackling when there is disk access which I solved by using a cheap PCI IDE controller instead of my on-board IDE but this one is a real mystery. If I scroll IE using the cursor keys there is no crackling, which suggests its something to do with the mouse.

The mouse is a Microsoft USB Intellimouse Optical.

I also get crackling when winamp is playing audio and a screensaver is active.

Cheers for suggestions,
-dave

I had a very similar problem once on a friends computer and for some strange reason it got fixed as soon as I updated the Graphics Card drivers. You could always give that a try at least. The sympons I had where exactly as you describe it: strange cracklings when scrolling in IE.

It's possible that you have PIO mode enabled instead of DMA, and thus you have a slower disk access. Check under "Control Panel", "System", then under "Hardware" tab click "Device Manager", expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and check the properties of "Primary IDE Channel", and then the "Advanced Settings" tab. If selecting the transfer mode "DMA if available" doesn't help. Do a search in this forum for a very good thread, in which Case describes how to edit the Windows registry to force DMA mode.

I have a microsoft Intellimouse Optical connected to a USB port...
-not had any of the problems you've described........at least so far !