Static Popping Noise

grrowler

I installed Neverwinter on a newer computer, and I have been hearing a really loud static pop noise. I thought the sound card was broken; even when I turned down the in-game volume for all sounds/music, it kept making the static crackling noise. It seems more noticeable when running certain random skirmishes like Throne of the Dwarven Gods or Prophecy of Madness.

When I looked up on the internet to see if there was a solution, some sites said to switch to 32-bit game client (which I believe was disabled) and some other sites said that lowering the quality of the computer's audio (speaker properties/default format 24 bit to a lower frequency) would eliminate it - it just seemed to make the entire volume fainter, but the static crackling noise is still there.

was just wondering if there was any solution for this? I do not have to play Neverwinter on the newer computer, so it is not that big a deal, but I am just surprised that it has this issue.

rockster

I've never had this issue. Audio is always perfect. Have u had a look through the audio settings in the game itself? Also is your GPU driver all up to date? I know my NVidia GPU driver always installs an audio driver with every update so just asking because of that.

plasticbat

Did you check with different audio output device (if you have more than one)?
That includes those you don't have a physical speaker.
Which audio device are you using?
I am using an USB head phone. It works for me.

The game found multiple audio device in my system but some of them do not have a real speaker to output audio and I am not using NVIDIA High Definition Audio.

querz

I have the same Problem. I installed it on a new computer, and since then i hear a static popping noise once in a while.
This noise only appears in Neverwinter, and not in other games so i assume it's related to Neverwinter.

My mainboard is a ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero (if that information is relevant).
I already updated all audio related drivers and the BIOS, but the problem persists.

I was able to record the popping noise, and i uploaded it here as an mp3 file inside a zip file (since uploading mp3 files directly doesn't seem to work).

grrowler

I am just surprised there is no straightforward solution for this (or at least anymore).

in the end, I ended up switching back to an older windows 10 computer, and I do not get the static popping noise. I will take a look again on the newer computer (windows 11) and see if any of the ideas above helped, but I am not very optimistic.

plasticbat

grrowler#0622 said:

I am just surprised there is no straightforward solution for this (or at least anymore).

in the end, I ended up switching back to an older windows 10 computer, and I do not get the static popping noise. I will take a look again on the newer computer (windows 11) and see if any of the ideas above helped, but I am not very optimistic.

You did not mention win11 until now. Win11 has various problems with gaming since its introduction. Not sure how many were resolved since. This is one of the reasons I have refused to upgrade to win11.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/wmmrum/audio_crackling_pop_on_windows_11/

grrowler

thanks for that reddit thread link - oddly I do not think I saw this thread.

yeah, the newer computer was originally on windows 10, but it auto-updated to windows 11 (I know there are ways to prevent this, but I made the decision to let it go, since the computer met the requirements but it did come as a surprise, it just said that the computer needed to reboot - there were a few annoyances with the filesystem and certain settings in browsers, but I have gotten used to it). I did not have Neverwinter installed on it before the windows 11 update, so I do not know if the audio card has anything to do with the static popping. I will read through that reddit link and see if there are any suggestions, but for now, I am just running neverwinter on this older windows 11 computer.


(I only installed neverwinter on the windows 11 computer, because this older computer had a hard drive crash which required reinstalling windows 10. I was just surprised by the static popping issue because I figured neverwinter would just run smoother on the newer computer)

plasticbat

grrowler#0622 said:

thanks for that reddit thread link - oddly I do not think I saw this thread.

yeah, the newer computer was originally on windows 10, but it auto-updated to windows 11 (I know there are ways to prevent this, but I made the decision to let it go, since the computer met the requirements but it did come as a surprise, it just said that the computer needed to reboot - there were a few annoyances with the filesystem and certain settings in browsers, but I have gotten used to it). I did not have Neverwinter installed on it before the windows 11 update, so I do not know if the audio card has anything to do with the static popping. I will read through that reddit link and see if there are any suggestions, but for now, I am just running neverwinter on this older windows 11 computer.


(I only installed neverwinter on the windows 11 computer, because this older computer had a hard drive crash which required reinstalling windows 10. I was just surprised by the static popping issue because I figured neverwinter would just run smoother on the newer computer)

FYI, it is not just one reddit thread. If you google it, you will find many reddit posts and so many that it is more than one page of google search.

greywynd

I've been on Win11 pretty much since release. I haven't had any issues as described.

grrowler

from that reddit thread that you posted, I tried one of the solutions and it actually seems to have worked for me to clear the static popping noise. I would be curious to hear from others if this also solves it:

Wambo_007
Jan 3, 2018

Don't know if you guys are still struggling with this but I did. Tried everything that I found online but nothing worked.

BUT...great news!!!! I just finally figured it out on mine! And since I haven't seen this answer anywhere else in my searches, I'm hoping this will help.

It has to do with power management on the PCI Express settings. Go into your Power Options and Edit your existing power plan. Go into Advanced Settings and expand "PCI Express", then "Link State Power Management". It'll likely be set to Maximum power saving. If you're on a desktop PC, you can definitely turn this off. On a laptop, at least change it to Moderate. In my case both Moderate and Off fixed my issue completely.

I tried running (solo) the Prophecy of Madness where I always would get the static popping, and sure enough, I was hearing the crackling. I quit the Neverwinter client and followed the above changes to Power Options / PCI Express / Link State Power Management (my setting was set to Moderate Power Saving and I changed it to OFF)

I restarted Neverwinter, and the static popping noise was gone.

I am ok running Neverwinter on the old computer, because I only play Neverwinter casually for the seasonal events, but I will try to occasionally run Neverwinter on the newer computer to see if I get any more static/crackle/pop.

I guess the one thing that concerns me is I wonder if changing that Power Management setting will affect any other games I play on the newer computer - I already seem to be having overheating/fan issues with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.

The static crackle pop issue only ever occurred with Neverwinter though. so I have to wonder if this is a case with Neverwinter or just a general issue.

rockster

That's interesting because I had an issue a fair while back (totally unrelated to your one) where my internet connection was behaving extremely strangely. It would seem connected and tell me it was connected fine, but it was not working, email would try to connect and get no answer, web pages would load extremely slowly if at all, I'm on broadband 100mbs btw, I had to turn the modem on and off over and over and the computer on and off over and over and at some stage it would magically start working again. But if I restarted the computer it would come back again, it was a nightmare. Eventually after a lot of effing around for weeks and weeks, I found out it was my network adapter driver settings, specifically the energy saving settings which were all enabled. EEE/green energy ones. I found a site which recommended turning them all off which I did and my connection behaved perfectly immediately and has ever since. I think there is definitely something wrong with the way those energy saving settings work.

grrowler

ugh I spoke too soon.

on a whim, I tried entering Prophecy of Madness skirmish again today and was getting the static popping intermittent noises again.

that is what I get for jumping to the conclusion that it was fixed by that PCI Express / Link State Power Management solution after just running one skirmish.

there were a few other ideas that were in that reddit thread that I will try eventually, but not optimistic that it will ever be fixed.
(there was some discussion that it only happens to specific graphics cards and/or motherboards and I do not have the option to switch out the motherboard).

at least I am not running into the issue on this older Windows 10 computer.

grrowler

I did find something interesting about this issue - on this old computer that has never had that static popping noise issue, I discovered that using a wireless headset I am getting the static pop - I started noticing it because I was accessing the remote crafting interface (for summer provisioning) in the Summer Festival and started hearing in the background static popping. at first I thought it was spotify that was causing it, but then after I shut down spotify I realized it was the same static popping issue.

I do not believe I hear any static popping when I use direct wired earbuds - I guess over the course of this week, I will test out a few things and see if I can get any more information.

but yeah for some reason, the static popping seems to happen when I am clicking different buttons in the remote crafting interface.
(on this computer, I have not tried changing the PCI Express / Link State Power Management settings, so I will give that a try).
but it made me wonder if the static popping has always been there in the background for this older computer, just not noticeable from my regular desktop speakers.