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I Fixed My iTunes “Choppy Audio” Problem

Intro

First of all, I want to say that I’m not exactly sure how I fixed this problem. What I do know is that I did fix it. With that being said, let us continue.

Previously, I was unable to use iTunes while browsing the Internet (or using other programs) without the audio output being extremely choppy. As soon as I would click on a link, the audio would immediately begin to get choppy. I was incensed by the fact that there is no reason for this to be happening. I have an AMD  Phenom 64 Quad-Core processor and 3 GB of RAM running Windows Vista Home Premium. iTunes should have no problems.

At this point I should probably clarify that I cannot say that I don’t have any idea, whatsoever, of how I fixed the problem. What I’ll do now is give a list of the things that I did in an attempt to solve it.

Something in this list fixed the problem, though I’m not sure exactly what.

The List

First, I went into Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and disabled the following services…

I also made the following modifications to the BIOS. Here’s the list…

Under the “Advanced Chipset Features” menu:

  • Set “PCIe Spread Spectrum” to Disabled.
  • Set “SATA Spread Spectrum” to Disabled.
  • Set “HT Spread Spectrum” to Disabled.

Here’s a link explaining what exactly “Spread Spectrum” means.

I also set the “OS Select For DRAM > 64MB” to “OS/2,” as opposed to “Non-OS/2.”

Conclusion

So if anyone out there reading this has any more technical information as to what, specifically, in this list fixed the problem I was having, I (as well as a great many other people) would greatly appreciate some elaboration. I’d also found that people all over the net have been having this same problem – with no resolution to speak of.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.

Read a book. It’s good for you.

Update As Of 3/28/2009

I spoke too soon. This worked for a few days, but my iTunes is back to being choppy. This is insanely frustrating. And there’s no help from Apple on this.

Update As Of 4/2/2009

Ok, so I fiddled with some more BIOS settings and the choppy audio is gone again. I set “HD Audio” to “Disabled,” along with a few other things. Turned all the Spread Spectrum settings back on. So apparently they didn’t have anything to do with this problem.

So far, so good. No choppy audio.

I don’t know what’s going on, but this is driving me up a wall. If the audio gets choppy again, I think I’m going to lose it. Maybe the only way to fix this problem is to continually fiddle with BIOS settings?

Another thing that helps is to restart the computer when the audio starts getting choppy. I don’t know if that says anything about what’s wrong?

Update As Of 6/6/2009

Simply restarting the computer when the audio becomes choppy seems to work. Maybe scratch all that other stuff??

  1. Bill Jamison
    Thursday April 30, 2009 at 1:09 pm | #1

    I’m having the exact same problem – choppy audio/static when I browse the Internet. It happens with iTunes as well as foobar2000. I haven’t tried any bios changes yet but it looks like a good place to start!

  2. kyle
    Tuesday August 18, 2009 at 11:56 pm | #2

    Yeah I have the exact same problem too, and same here restart temporarily clears it up, Im running vista ultimate with quad 2.66 and gig ram wtf?

    • Wednesday August 19, 2009 at 9:22 am | #3

      How long does it clear up for? And do you use MySpace? I’ve discovered that it usually happens after using MySpace (another reason I only use Facebook now). Might have something to do with all of the flash and other scripts running on there, interfering with iTunes?

      • kyle
        Friday August 21, 2009 at 6:23 pm | #4

        it seems to only clear up for about half a day or so, I don’t really go on myspace that often but do check it now and then, maybe ill have to try that, also I found on my computer its not only itunes, windows media player does it too. Let me know if yours does.

  3. ClearMusic
    Thursday September 3, 2009 at 9:12 am | #5

    After trying every fix under the sun I finally fixed this problem by restarting the “ipod service” and the “apple mobile device service” from the task manager. I just closed iTunes when it started to act up, then used the task manager to end these two processes and restarted iTunes (which, in turn, restarted the processes). Not sure why this worked, but hopefully it will work with your systems as well… If it does, then it might be possible to disable these processes entirely if you don’t use an ipod or iphone. Cheers.

    • Kyle
      Friday October 9, 2009 at 6:21 pm | #6

      yeah it seems dell has fixed my computer from this problem by uninstalling all the sound drivers and installing the latest ones. I hope im not speaking too soon, but its been about a week now

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