streaming audio - crackling

Anybody else noticed a problem with the audio streams in SL recently ?
About a week ago I noticed that all the audio streams had a bad crackling noise on them - (sounds kind of like an loose speaker conection - for those who recognise that sound).
I have tried lots of different places in world, and have connected from two different ISPs - always getting the same problem.
I have checked that all the gain settings on my system are OK. All other sound (including online radio streams) are fine.

hardware:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.79Ghz
mobility M10 graphics

audio driver
VIA AC'97

thanx for reading

Same deal here since the last update or so.

Realtek AC97/Athlon64 3000/ATI Chipset/ATI Graphics Catalyst 7.4/2 gigs RAM/Win2k

CPU usage is not pegged at 100% as usual , it fluctuates from 50% to 100%.

Power saving is turned off.

I have tried new drivers, old drivers and everything in between to no avail.

This started about the time the giant sun showed up. Solar flares?

In the Audio Tab in preferences, is the data rate for streaming music set to 128kbps or above? If set at 64kbps or lower, this is 'radio' quality.

That setting isn't about streaming music, it's the upload bit rate for audio files.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Preferences#Default_Upload_Bitrate

(On-topic: I have the same problem, it started about two or three updates back )

Whilst you are right, you are also wrong... the bitrate is a bandwidth indicator of what you are allowing to flow into the client for 'rendering media'. As most audio files, whether streamed or otherwise, are gauged in quality by their bitrate and frequency (SL likes 44,100htz/PCM Wav format, or 44,100htz mp3.. both in 16bit stereo), you can force it to downgrade to lower bitrate but with lower quality by wave clipping. You can also force mono by combining the two audio rails, meaning that the codex will not have to seperate the left channel from the combined stereo channels to create the right and left channels.

OK I had a virus. It's gone, streaming audio works BETTER but it still cracks and skips . It's like the audio thread isn't getting enough resources. CPU goes between 86% -100% now.

I've been suffering from this too, although it's not limited to streaming music, it's all audio in SL. The typing sound will goof up too for a few seconds to a minute then everything goes back to normal. Extremely annoying!!! Started a few updates back.

Computer

Desktop: Case: Cooler Master TAC-T01-EK // PS:550W-Antec True Power 2 550 SLI ATX 2.01 // MoboFI Lan Party UT nF4-D // Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ // MemoryDR(400)3200 2GB(2 PCS 1GB) OCZ DUal Channel Platinum // Graphics:eVGA Geforce 7900GT 256 // HD:Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YD 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA // Soundcard:Audigy2 ZS //OS:Windows Vista

I'm wondering, are the rest of you having this issue running Vista too?

I have also been having this issue and thought it was because my machine was getting too hot. It was doing this last night in fact, very badly. Even when I turned the sound volume in SL all the way down it was still doing it. Like a snapping or popping noise - and every time it did it the music would skip. Nothing else seemed to be wrong with the display or performance. I was in my house on a Class 5 sim, so there was no lag or other performance degradation to be seen. Just the audio problem.

It takes a long time for the heat inside my place from earlier in the day to dissipate, so I thought this was because the machine was overheating (with 4 fans on it). Never did try to find out if other apps were also doing this. I'll try that tonight...

AthlonXP 3000+, 2GB RAM, WinXP SP2, NForce2 Chipset, NVidia 6600 Overclocked AGP 8X, Creative Soundblaster Audigy