Popping/Clicking over USB headset with MP3s

Centipeed

As far as I can tell, this problem doesn't effect games or movies/TV shows that I watch on my computer, or Youtube videos etc., but then again those don't often give out continuous sound in the same way a song does.

Nevertheless! I have a Microsoft Lifechat 3000 USB headset. I used it with my old Windows XP machine fine, but now that I've bought a new computer, with Windows 7, when I listen to MP3s I get a clicking or popping sound every now and then. It's subtle, and there's probably 30 seconds between each one, so it's not a major problem, but I'd rather fix it if possible.

I went into the BIOS and disabled all of the onboard sound chipsets, after discovering that USB headsets use their own sound drivers, so the Lifechat 3000 is the only audio device in the volume controls, but that hasn't helped.

I've also tried playing the MP3s (Which were fine on my old computer, so it's not the files) through another player (Windows Media Player), and that has the same problem as the program I use for MP3s normally (Billy).

Any other suggestions?

FyreWulff

Far flung chance: do you keep your cellphone near the headphone's cord?

Have you tried turning music down to about half the volume and seeing if it still does it?

Centipeed

FyreWulff wrote: »

Far flung chance: do you keep your cellphone near the headphone's cord?

Have you tried turning music down to about half the volume and seeing if it still does it?

I've tried turning down the MP3 program's volume to half, and raising the headset's volume to compensate, and that hasn't helped.

If you mean turning down the volume on the headset, I already listen to music at a low volume, so halving it makes it hard to tell if anything is clicking or popping.

And no, my cell phone is more than five feet away.

Edit: You might have solved my problem!

There's a volume control in the MP3 software (Billy), and turning that down to half didn't help, but Windows 7 offers per-application volume control, so I turned down the volume to half for the MP3 software through Windows, and so far I haven't had a single pop or click.

Edit 2: I spoke too soon, apparently. It wasn't doing it for about five minutes, but after I dusted off my hands and closed the volume control, and minimised Billy, it's back with a vengeance. Weird.

FyreWulff

Is there any way of testing this headset on someone else's computer?

This is the last thing I can think of since a person I knew had this going on and it was caused by static buildup from the PSU and the powered speakers and powered console being all plugged in at the same time.

Centipeed

I've looked into this more (For some reason my Google search returned much better results this time.) and two possible solutions have presented themselves to me. I tell you because you may like to know this if the problem ever crops up again:

First I came across a site which said that SpeedStepping can cause the problem. I believe SpeedStepping is only related to older Intel processors, but it was talking about the CPU not being able to get a steady enough stream of data to the USB port because it powers down too much, and the solution was to change the power options in Windows to "Always On".

I did that, and I haven't had a pop or click since. I suspect one of the advanced options in Windows 7's power management options affect USB ports when the computer is in use? I don't know.

Of course, it might start up again like before, so take this with a grain of salt.

The other solution I found is that if the USB port or plug is dirty it can cause clicking and popping - I'll try this next if it starts up again.