[DellLaptopGirl]

Hoping for some insight into my speaker issue.

My right laptop speaker stopped playing sound and started to crackle sporadically. When it does crackle its quite loud - I plug in headphones and the crackle continues through the right earpiece. Left speaker works fine (headphone as well.)

wondering if this software or hardware failure? The headphone matching the crackling makes me wonder.

My boyfriend formatted my computer and then put all the drivers back - but the sound driver didnt look right to me (was unfamiliar) even though Dell's website said it was correct. Crystal WDM Audio. I can't remember what it said before - but crystal doesn't seem familiar as i mentionned.


The following appears under device manager for Sound, video and game controllers:
audio codec
crystal WDM audio Codec
legacy Audio drivers
legacy video Capture devices
Medial control devices
Video codecs

(pentium 4 1.8ghz 512 MB of ram - windows XP professional 2002 service pack 3 )

Any thoughts on where to start (other than use the whole laptop as a 'noisy' paperweight) would be most helpful.

Thank you.