<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      type="topic" style="problem"
      id="sound-crackle">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="sound-broken"/>

    <desc>Check your audio cables and sound card drivers.</desc>

    <revision pkgversion="3.4.0" date="2012-02-19" status="outdated"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>GNOME Documentation Project</name>
      <email>gnome-doc-list@gnome.org</email>
    </credit>

    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
  </info>

<title>I hear crackling or buzzing when sounds are playing</title>

  <p>If you hear crackling or buzzing when sounds are playing on your computer,
 you may have a problem with the audio cables or connectors, or a problem with
 the drivers for the sound card.</p>

<list>
 <item>
  <p>Check that the speakers are plugged in correctly.</p>
  <p>If the speakers aren't fully plugged in, or if they are plugged into the
  wrong socket, you might hear a buzzing sound.</p>
 </item>

 <item>
  <p>Make sure the speaker/headphone cable isn't damaged.</p>
  <p>Audio cables and connectors can gradually wear with use. Try plugging the
  cable or headphones into another audio device (like an MP3 player or a CD
  player) to check if there is still a crackling sound. If there is, you may need
  to replace the cable or headphones.</p>
 </item>

 <item>
  <p>Check if the sound drivers aren't very good.</p>
  <p>Some sound cards don't work very well on Linux because they don't have very
  good drivers. This problem is more difficult to identify. Try searching for
  the make and model of your sound card on the internet, plus the search term
  "Linux", to see if other people are having the same problem.</p>
  <p>You can use the <cmd>lspci</cmd> command to get more information about your
  sound card.</p>
 </item>
</list>

<comment>
  <cite date="2012-02-19">shaunm</cite>
  <p>Are we shipping any sort of device manager? If we do (or even if we
  recommend one, but people need to install it), and if you can get all
  the information you need about the sound card from that, we should
  link to that for getting info on your sound card.</p>
</comment>

</page>