Brand New Razer Blade 16 Audio Crackling through speakers.

I read somewhere that the crackling is due to DPC latency, or whatever. A fix that worked for a lot of people (including myself), was to go to Control Panel → Large Icons → Power Options → Change Plan Settings → Change Advanced Power Settings → PCI Express → Link State Power Management → Set to OFF for plugged in and either off or minimum on battery.

Thank you! So far, this worked for me after a few minutes of testing. I thought I wasted my money. You’re a lifesaver man. I will update if the problem persists.

Again, thank you!

I have this exact same issue. PCI Express change didn’t seem to fix it for me.

Noticed a pattern too. I have a Razer mouse and when I move the mouse, I specifically hear a certain noise while it’s moving. 

Not certain but I think I also hear a difference while using keyboard. (My keyboard is mechanical though so it’s harder to tell than with the mouse.

It’s sad this seems to be a possibly common defect.

I can also say the issue reduces when you play a game or play music.

There’s still noise coming through but it’s at a way lower volume so you can only notice it if you specifically listen for it while playing other audio.

Something tells me this is a hardware/electrical issue in the laptop and as much as I want software to be able to fix it, we may not be able to get a software fix for this….

 

Ive got the same problem. It turns out that Xtu or RzIntelOverClock.exe is what causes it. If i end the task the crackling stops. Also unistalling Thx in the past helped stop the crackling but then a few days ago it came back, this was when I discovered Xtu causes audio bugs with my speakers

Thank you so much. I was really stressed out because of the speaker problem. Thanks to you, I solved it well. Thank you

I had the same issue, turning off pcie link state management has eliminated this issue for me. Thanks

(Razer Blade Pro 17 2021)

Any solutions in 2025 year? Razer Blade 18 (2024) sound crackling issue?

Have same exact issue on Blade 16 2023, tried stopping xtuservice and Razer Intel Overclock in task manager, turned Link State Power Management off and no fixes. All firmware are up to date. I first discovered the issue when I play games like CS2 or Valorant. I thought it was a voice chat issue. Later I found out that in order to reproduce the issue at 100% constant rate is to have the GPU run at a fairly amount of power, then play whatever audio or video on youtube, and the audio crackling, popping sound appears. It would appear 5-6 seconds when the furmark is started with audio playing, and takes 4-5 minutes to disappear completely after closing furmark. I have done the same stress test with CPU but does not have the issue. I think there is something to do with the GPU, paired with high DPC latency of nvidia driver in latencymon.

Thanks some combination of these helped me in 2025 on my Razer Blade 16 (2024 model). 

THIS WORKED THANK YOU

I have a Razer Blade 18 rtx 4090 and i would say i have less than 200 hours clocked on the machine since i bought it new. I last turned it on in March 2025 and now today on the 1st November i am suddenly having issues of severe stuttering both in the frames and audio every 2 seconds. The laptop had held its charge for those months i didnt turn it on. There were zero issues before back in march.

I have uninstalled gpu drivers and tried removing/uninstalling Razer synapse etc and updated the windows 11 to current date. Nothing is helping. Can anyone assist?

i’m having the same issue as well. I’ve had the laptop for a few years but never really used it. So i’m not clear if the audio issue is new or i just didn’t notice it because i didn’t really use it much.

But when using the onboard audio (either via speaker or audio jack) audio glitches and freezes. That can be in a game or even youtube.

That said, audio via a usb audio device or via HDMI works fine.

I’m using the Razer Blade 16" (2023) | RZ09-0483x. Windows 11 25h2. 

All the firmware/bios is up to date too. 

removing razer software and doing to the PCI link state power suggestions (to off) didn’t help. 

I found a solution to this for myself. Let me and others know if it worked for you also.

Go to Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > Sound. On the Playback tab, find the Realtek Speaker on the list. Right click it and go to properties and under the “Advanced” tab” look for a small box that says “Enable Audio Enhancements” Make sure this box is unchecked and hit apply. Restart your Laptop and make sure this setting is still unchecked and try playing games/youtube again and see if the sound is hitching. Hope it works for you.

thanks for the suggestion - sadly it wasn’t enabled. (i even did a full reinstall of windows too. Also opened up the system to see if some wire was touching something it shouldn’t be… also put in PTM since i had it open :) )

It is a strange problem. Even if the sound is muted but the audio device is the Realtek,  the problem is still there. Youtube video will studder as well as game play. 

I just disabled the device. Shame on me for having is laptop for a few years and not using it. Super missed the warranty period :(

I’ll get a small USB-Dac or use wireless headphones. It audio is totally fine as long as realtek isn’t engaged. 

When i had the issue i was able to test it by muting a youtube video via the youtube player rather than the laptop mute itself. When i tried muting via laptop the problem persisted but when i muted via the youtube player the problem vanished. Can you confirm the same?

the problem is there if muted via the youtube player or via windows.

This worked for me. TYSM. 

Confirming this has fixed issue for me, seems like this is software issue rather than hardware.

Can anyone confirm does switching this setting off worsen the audio? This setting then disabled THX i assume?

Hope they patch and fix this so i can put it on default and utilitize THX.

I was able to fix my issue on my 2023 Blade 16 with RTX 4090 by rolling back a Windows Update driver for the THX Sound Service. This allows you to keep using Enhanced Audio.