Audio Problem Parallels 5, Windows 7

C

ClaytonR

Bit poster
When I play mp3s in Windows it sounds horrible. There's a lot of pops, clicks, and skips happening. It doesn't matter if i'm playing a song that's located on my regular hard drive or from on the virtual machine. And I'm having the same problem whether I use my DJ program (the reason I got Parallels) or Windows Media Player.

I'm running an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with 4GB of Ram running 10.6.1. And I'm up to date with all the update in Windows and OS X.

Is anybody else having this problem?

Thanks
 
Similar problem here... I'm streaming radio in Windows Media player and it pops and crackles quite a bit. Same on games - sound is stuttering. This became a little better after I uninstalled an appearance manager from Windows 7 that Parallels had installed (with the Parallels tools) to allow "Mac Look" - but not much.
I'm running Win 7 under Parallels 5 on a MacBook Air 1.66 with Nvidia 9400 M.
 
Same problem here. It's a bit better with a Basic theme, but not much.

To reproduce:

- Launch iTunes for Windows inside the Windows 7 VM
- Play music
- Open a Web browser (tested with Opera) in the Windows 7 VM
- Load a page (Parallels forums for example)
- Scroll back and forth quickly

You'll get pops, clicks, crackles and small skips in the music being played in the Background.

VM Params:

- 1 CPU
- 1024Mo RAM
- Adaptative Hypervisor activated
- Automatic compression activated
 
I'm having the same problems. It happened to me with Vista and Parallels 4 as well. It's not as bad if I'm running WinXP, but it is still there from time to time. I don't even have to be running any other applications, and I'll get the clicking and skipping interruptions. It makes using any kind of music application completely useless.

My host machine is no slouch either. I have tons of processor power, and loads of ram with nothing else going on. Neither host nor guest OS is under any kind of stress at all.
 
Trash the Parallels 5 preferences in library/preferences, library/preferences/Parallels (mind that you keep the licenses.xml), and in (user)/library/preferences, and empty the trash (you may want to copy them somewhere safe before you empty the trash). Then start Parallels. You'll have to re-apply all your settings, of course.
This helped for me after I upgraded from P4 to P5 and was very unhappy with the sound (though pretty happy with almost everything else) - my sound issues are gone
 
@Shaddam IV

Thanks, but it doesn't change anything for me. I guess I didn't have the issues you have. Depends on what audio software, the issue appears more or less.

I indicated iTunes as the test sofware because this is the one with which I get the most crackles & co. With Windows Media or even a Flash movie on the web it's a lot harder to get crackles & co, but with iTunes they appear very easily.
 
Try reducing your VM's size. I reduced the VM to 512 Mbyte. I RENamed the Parallels directory on the VM's hard drive to prevent the parallels programs from running (this will in all likelihood kill interoperability with the host OS) - that also increased speed. Parallels currently eats up a huge amount of memory. With a largish VM, you may hit the limits of your "real" memory and then the poor machine starts swapping like mad.
 
I've tried resetting the old prefs, with no improvement. There is no way either my host or guest systems are stressed, or memory limited. This has to be a problem with the Parallels software itself.
 
Same Problem

I have the same problem with audio skipping. Skips about every 15 seconds while playing music.

Fresh install of Parallels 5. Fresh install of Windows 7 Pro in Parallels. Using the Zune software to play local content.
VM Memory 2GB. 3D Acceleration is off.
iMac physical memory 4GB. Core 2 Duo.

Tried a bunch of stuff. Nothing works. Music skips in Parallels.
 
Try changing the VM's audio driver to a different sample rate. I'm running the VM with 11.025 kHz. This of course makes for muffled sound but at least I get no more pops and clicks.
 
I have had this problem as well, I am ready to dump parallels. I bought it simply to run windows based karaoke and DJ programs on my mac. I have tried over 10 different programs. They all skip. I have tried everyting sugested that i could find. This was a huge waste of money for me.
 
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