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I’ve had an audio crackle that happens only sometimes on my PC for years now.

Windows 10, Z170-A motherboard with driver for built in audio

Tried different cables, inputs (optical vs aux etc) installing different drivers, old drivers, new drivers, nothing fixes it

Super annoying when I want to listen to spotify or YouTube or anything

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I too had issues with loud pops and crackles from my speakers and tried just about everything except picking apart the speakers (hardware is scary). Eventually I did investigate the speaker internals and the culprit turned out to be a bad potentiometer on the back of the subwoofer; I bypassed it with a wire which fixed the problem completely.

Probably your speakers, have you tried other ones? Cheap speakers sometimes (or OS "power saving" features) turns off various components after being inactive for a while, and when they come alive again, there is a pop happening as electricity enters the circuits. Happens if you turn on whatever the speaker is connected to after turning on the speakers as well, while vice-versa is fine with no pop.

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