Crackling audio on a PC that otherwise runs fine is one of the most common symptoms people search for — and one of the most misunderstood. It's rarely a hardware fault. It's almost always a timing problem: your audio buffer running dry because something else made the CPU wait too long.
Why crackling happens even on powerful PCs
Audio playback depends on a steady stream of small buffers being filled on time. A DPC latency spike of even a few milliseconds can starve that buffer for just long enough to produce an audible click or crackle — raw CPU power doesn't prevent this, because the problem is a driver delaying a queued task, not a lack of processing capacity.
Diagnosing it instead of guessing
Run a latency scan during the exact activity that causes the crackle (streaming, gaming, recording). Note which driver shows the highest execution time at that moment — that's almost always more useful than searching forums for generic fixes.
Fixes that actually address the cause
Increasing your audio buffer size in your sound software gives the system more headroom to absorb a spike. Disabling USB selective suspend and updating the flagged driver address the spike itself rather than just masking it with a bigger buffer.