Audio driver quickly fading in whenever a new sound starts

Well I've figured at least more of it out. Haven't eliminated the fade yet, but I did notice that whenever there is silence, even if a recording has silence in it, obviously there's no sound. However, when I turn down the recording in its own application, whenever it plays, there is a slight hiss that can be heard. Same thing with Jaws speaking - whenever it completes a word, the sound system stops rather than keeps going. On my old Toshiba, there was no hiss and it was always running. This might have something to do with it, who knows. Which would mean that, since it was always going, there was no fade. Guess I'll have to check my sister's laptop (she's running Windows 7) and check out the registry settings for her audio device. If the settings are different than mine I'll change them accordingly and get back to you on this. It has to either be the Concervation idle time, idle power state or performance idle time. Either way, setting at least one of these to a non-0 value causes it to make that deafening pop. I guess I'll need to get a different sound card (physically) if all else fails...

I discovered where exactly the problem arises but haven't figured out how to alleviate it.It has nothing to do with my installed audio drivers at all. Instead, it's likely the fault of my integrated sound-chip on the motherboard.It's interesting that in highschool, my HP laptop had the same brand of soundchip as this one, which is Intel. However, my old Toshiba laptop (I hope it's still recoverable...) had a Realtek. A Realtek soundchip is different than the REaltek driver, as the Realtek driver just adds some absolutely crazy (in the bad way)) audio effects that I just hate. Even the quick fading-in still happens when using Realtek, and when I revert back to the Microsoft HD audio driver (which is a step better than Realtek driver), it still fades up at the beginning of any sound. Also, whenever Jaws is speaking for example, there's a slight hissing noise that I notice. When Jaws is done speaking, that hiss sound is gone. If a recording is playing and there is silence at the beginning, there's no hiss even if the file is playing - once there is sound, however, the hiss starts. I'm sure that it fades up like this so that you don't get a click when the sound turns on, although this fade to conteract that click is way too long. That Link sound with Jaws is actually shorter in duration than the fade itself! That's why it's a dead thud rather than a sharp click.On my older Toshiba laptop before this one, there was no hiss, and nor was there any type of fading effect, because it used a Realtek soundchip rather than an Intel which both this one and my highschool HP laptop used. The HP laptop also had that same slight hissing effect, but there was no fading. Not sure how Dell could possibly integrate the Realtek soundchip on my motherboard, but there's something to try first.It's not a case of uninstalling and reinstalling either the Realtek drivers or the Microsoft HD Audio drivers - I'm sure it will make no difference in the fading effect - but there is a way to update the Bios before Windows starts, and the parameters for the Intel soundchip I believe are contained in the Bios. Maybe an update to the Bios will fix this... who knows. If not, well, time to call Dell and have them swap out a Realtek soundchip for this crazy Intel! Or I'll contact Intel about their integrated chip to see how I'd be able to counterat that fading effect which mutes that Link sound.
By the way, my old Toshiba laptop crashed and my Dad took it to a recycling center, so for one, I hope they didn't wipe the hard-drive, and 2, I wonder if that laptop is still possible to retrieve so I can put that old Realtek card into this one. Plus that hard drive had some important school assignments on there, and I was using it normally when all of a sudden Windows wouldn't detect anything. The store did a diagnostic test and there was absolutely nothing on it, so maybe they won't wipe the hard drive. However, Gillware Recovery says that this drive is totally recoverable. It made no "death beep" noises, it was making the normal sounds and spinning correctly. Maybe I shut the lid too hard...
This fading is just ridiculous. Let's see, maybe for you screenies, the fading effect would be like a new picture quickly fading in when it first appears, or if the screen flashes, the fade is so slow you don't even notice the flash. Obviously I can't really relate to this as I am blind, but I've tried my best to equate it to something most of you will understand. It's a great pity that we all live in a mostly visual world - at least to me. This is why fire alarms are deafening to me, since fire codes think that people will only react to something they hear regardless if they're paying attention or not. For blind people, simply having a fire alarm in the hallway (without having one in the room) is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than enough to get our attention. So why the haggis put a fire alarm in the room that will literally turn you into Helen Keller? OMG!
Fair warning - I often ramble off-topic unconsciously.

Well, I already alleviated the popping noise through the Registry, don't know if you saw that yet. @dalchina I think since yours soundcard is a Realtek like my old Toshiba was, that's the reason why you get a sharp click when you play the file, and I get just a dead thump. Anyone have contact info for Intel? I don't think it's a problem with Dell, but better to check both places. By the way I'm not going to risk installing a soundcard on my own - this will require Jaws to stop due to there being no audio device, and I can't use a computer at all without Jaws! I always feel like I'm wasting somebody's time just having to rely on them to read the screen to me.

I'm going to contact Dell to see if they can help me resolve my problem. However, if the problem I'm facing is too difficult for Dell to solve themselves, I'll at least ask them to tell me what brand of soundchip that is integrated within the motherboard, so that I'll be able to contact the maker of the soundchip. I'm sure they'll be able to resolve this problem since they live for making this stuff.

@dalchina: What do you mean by FCu or CU?

Ah! Gotchya!

Hello BlindPiper and others. BlindPiper, I'll be sending you a private message shortly so we can discuss this further if you like. Hopefully you'll get it.
I recently updated to Windows 10 1709 and have the same problem as described in this thread. But I think I can clear some things up.

While I am also blind, I don't rely heavily on sounds. It's very possible that I miss the fade-ins during normal operation. I do a lot of audio editing though in a program called Gold Wave, and it is there that I notice the fade-ins every time I start playback. As Blind Piper said, it turns clicks into dull thumps, which for serious audio editing is unacceptable, as clicks commonly happen if you perform bad edits.

What I have discovered over the last couple weeks I've had this problem is that you are likely doing little good throwing away your computer or getting a USB sound card. This appears to be something with Wasapi (the main framework Windows has used since Vista IIRC to manage audio). Apparently the fade-ins happen when the device opens, and occasionally a fade-out will happen when the device is closed though I've only had that happen to me in one specific case which I can't reproduce.

The reason I am confident that this is Wasapi and not anything sound card related is that I've tried this across three computers with three different sound cards. One of those sound cards was a Realtech, the other was an IDT Audio card, and the third was a USB plug-and-play sound card. In addition the computer with the IDT Audio card is still using the generic Microsoft HD audio drivers because I never got around to installing the IDT drivers.

With virtually every configuration I was able to test or have other people test for me, the fade-ins did not happen on Win10 1607, and they only started in 1709 (we couldn't test 1703 so I can't tell you how the situation was there). In addition, they all started doing the fades when using Gold Wave set to Wasapi as the audio system, and when Gold Wave was switched to Direct Sound, the fades went away. So I conclude that unless I am totally running in the wrong direction, this is a Wasapi thing. I've seen sound cards do weird things similar to this, but if this particular case was a sound card or driver issue, I would've figured that out by now. I've posted this on the Gold Wave forums.

I have not tested other applications such as Jaws, and as I say, I don't heavily rely on sounds. The fades are not noticeable during day-to-day use for me, or if they are noticeable, they are slight. I will perhaps do some testing later with screen readers and different audio applications to see where the fades happen. I've been told that Reaper (an audio workstation) strangeley doens't have this problem on Wasapi, but I think it may also keep the device open much more often. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I'll do some more testing soon and report my findings.

Hopefully a cause and solution can be known soon!

So perhaps a few years later... I still haven't resolved this problem yet. Could it be another thing in the Registry? Note these are super tiny little micro-fades which I just still dislike. Why does Windows 10 give no respect for blind people and audio editors?