So for the past few days, an issue has arisen that can't be ignored anymore with Ubuntu 12.04 on my Dell Studio XPS 1640 laptop. I've had 12.04 installed on it for months with no problems until recently.
Now, randomly occurring, my internal speakers will sometimes beging a routine of consistent (every 1.2 seconds or so) cracking/popping/clicking (no idea how to describe, it's kind of that sound you hear when your speakers go 'oh, I'm about to play some sound,' like a sound is TRYING to be played, but can't get out), even if the speaker volume is at 0 or muted entirely. Changing the sound volume does not change anything about this click noise.
I've also noticed that about 90% of the time, this sound is a precursor to my trackpad simply stopping working (the computer itself still remains operative though, as about 99% of the time, I can still use the keyboard). If I plug in a USB mouse, it still works fine.
Is there some sort of issue with my trackpad driver? I'm not sure what driver Ubuntu uses by default when detecting all of its hardware upon installation. Synaptic?
Any help would be greatly appreciated; thanks!