That's normal for a V3 AK trigger.
You pull the trigger in semi, The contact dolly moves forwards. The sector gear kicks the COL, and the COL lifts the contact dolly over the sear.
When the trigger is released the sear drops back down and eventually picks up the contact dolly again.
You have 2 springs in effect, the trigger spring and the Dolly spring. Both act on the sear. The contact dolly spring in this instance is pulling with enough force to pop the contact into position with a little pop. The pop noise is probably the sear clacking on the bottom of the outer shell as the dolly seats it. That dolly spring doesn't just apply a linear backwards motion, It also applies the downwards force on the back of the dolly because of a rotational force acting to pull the front of the dolly up. It's the combination of these 2 effects that seat the dolly to the sear.
It doesn't pop in auto because the COL doesn't lift the contact dolly over the sear in that fire mode.
There is nothing wrong with your gearbox. It is working as it was designed to work, The pop noise is just a feature of that trigger setup. AK's, G36's and Augs all have it in varying degrees, when using semi auto. Augs even have it in full auto because of the secondary trigger contacts.