[Win 7 32bit] Weird hangups usually when playing sounds

Foxtorpedo said:

Hi,

Ok so the problem is as follows. Sometimes when I play sounds on computer (can be msn,video/audio, software, youtube) the computer slowly creeps towards a freeze.

Sometimes the sound starts crackling and sometimes the sound keeps playing uninterrupted (say I have a song playing, it might just play normally while everything else freezes or it might start stuttering/crackling).

During these freezes HD is usually idle/doing whatever it was doing before this happened. The mouse pointer moves around the screen as if nothing has happened. CPU is usually at 100%. There is not 1 specific program that hogs all CPU power but svchost.exe's instance dcomlaunch and its service PlugPlay (Plug and play) tops the CPU chart every single time. Usually audiodg.exe is somewhere at the top too.

If I keep booting and trying sounds until it doesnt freeze the computer will not freeze until I hibernate/shut down the computer. These unaffected boots happen totally random.

I have tried updating sound drivers (my laptop has the AC'97) but that seems to do no good. Also I have uninstalled my antivir as I thought it might have something to do with it but it seems like it didnt.

I have disabled enhancements for my playback device and that didnt help the problem at all.

If you have an idea what could be causing this please speak up!

E: The laptop is a Sony sz61xn/c
Did some quick google and the soundchip might be a SigmaTel STAC9872AK

Often a process called audiodg.exe uses 100% cpu (its a known bug) when any "enhancements" are used. google the solution


Ken J

I already disabled all enhancements and that seems to be the only solution ppl are offering in those audiodg.exe threads. I've read a lot of those threads and tried alot of different solutions without any luck. Also it seems that ppl are experiencing 100% CPU use from the process whilst I see ~15% from audiodg and ~20% from the dcomlauncher module. Even though the numbers are small this is enough to lag up my comp and CPU use rises to the 100% mark because of other programs (I monitor this with run command perfmon /res and the performance monitor also uses like 30% but when launching it when computer is idle it only takes 2-4% CPU)

Update: My laptop has 2 graphic cards and there seems to be way less problems with the intel X3100 (other one is 8400M GS). I know that the earlier versions of the 8400M GS have been prone to die (because of some manufacturing mistakes) but the problems when they break are not what I am experiencing. I do have the latest drivers for my card and it does work occasionally (like I said totally random). There are no visible color distortions.

Could it be hardware failure (the 8400M GS). Like I said I'm not 100% sure that it actually has anything to do with the sounds it was just what came to mind.