Windows 7: DPC Latency causing audio stuttering, crackling

Hi,

For the past few days I've been trying to fix the sound stuttering when I'm listening to music, and after monitoring the dpc latency it seems to be caused by a bad driver. I've updated all my drivers and tried finding which one is causing the latency spikes but no luck so far.

DPC latency when i'm not getting stutters:
Yfrog - dpc1

Stuttering:
Yfrog - dpc2
Yfrog - dpc3



Also, I don't know if this means anything but when I open up hwinfo32 and the hardware summary is shown, i get this pattern:
Yfrog - hwinfodpc (big screenshot)

When I close the summary it's back to normal. Does this mean it's related to one of the parts shown in the hwinfo32 summary?
I've tried disabling wlan, vga, sound, and modem in device manager, uninstalled daemon tools and it's driver etc, but that didn't change anything.

Any advice?
I'm using an Acer Aspire 5715Z laptop, Realtek HD audio

Uninstall the Realtek in the Device Manager then restart the PC and when Windows starts it will detect it and reinstall. Sometimes the reinstall will put it on a different IRQ and fix the problem. No guarantee but worth a try.

FWIW I have an Acer 7720 laptop with Realtek and Win 7 32 bit and it doesn't do it on mine.

Just tried that now, still getting huge dpc latency spikes, and audio stuttering because of it.

Did you ever get this fixed? I have been getting a lot of high DPC readings which are causing pops and clicks in my audio, too. Below is a link to my post if you want more information.

DPC Latency

I don't think it's an audio driver issue because I've had it with my Creative Labs Xfi and Audio Kontrol interface.

Have the exact same problem.

somehow I fixed it, but I'm not really sure what caused it. I think it was the daemon tools sptd driver which I uninstalled. when I finally figured out how to use xperf and xperfview, to really get a detailed summary of dpc latency, an 'unknown' driver was at the top, uninstalling the sptd driver that comes with daemon tools seems to have fixed this.
so, my advice is: download xperf & xperfview ( it's in the microsoft windows performance toolkit ) and take a good look at the dpc latency summary, this will tell you exactly what's causing the spikes. there's a really good guide i used, to figure out how to use xperf: Pointless Blathering : Measuring DPC time
also take a look at this topic VIRTUAL DJ SOFTWARE - DPC Latency Questions

Mostly on laptops it is Power Management causes this problem. It changes processor rate to save the power, and this changing of CPU rate causes increased DPC latency.

Fixing the problem:
Simply you can just create (or modify current) a new special power plan in: Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options
When you do this, just go to plan settings, click advanced settings, and set the minimum and maximum processor rate to equal (minimum = maximum), so this prevents changing of your CPU speed. Personally, I have 60% in my settings, because listening to music does not require a lot o CPU resources.

Just adjust these minimum/maximum settings anyway you want. Just remember to set them two equally.
You can set 100% (maximum performance) but then your CPU will generate more heat and the fun will be noisy... So just choose the best setting for you.

So static CPU rate should solve high DPC latency and fix the sound crackling problem.. It works for me fine!