Windows 7: Audio Latency Problem

Something is causing high latency and it's distorting the sound. I don't have this problem in XP. I've tried disabling drivers one by one and checking but no luck.

A clean install did not fix the problem. Updating my audio drivers also did not work.

Downloading will make the latency spike to outrageous levels and makes the system lag.

Further analysis:

An XP partition on the same hard drive as 7 didn't seem to have any problems. A complete format and clean install did not fix the problem.

Have you updated all your drivers - chipset and firmware? Use the guide in my sig.

I'm pretty sure everything is up to date.

You can try DPC latency checker which may confirm wheter it is latency.

I have used it, the latency spikes even on a new installation. I've tried installing x86 on a new partition to see if the problem was x64 related but no dice. I think it might be a hard drive problem because this seems to only happen on my WD drive and started happening a few days after installing it.

Run chkdsk from the right click menu, properties, tools tab of your C:\ drive. Then run Memtest86+.

I've already ran a disk check and it didn't seem to find anything wrong. I'll try memtest86+.

Memtest86+ did not detect any errors.

Also, downloading anything will make the latency spike to outrageous levels and makes the system lag.

Look at this, this is absolutely ridiculous. Formatted the entire drive and did a clean install and got this while downloading updates.

2,052,903 µs

It got so bad that my mouse didn't respond. I'm going to try one last thing before I throw in the towel.

While downloading?

Could be your ethernet (network adapter) or wireless driver.
Usually DPC latency is caused by an inefficient driver or a driver causing a system conflict.

Ap