ndis.sys latency issue

hello all,

I am a professional audio designer and I use an external audio card for performance playback,
however, recently, I have started to have problems with audio dropouts because of this service.
I understand that it is a networking driver, but I have never had issues with it until recently. What
is more confusing is that the problem persists when I disconnect from a network and it is not in use.
I am puzzled by this and since I do a lot of work in a mobile environment with my laptop, it is
driving me up the wall. I cannot find a solution. It is a necessary driver and I understand that this same driver has caused a lot of problems including bsod's for people.

Why would it start doing this "out of nowhere"? also, I performed a full factory default restore on the machine including service pack and all updates. ndis.sys STILL runs at an average of 3ms.

Any idea on what can cause this and how to fix this?

Wow, 99 views and no one has had to deal with this?

Hi tom982,

Way ahead of you there, ive used DPC latency checker, and Latencymon already, AND have changed my power options to high performance. I have even gone into the advanced power options and switched to "optimize for performance over appearance" with the same results, however, if it helps, I will switch them back, and post the "before and after" screenies for you:) thank you for the reply:)

fireberd said:

I have a recording studio, using Sonar X2.

What audio interface unit are you using? Also filling in the My System Spec's would help.

Wi-Fi is one known cause of noise spikes. Buffers in the recording program and the recording devices buffer settings will also have an affect.

I have a Laptop that I use for "on site" recordings and I disable the wi-fi when I record. I have two USB audio interface units that I use, a Roland Octa-Capture and an MAudio Fastrack Ultra 8R. Neither unit has any noise issues with the Laptop.

Hello fireberd, I filled in my specs for you. I also have a recording studio, using Cubase 5 for recording / composition, and Ableton live 8 for performance. I am aware that the issue is wi-fi related.

It is just baffling that up to this point, I had no problems using my current external usb audio interface, a Native Instruments Traktor Audio 2 - NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, and my wi-fi, at the same time. I had been using both ever since I purchased this audio interface, about 8 months ago, however, I was using wi-fi in a home network environment, but also never disabled my wi-fi on the road, I had never had any problems. I have also done some research on the service and it's .dll, the ndis.sys, which is the culprit in this matter. No service on my machine except ndis.sys runs at or above 1ms. ndis.sys continually runs at 3ms. I do believe this is a new development as my friend was just over at my house not 2 days ago, wi-fi enabled, installed my audio interface on his laptop (an HP) and the card had no drop-outs.

The Atheros driver is the correct driver for this machine. There are 2 versions of this model laptop, the 5552, and the 5552g that i am aware of. I do not know what the difference is, maybe it's regional. However, i installed the broadcom driver out of curiosity, and it is not compatible with this machine, no dice

funny, i had been to acers support several times and got a completely different download section than that page 0.o

I want to thank all for the tips. My latency problem would only happen after I had left my PC and came back later. Now it makes sense. All were saying drivers and wifi. That was close I guess, but what fixed my problem was taking the Powersaver option off of my wireless wifi device. So the delay in having the latency problem was when the power to the wireless wifi was automatically shut off.

Very strange, and would love to hear from anyone that can explain this further. I also noticed that if I disabled my wifi wireless adapter (it is a desktop and I really do not need it at this time) latency issues when off the charts with the latency checker program.

This should help all those that have had to reboot to have the latency issue clear.