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Slow CPU speed reported by LatencyMon
I've been trying for some time to figure out why I get audio "drop-outs" during audio recording or playback. (I am a semi-professional music producer - in other words, people pay me to record and produce their music, so these glitches can be pretty embarrassing if they happen during a live recording session).
It doesn't happen all that often, but seems to have increased since I upgraded RAM from 8 to 16GB, and traded in my mechanical HD for a 1TB SSD (which I did hoping to improve speed - didn't seem to make that much difference). There may be no problem for hours or even days, then suddenly it starts happening repeatedly, and even re-booting doesn't cure it.
I recently discovered LatencyMonitor. It suggested updating drivers, so I updated all of them I could find (using Driver Booster 3), plus removed some I no longer needed. I also uninstalled EasyTune (though I couldn't figure out whether it was actually running). That has improved, but not eliminated the problem.
To the point: LatencyMon reveals 3 particular issues of concern, that I can't figure out what to do with, and I was hoping someone here could point me in the right direction.
1. CPU Speed - according to LatencyMon, "reported" CPU speed is 3093 MHz, but the "Measured" speed is only 1 MHz. I don't believe this can be accurate. Is there another utility I can use to measure CPU speed?
2. High Interrupt-to-Process Latencies - if I'm reading the report right, this seems to be coming from ataport.sys. I've seen dozens of references to this problem online, but no solutions that I haven't already tried.
3. High Pagefault resolution times - the most pagefaults, and the longest resolutions times, seem to occur it msmpeng.exe (Microsoft Security Essentials - grrr! you'd think Microsoft would've made their own antivirus program more efficient). Is there another AV solution that might work better (preferably cheap or free).
FYI, the entire LatencyMon report is appended below. Thanks for any help you can offer.
~kyle knapp
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Code:_________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CONCLUSION _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates. LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 24:20:46 (h:mm:ss) on all processors. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SYSTEM INFORMATION _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Computer name: DRYCREEKSTUDIO OS version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601 (x64) Hardware: Z68A-D3H-B3, Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz Logical processors: 4 Processor groups: 1 RAM: 16301 MB total _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU SPEED _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Reported CPU speed: 3093 MHz Measured CPU speed: 1 MHz (approx.) Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results. WARNING: the CPU speed that was measured is only a fraction of the CPU speed reported. Your CPUs may be throttled back due to variable speed settings and thermal issues. It is suggested that you run a utility which reports your actual CPU frequency and temperature. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started execution. This includes the scheduling and execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait state in response to that event. Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 3155.740704 Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 2.992244 Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 577.382689 Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 1.052137 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ REPORTED ISRs _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal. Highest ISR routine execution time (µs): 186.454252 Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0.039398 Driver with highest ISR total time: ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0.062850 ISR count (execution time <250 µs): 67931642 ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0 ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs): 0 ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 0 ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 0 ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ REPORTED DPCs _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished execution. Highest DPC routine execution time (µs): 634.975105 Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0.184231 Driver with highest DPC total execution time: ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0.298536 DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 205719655 DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0 DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs): 6 DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 0 DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 0 DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution. NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs were hit. Process with highest pagefault count: msmpeng.exe Total number of hard pagefaults 303967 Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 226374 Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs): 298159.409958 Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%): 0.040880 Number of processes hit: 22 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ PER CPU DATA _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 1469.370741 CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs): 186.454252 CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 220.344567 CPU 0 ISR count: 67931642 CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs): 634.975105 CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 1001.921223 CPU 0 DPC count: 181393239 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 126.334885 CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0 CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0 CPU 1 ISR count: 0 CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs): 178.344973 CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 10.581033 CPU 1 DPC count: 4103687 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s): 101.732955 CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0 CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0 CPU 2 ISR count: 0 CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs): 146.540899 CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s): 13.127845 CPU 2 DPC count: 7435390 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s): 160.728584 CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0 CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0 CPU 3 ISR count: 0 CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs): 163.831555 CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s): 20.99980 CPU 3 DPC count: 12787345 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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