Realtek, Windows 7 64RTM Crackle/static/popping

Yup, sorry about the double post. I hadn't noticed that it needed to be screened first.

Yup, thats' all i wanted to say. This forum seems to be "THEE" lead place to go to diagnose realtek 'crackling' issues.

Thanks again

Yeah so I just got a new computer to replace that pile of junk acer I got late last year. Like i've said before I'm done with that machine after sending it in five times for the same problem.

Anyway because I think most of our sound problems are caused by a crappy wifi card or something of the sort(although that acer had bigger problems than that) I thought I would bring up the dpc latency thing. Now I do not exactly know what it means although when it gets in the red at 6,000 to 7,000 us(what's a 'us' anyway?) I notice that the CPU will spike at 100% when I look at it in task manager.

Let me tell you I am completely paranoid now that I had that problem with the acer. It was so bad on the acer it would be off the charts constantly until the computer just slowed to a crawl. So anywho I fire up the DPC latency checker on this new computer and look at it a lot just to see how bad it is. I found out that on my new computer a HP Compaq look here for the specs: Amazon.com: Compaq Presario CQ61-410US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black):… (although I didn't get it from amazon)the wireless card causes spikes in the 5,000 to 7,000 ranges for about four to eight seconds. However when I turn it off it stays under 100 mostly with a spike in the 1,000 to 2,000 range every 15 to thirty seconds. I have no idea what causes those little spikes however even after shutting down many processes that are not needed to run the computer.

Ok now because I'm paranoid about this I got to ask. Is this ok? I do not notice any garbled sound or major video skips. I did before when I had utorrent running (it actually brought the latency down for some reason while downloaded and uploading on utorrent) but the sound and video would skip every once in a while with utorrent running. Is this dpc latency checker program not fool proof and it's not necessarily showing what's going on? The way I understand it, this measures the traffic and load on the processor and how long it takes for something to arrive at its destination? I really don't understand how it really works even when I keep re reading the documents on that website.

Should I just forget about it and enjoy my new computer? I'm guessing there is nothing wrong with it at all and that's just the way computers are now? My other gateway laptop that I've had for about five years tends to hover around the 1,000 mark no matter what(even when doing other things although I know you're not supposed to check it like that) unless I disable wifi then it goes down to about 200 for a second and back to 1,000 every other second. In fact it stays so close I wonder if the DPC latency checker is even working on it.

the important thing is that it's not acting stupid right?

Solved said:

SOLVED

On a gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H I disabled all my 'unlocked' cores. Ridiculously, I had tried this yesterday to no avail. But, for some reason or another, it decided to work today. I have no idea why.

My suggestion is to disable your unlocked cores and reboot several times as well as verify that they have been disabled with 3rd party software.

This had nothing to do with Realtek HD and everything to do with my unlocked core. I know when you're on the other side of it not working, you want to blame it all on realtek. That's what I did. But, now that i'm on the 'solved' side, I understand why my audio was *ucked and what the exact source was.

Hello SOLVED. Good that you SOLVED your issue SOLVED... ;-)
What do you mean by "unlocked cores" and how you did that?

nonews said:

On my C2D systems running Win7x64, only disabling C1E did not stop the DPC latency problems. Disabling EIST did prevent DPC issues no matter the windows 7 PPM setting. Disabling HPET lowered latency a small amount but by itself did not prevent latency issues.

I'm running an i7-930 with Win7x64, GA-X58A-UD5 mobo.

Haven't changed HPET, but I did disable C1E and EIST -- the result was a reduction in average DPC latency from > 16000us to around 100us ... and goodbye crackles!

Before this, I updated Nvidia and Realtek drivers to latest and removed all Gigabyte software. Toying with the PPM setting does not seem to be a factor for me; it wasn't until I disabled those two BIOS settings that audio played cleanly.

How do you disable disable C1E and EIST?


I think I've tried everything to resolve this:

I've installed all the latest drivers for all components.
Installed the Codec lite pack .
Disabled speaker effects (enhancements).
Twiddled with every imaginable setting in the Sound panel in Windows 7
Turned off Aero to use a basic theme
Uninstalled any energy saving software by asus or any software that is made by asus
Reset the BIOS to the factory default settings.
Flashed the system BIOS to several different versions.
Reinstalled the operating system from ground up.
Tried using several different sound cards, internal and external.
Tried several different nics.
Swapped the Video Card.
I even swapped the MoBo with a similar model.

The only thing that affects the popping is a reboot, which resolves it for a few hours, or disabling the network adapter, which resolved the issue 100%, but I sort of need network access.

It sure seems inherent to Windows 7.

I tried just about everything to get rid of the pops/crackle. I thought I had it beat a couple times only for it to come back on next reboot.

But now it all has gone away (no pops for about three months now so I assume it is for good). How?

I disabled on-board audio in the Bios and installed a Creative X-Fi sound card. Deleted all the Realtek drivers and pops no more!!!

This is an indication that the Realtek hard/software is conflicting with something I could not track down. So 'throw out the baby with the bath water' approach worked for me.

have any of you been using the software that comes with most motherboards to check temps/CPU/memory?
Gigabytes for example is easytune 6, not sure of the names for other board manufacturers. They monitor the board/CPU/Memory ect. When monitoring they check the system every 30 secs or so, and with mine this was the popping sound heard through the Realtek Audio. Luckily on the Easytune there was an option to set the scan interval to off and it solved the problem. Also uninstalling the software solved it.
Its worth a try

octane097 said:

I don't want to jump to conclusions here but as someone who has been at the forefront of this battle, I believe I may have solved this problem and I would like to share with you how i did it.

First off, let me stress, the solution will be different for everyone! (which is why we're seeing different **** working for different people).

The key to solving this problem is to get your DPC Latency under control. It has been mentioned in this thread before but THIS IS THE SOLUTION... the fact that different configurations worked for different people corroborates my theory. For me, it was upgrading certain drivers (chipset, network driver, and my SATA).

Anyway, here's your framework:

1) Get DPC Latency Checker
2) Narrow down which driver is the culprit by disabling a different one every time
3) Upgrade each of your drivers from the manufacturer's site
4) Once you don't have any lag -- all green -- you're good to go!

My hypothesis is windows 7 is more sensitive to DPC latency issues. GOOD LUCK

EDIT: After 48 hour uptime crackling and popping seem to have returned but not nearly at the same levels that they were before. I wish there was a way to stress test. Doesn't anyone have a recommendation on how to do so? Perhaps the best track/video to play to see how bad it is?

EDIT 2: Apparently my DPC is back out of wack AGAIN... which may explain this. Stay tuned! It's being caused by NIC.

Using the DPC Latency Checker I was able to isolate my static noise problem down to the built in wireless card as being the culprit.. Thanks!


I hope this also helps others with their static / popping sounds.. I spent 3 days trying to fix the problem until finally coming across your post; 16 pages into this thread

Agreed - it was DPC latency for me too.
I never posted my findign as I thought it was just me, but the above poster confirms that it is common