Solved Severe audio crackling

[kLN93]

I've been getting audio crackling a lot, makes gaming not enjoyable at all. Tried re-installing realtek drivers, didn't work. Removed realtek audio and used generic audio drivers, still didn't work. I've tried both the i/o and the motherboard, I've tried disabling audio enhancements but that doesn't help either. The crackling gets worse when the CPU is working, not as bad when it is idle so it might be a latency issue. Any ideas?

 

[Andyrids]

Hi, I got the same problem but not quite as bad as you, had this many times before on different systems and there is a tonne of factors to take into consideration (currently I'm working through my own to solve the yet again, post reinstall)... but to keep it simple to start with do you have FFDshow installed ? some games do not like that and you can disable it for that game if that is the case... Do you have any Codec pack's installed ? for example I think my current problem is related to Klite Codec pack, well more specifically the LAV Audio... Sorry maybe not much help to you so far but I think we do need to know if you have any of these, Codec packs, FFDshow or whatever before troubleshooting.

 

[Cael]

i see you have a Gigabyte Board, do you have EasyTune installed?

 

[fireberd]

Good Point, Cael. The EasyTune (Version 6 on my board) will cause many problems. I inadvertently installed it on my system, that is used for my recording studio and I had drop outs, crackling, etc. I ran the DPC Latency Checker and it was "off the board". Thanks to one of the DAW system builders on the Sonar forum, he knew that EasyTune can cause the probolems. Uninstalled EasyTune6 and all my audio problems went away.

 

[kLN93]

I don't have easy tune installed...don't even know what it is lol. I ran DPC latency checker and it shows that some drivers are behaving badly and asks to individually turn them off to find the bad one. I tried disabling them one by one but still the crackling is there

 

[kLN93]

I ran LatencyMon and theses are the results I got

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
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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 or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. 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 0:10:32 (h:mm:ss) on all processors.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
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Computer name: HOME-PC
OS version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601 (x64)
Hardware: GA-78LMT-USB3, Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
CPU: AuthenticAMD AMD FX(tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor
Logical processors: 4
Processor groups: 1
RAM: 8189 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
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Reported CPU speed: 4319.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed: 3192.0 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.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
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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): 25659.511879
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 7.529112

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 2510.687611
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 1.738034


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
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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): 1707.692984
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0.020452
Driver with highest ISR total time: hal.dll - Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0.032534

ISR count (execution time <250 µs): 691295
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs): 2
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 2
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): 4395.335494
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: ndis.sys - NDIS 6.20 driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0.118131
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: rspLLL64.sys - Resplendence Latency Monitoring and Auxiliary Kernel Library, Resplendence Software Projects Sp.

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0.254093

DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 3374278
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs): 25
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 98
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 53
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: chrome.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults 105
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 55
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs): 174895.408891
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%): 0.035064
Number of processes hit: 5


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 8.540428
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs): 675.612179
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 0.556840
CPU 0 ISR count: 640026
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs): 4395.335494
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 4.268170
CPU 0 DPC count: 3207839
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.306488
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs): 26.094003
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0.033133
CPU 1 ISR count: 6289
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs): 164.200046
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 0.263980
CPU 1 DPC count: 20148
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.080838
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs): 1707.692984
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s): 0.181136
CPU 2 ISR count: 35487
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs): 2470.102107
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s): 1.498657
CPU 2 DPC count: 113489
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s): 4.939743
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs): 29.210697
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s): 0.052347
CPU 3 ISR count: 9497
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs): 206.474415
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s): 0.400519
CPU 3 DPC count: 32979
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[Cael]

it seems you overclocked your FX4100, try reducing the clock speed some and see if it stops.

 

[kLN93]

Already tried that, it's a temporary CPU, will get my 8350 back soon. Any other ideas?

 

[kLN93]

~bump

 

[Jazco]

This is more of a suggestion than a solution. There very cheap sound cards such as this one that could work as an alternative output.