DPC Latency issues causing audio pops, stuttering videos and gaming

OK...this may have been beat to death in the past but it's come back for me. I'm getting some terrible bad DPC latency issues. It's happening on a fresh install Windows 11. I've uninstalled the motherboard's sound drivers so it's running default Windows drivers, also uninstalled the motherboard network drivers so it's same there. The mfr's NVME driver is installed for the data NVME, the system NVME is using the default Windows driver as it should for a 980 Pro. I've also uninstalled the GPU drivers and reinstalled them (twice) after doing a cleanup process each time.

The funny thing is it's only doing it on a cold start; on a Windows restart it will run just fine. That suggests to me it might be something related to the pre-fetch process but not sure why.

Any and all advice or suggestions will be appreciated

Are you using Resplendence Latency Mon or DPC Latency Checker? Only use Latency Mon as DPC Latency checker is invalid for Win 10/11.

Screenshots would help, too.

I have Realtek sound installed on my recording studio desktop and it does not affect/cause latency.

fireberd said:

Are you using Resplendence Latency Mon or DPC Latency Checker? Only use Latency Mon as DPC Latency checker is invalid for Win 10/11.

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Click to expand...

Thanks much for replies...

I am using both but I don't think DPC Latency Checker is nearly as useful anyway so pretty much ignore it. LatencyMon tells me it's usually Wdf01000.sys that is the offending driver, sometimes dxgkrnl.sys. In addition to uninstalling/reinstalling drivers searches I've done tell me to disable power throttling but no suggestions how. I think that is only relevant for Intel systems anyway, I have a Ryzen 5800X CPU.

I also have Realtek sound but it's an Asus proprietary implementation: ALCS S1200a CODEC. Being proprietary it won't install any Realtek driver other than the default driver Win11 installs or the Asus furnished driver from the motherboard support site. When that's installed (the latest) the latency issues are far worse and occur even on warm re-starts. Personally, I'm about fed up with this Asus motherboard but there simply aren't many decent mATX AM4 motherboards at an affordable price anymore.

I'm wondering if completely disabling the onboard CODEC would be a solid fix, going instead to an AIC sound card. I'd want to keep it cheap, most likely a Creative Audigy FX since it fully integrates with the case front panel jacks. I'm not doing audio work and certainly not a recording studio. All I want is something that's not going to be popping and crackling when playing back my music collection and plays games without stuttering.

I'm not really sure just what to take a screenshot of that would be informative.

Prior to the Gigabyte mother board I have now I had an ASUS ROG Maximus board (a gamer board but I had it as it had a lot of USB ports on the rear I/O panel). I used the ASUS Realtek driver.

Some boards have a monitoring and/or configuration program. These have been known to cause problems with Latency/dropouts (stuttering). If this has one and installed disable it (reboot after disabling).

The throttling and usually whatever is displayed when it tells you the PC has problems with audio are "stock" alerts. I never found them useful.

Popping and crackling is a common reported problem and no one fix. One issue on many is Wi-Fi. If you are using Wi-Fi disable it for testing and then run Latency Mon.

Latency Mon can overwhelm you with data, but the various panels are useful.

Hi,

Follow these 2 TIPS (also visible at the bottom of the first post of all my audio drivers threads) :



Also for information, you have an ASUS TUF DTS Custom motherboard, so :

You need Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASUS TUF/PRIME DTS Custom) from the first post of this thread : [DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (Intel 2xx/3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx/7xx & AMD 3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx).

Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process then your INSTALL process, for the next drivers packages that I would release, you will can directly follow your UPDATE process.

Buddywh said:

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The funny thing is it's only doing it on a cold start; on a Windows restart it will run just fine. That suggests to me it might be something related to the pre-fetch process but not sure why.

Any and all advice or suggestions will be appreciated

Click to expand...

Do you, by any chance, have fast startup turned on? Most probably not, but have to ask, because everything is OK on restart

AndreTen said:

Do you, by any chance, have fast startup turned on? Most probably not, but have to ask, because everything is OK on restart

Click to expand...

I do have it on. But I am aware that even turned off (in the control panel applet) it's not completely off and I could see that when had it turned off. It was also apparent to me because the PREFETCH folder was being maintained. I believe to completely disable it the SYSMAIN service has to be stopped and disabled.

Thank you @MoKiChU for the MSI utility link. This is completely new to me and there's a lot to learn. When I first opened it, all the devices had MSI enabled except the two High Def Audio busses, one was the DMI audio bus associated with the video card which I don't use. So I enabled MSI for the audio busses and am now going to see if audio is reliably pops and crackles free!

But I also noted the PRIORITY column: is there any benefit changing the interrupt priority to HIGH from UNDEFINED as it is now? Currently, only the drive devices (both NVME's and one SATA) have it set HIGH.

I'm currently going over the customized driver package linked. I'm OK with running the default audio driver since my sound needs are few. I can use a third party app (FxSound) for an equalizer and enhancer. If I'm OK with how things are after "fixing" the MSI issue I may try installing it though. I have no interest in the DTS soundscapes though.

I would turn that fast startup off. Guess that you mean that hiberfile.sys file still exists, by not being completely off. You can prevent this with:

powercfg -h off in admin command

Only do this if you don't need hibernation

Well...to followup. I tried most all the suggestions, including installing @MoKiChU 's customized Asus driver pack and disabling hibernation and fast startup. All to no avail as I was still getting latency glitches on cold startups but OK on a warm restart.

Decided that before I went the new motherboard route it was best to clean install Win11 again, since I'd be doing that anyway with a new board. This time I ran latency tests using LatencyMon applet after driver installs and app installs. Sure enough, the latency problem returned shortly after installing the NVME driver for my Crucial P3 Plus data NVME. Uninstalled it (back to default Win11 StorPort driver) and latency problem disappeared. I did not expect that.

So now I have to decide if the drive is performing properly without the Micron (Crucial) driver. The support site does say it's only needed for "certain maintenance and management" functions which doesn't suggest for full enablement, but we'll see. I installed it initially because I thought it's needed to enable HMB, vital for a DRAM-less SSD to perform properly.

Thanks to all who helped. I'm very glad I found the @MoKiChU updated Realtek audio drivers. That was serendipitous since Asus certainly isn't keeping up with customer support yet they've locked out use of chipset mfr. driver updates with their proprietary implementations. But the tips on disabling Fast Startup and Hibernation was also good to pick up.

AndreTen said:

I would turn that fast startup off. Guess that you mean that hiberfile.sys file still exists, by not being completely off. You can prevent this with:

powercfg -h off in admin command

Only do this if you don't need hibernation

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips (both for hibernation and fast startup) even though it had no effect on the problem...see my prior post. Still, it makes sense to disable them since, with a fast NVME system drive, my startup speed is unaffected by disabling them. It makes sense because I like the reduced complexity of operation, meaning less to go wrong in the future.

But as I've learned, you also have to disable the SysMain service to full disable the prefetch (SuperFetch) system. Should I do that too? Is there a good reason not to?

Buddywh said:

Thank you @MoKiChU for the MSI utility link. This is completely new to me and there's a lot to learn. When I first opened it, all the devices had MSI enabled except the two High Def Audio busses, one was the DMI audio bus associated with the video card which I don't use. So I enabled MSI for the audio busses and am now going to see if audio is reliably pops and crackles free!

Click to expand...

Hi,

You're welcome

Buddywh said:

But I also noted the PRIORITY column: is there any benefit changing the interrupt priority to HIGH from UNDEFINED as it is now? Currently, only the drive devices (both NVME's and one SATA) have it set HIGH.

Click to expand...

I don't recommend you to touch the priority/limit, these are implemented by the drivers if needed.

Buddywh said:

I'm currently going over the customized driver package linked. I'm OK with running the default audio driver since my sound needs are few. I can use a third party app (FxSound) for an equalizer and enhancer. If I'm OK with how things are after "fixing" the MSI issue I may try installing it though. I have no interest in the DTS soundscapes though.

Click to expand...

I understand that the name of the drivers package type can be confusing, but this audio drivers package type is not customized/modded (I only offer OEM original drivers, WHQL signed by Microsoft, modding is not my field), it is the name of your DTS built-in feature. From the audio specifications of your motherboard :

Buddywh said:

Well...to followup. I tried most all the suggestions, including installing @MoKiChU 's customized Asus driver pack and disabling hibernation and fast startup. All to no avail as I was still getting latency glitches on cold startups but OK on a warm restart.

Decided that before I went the new motherboard route it was best to clean install Win11 again, since I'd be doing that anyway with a new board. This time I ran latency tests using LatencyMon applet after driver installs and app installs. Sure enough, the latency problem returned shortly after installing the NVME driver for my Crucial P3 Plus data NVME. Uninstalled it (back to default Win11 StorPort driver) and latency problem disappeared. I did not expect that.

So now I have to decide if the drive is performing properly without the Micron (Crucial) driver. The support site does say it's only needed for "certain maintenance and management" functions which doesn't suggest for full enablement, but we'll see. I installed it initially because I thought it's needed to enable HMB, vital for a DRAM-less SSD to perform properly.

Click to expand...

Well, nice troubleshoot. Even without those DPC issues you were having, I recommend the use Microsoft built-in driver for your PCIe/M.2 SSDs in NVMe mode ("Standard NVM Express Controller" in your Device Manager) instead of vendor specific NVMe Controller Driver (if there is one for your SSD), in order to meet the DirectStorage/RTX IO requirements and be able to enjoy DirectStorage/RTX IO on your NVMe SSDs.

Buddywh said:

Thanks to all who helped. I'm very glad I found the @MoKiChU updated Realtek audio drivers. That was serendipitous since Asus certainly isn't keeping up with customer support yet they've locked out use of chipset mfr. driver updates with their proprietary implementations. But the tips on disabling Fast Startup and Hibernation was also good to pick up.

Click to expand...

You're welcome,

For information, you need these drivers for your ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-Plus motherboard :

MoKiChU said:

...

I understand that the name of the drivers package type can be confusing, but this audio drivers package type is not customized/modded (I only offer OEM original drivers, WHQL signed by Microsoft, modding is not my field), it is the name of your DTS built-in feature. From the audio specifications of your motherboard :

Click to expand...

I understand....I think of what you did to make an installer that will install the updated Realtek WHQL signed drivers as a customization of sorts, even if not for the driver.

MoKiChU said:

For information, you need these drivers for your ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-Plus motherboard :

[DRIVERS] AMD Chipset/RAID (3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx/TRX40)​

​

- AMD Chipset Drivers​

​

[DRIVERS] Realtek Ethernet/WiFi/Bluetooth​

​

- Realtek Ethernet Drivers (Drivers Only)​

​

[DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (Intel 2xx/3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx/7xx & AMD 3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx)​

​

- Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASUS TUF/PRIME DTS Custom)​

Click to expand...

And thanks for that link...I'll pick up the Ethernet driver and install it ASAP.

I've already installed the latest AMD B550 chipset drivers from AMD's support site. Does the Asus chipset package differ from what AMD provides?

Buddywh said:

I've already installed the latest AMD B550 chipset drivers from AMD's support site. Does the Asus chipset package differ from what AMD provides?

Click to expand...

There is no ASUS variant, so there is no differences except that it is newer and that there are new drivers included in it, it is the same type of chipset drivers package made/signed by AMD. The AMD support page does not yet offer this last version because it is first offered to OEMs (including motherboard manufacturers), but you can stick with the chipset drivers package from the AMD support page, it's fine.