Windows 10: pls help with audio and graphics issues - latency issue?

Hey all, thank you to all who respond to this, I am desperate!

I bought an Asus N550J laptop a year ago, came with Windows 8, and everything was flawless until I upgraded to Windows 10. Since then I have had crackly sounds and stuttering video playback. I thought at first it might be the speakers, because the sound improved when using headphones. I had the speakers replaced under warranty and they also fixed up my fans.

However the issue has since returned. Its not as bad, but I imagine its only going to get worse.

I am now also receiving the "display driver has stopped responding and has recovered windows 10" message semi-frequently.

I am wondering if it is a lag issue as it happens less frequently when the laptop is plugged in to a power source (though I note it still happens).

I have disabled sound enhancements, which did nothing, and also set my min and max processor states too 100% based on threads I have read. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and doing a factory reset.

I recently ran LatencyMon which came up with the following: "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. 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. "

I don't really want to update my BIOS as I have limited tech expertise and will inevitably stuff it up.

How would I know which drivers might be stuffing up, and what version to reset them to?

Whats the liklihood of my soundcard being stuffed as opposed to it being a latency issue? Is there any way to check?

Any suggestions/solutions catered towards someone with veeeery limited laptop knowledge would be muuuuch appreciated!

I note that I have a desktop running Windows 10 and that is 100% fine. Most odd.

Thank you!!

:)

 

Extremely high DPC Latency from Directx Graphics Kernel since Anniversary Update.

Did you try only installing the graphics driver and not the audio/3D driver when installing the Nvidia drivers? Not installing the HD audio driver fixed my latency issue.

 

Problems with Intel HD 3000 graphic

What Audio drivers do u have? Realtek HD Audio Drivers ? and the Latency is constant Yellow11 or it go green sometime? and thanx

 

Hello, Are you certain your PC is compatible with Win 10? You will see some PCs suffer badly from this with Win 10. One common culprit for some people is Bitdefender (see my notes below). Diagnosing cause can be difficult, and you may need to resort to using MS's xperf analysis tool.

First please search the forum for 'stuttering crackling' using the search box above. You will get a lot of results:




See if you can find anything helpful.

Second, please post screenshots of LatencyMon and its various tabs here
Third, please do the same for your task manager when your PC is idle, making sure the processes using most CPU/RAM/DISK are at the top by clicking the appropriate tab.

Fourth, here are some notes I've collected:
Stuttering- pops crackles.doc

 

It may be a driver conflict. Not sure if audio or video. You could try reverting the video driver first. Right click the Windows icon bottom left and select Device manager. In device manager expand Display Adapters, then right click the adapter (I have two but just right click what shows if you only have one) then select Update driver software. Select Browse my computer for driver software then select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

I've had to revert to an older driver on my set-up as it was causing problems.

Attachment 79926


I'm using an older driver which works well.
Select a driver and click on next. Make a note of the original in case you have to reinstall. Windows might not ask for a reboot but it's worthwhile doing. If that doesn't help check your audio drivers in the same way. Please do note what drivers are installed originally (blue hue on the list of drivers to the left) in device manager.

 

It may be, and that idea may be lucky, but much better to have info before making a guess. The relatively common occurrence of Bitdefender with USBPort.sys would be completely different to what you are suggesting. Without info a trial and error approach is a little premature.

 

hi fabler and dalchina *Smile first off, thank you both very much for your responses!

i ran the compatibility test before upgrading to windows 10 and there didn't appear to be any issues. asus also seems to be promoting the upgrade. so im like 99% sure its compatible. in case it helps, my specs include Intel® Core™ i7 4700HQ Processor, 16gb ram, Intel® HM86 Express Chipset, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX850M with 2GB/4GB DDR3 (further info here: N550JK | Notebooks | ASUS Global
)

i had a look through the word doc you provided dalchina (cheers for that). in regards to the things to consider trying, i don't have bitdefender, though i am curious whether avast could be causing issues? i am currently using the high performance battery plan and have set max/min processes states to 100%. this helped somewhat, particularly running on battery.

would the Wifi router beacon polling interval thing work even if i am getting the stuttering issue when i turn my wireless off completely and just watch a dvd? i must admit i have no idea what the beacon polling interval is...sorry!

i will give installing Intel Rapid Storage Technology this evening. similarly, ill try to update the Intel MBO drivers.

pls find below the requested screenshots:







latency report is attached - latency report.docx

fabler, thank you for the suggestion. will give the drivers a go after any feedback on the data i have provided *Smile there was so much info in the latency report that i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed as to what to try first.

 

sorry, please also find task manager screenshots. couldnt capture the whole list (there are so many processes running!) so i caught what i could, ordered by cpu and memory usage. thanks!

 

ndis.sys stands out from the LatencyMon report. The task manager looks fine of course.

The pagefault rate seems exceptional too.
Process with highest pagefault count: tiworker.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults 12172
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 2020
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs): 3449563.633119
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%): 1.043708
Number of processes hit: 22

You can examine this further using e.g. Sysinternals Process Explorer which has a column showing page faults.

If you're lucky and research your laptop model, you may find people who have resolved this.

The difficulty beyond that is diagnosing the underlying cause, or being fortunate and intuitively trying sthg that works, as there are various causes.

Note from the docx report that the interrupts relate to CPU 0.
That gives a way to identify this further, as you can examine processes by their CPU affinity.

 

thanks dalchina *Smile

i will admit that a lot of what you wrote is over my head, but i will research into it!

i had one great day yesterday where my laptop sound worked flawlessly. unfortunately the problem is back today so it seems like installing Intel Rapid Storage Technology didnt work.

can i ask, what are the chances it is my sound card stuffing up? my laptop is still under warranty, im wondering if i should get it replaced?

thank you!

 

Hi, it looks as if your laptop is probably sold as Win 10 upgradable (may depend on precise model).

This is a relatively difficult issue to resolve technically, and needs either intuition or technical analysis or good luck in finding that a solution someone else has published is potentially applicable and works for you.

What I would suggest as regards the warranty is this:
a. create a full disk image of what you have now, so you can revert to that later.
b. record the stutter you are experiencing (to demonstrate for possible warranty purposes)
c. do a clean install of Win 10, and then with as little else changed as possible, see if you still experience stutter.

If you do, then you might have a reasonable case for a claim. However it came with Win 8, so I don't know if your warranty covers the upgrade to '10.

If you don't, then it becomes a lot more arguable. I.e. if installing program X results in the stutter, is the problem with program X or your laptop?

I'd say it's possible but probably unlikely it's your sound card.

You should make sure you try the Win 8 driver.

Note the point about ndis.sys and the point about the LAN driver in the document I attached. Another thing to try.

Also uninstall any AV you've installed, and try then.