Windows 10: Random Stuttering / DPC Latency Nightmare

EDIT: Since a lot of people seem to be reading this (probably from google with the same problem), here's the tl;dr:
>So far, no concrete fix.
>Definitely a problem with the LAN card.
>If you have a Realtek card, downgrading to Win7 drivers seem to lessen the amount of stutters.
>Disabling all kinds of CPU throttling will make them less severe when they happen (But it will eat more power running at 100% all the time)


(Forgive me if this is the incorrect form, since DPC latency issues are related to drivers I figure this is the best place)

I've been having issues with random audio + video stuttering since I upgraded to Windows 10 Educational (x64) about 2 months ago now. Previously, I ran Windows 7 (x64) on nearly identical hardware without issue. The only new piece of hardware is a Samsung SSD, but due to the specific drivers causing latency, I'd find it exceptionally hard to believe that these stutters stem from a faulty drive.

Fortunately, I've managed to narrow the problem down, but I'm pretty much stumped at this point since nothing I do can actually fix it.

Here's all the relevant information:

>Stutters last anywhere from about 100ms to 500ms.

>I have used LatencyMon to narrow down some of the offending drivers: ndis.sys and tcpip.sys.
ndis spike:



tcpip spike:




>This probably means it's something network related, so:
-I have updated to the latest Windows 10 compatible network drivers for my on-board Realtek network adapter.
-I have disabled all power-saving / idle shutdown settings for the network adapter in device manager.
-I can't be 100% certain, but doing these two things seem to have slowed the rate at which the stuttering occurs. Instead of the usual 5-10 times per day, it's now down to around 3 times per day. (observed over the past week or so)

>Activating Windows 10's BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) seems to have a high likelihood of triggering a stutter.



-Probably 2/5 times there is a stutter, the event viewer will show the above event at the exact time the stutter occurred. Event 7040, settings BITS from demand start to auto start. This is the only event I have been able to directly correlate with the stutter. May be helpful, may not be.

>Unfortunately, there's more: sometimes, when a stutter occurs, LatencyMon will not pick it up. I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps there's some other process LatencyMon doesn't monitor that is causing these stutters? Or perhaps LatencyMon just crapped out for a second and didn't notice it?
-This somewhat worries me that this might be the effect of more than one latency-related problem, but I can't know that for sure, so I'll keep assuming it's stemming from a single cause until there's direct evidence otherwise.

Any insight would be vastly appreciated. This has been driving me up the wall more and more each time it happens. It's gotten me killed more than once in games, and it also makes me freak out when composing music, thinking there are nasty buffer underruns going on. That, and it's just a general annoyance that I'd really love to see gone.


Relevant Hardware:
>AMD FX 8350
>Asrock 970 Extreme4
>Samsung 850 EVO SSD
>Asus Xonar DG Sound Card
>GTX 770

Thanks a ton in advance.

:)

 

Windows 10 High Dpc Latency

In this case it appears to be ndis.sys. There's plently of people with this problem. It's defiantly network related, but no one is sure about it being either hardware or software. More about it here.

Random Stuttering / DPC Latency Nightmare - Windows 10 Forums

 

Windows 10 DPC latency issue with ndis & tcpip.sys

I can not confirm that LatencyMon, DPC Latency Checker or xperf can produce DPC latency peaks themselves. I have been using these programs for one and a half years. I left LatencyMon and DPC Latency Checker open for a couple of days many times. Torrent clients
is the only type of programs (besides crazy pings) that produce more than 60 ms peaks (and sound stutters) themselves on my three very different PCs. A process latency peak can appear if I close a pretty large application (screenshot
– it’s a Task manager’s Memory tab, LatencyMon and DPC Latency Checker). Backup programs cause small unnoticeable peaks too.

By the way. It makes sense to put LatencyMon’s temporary file rspDisMonLog.etl to a small RAM disk using a symlink.

 

I have exactly the same problem, but I have an intel hardware and different sound cards also tested, but... I have the same GPU only. I have tried almost everything except clean install of windows 10. I have also tried to run xperf instead of Latencymon, but it is also drops this stutters, but at least xperf give me a clear message that some events are lost, i think with the same reason — stutter occurs and data lost everywhere. I have been also played with system
timers, HPET/TSC - nothing helps. Testing now with LAN card disabled in device manager...

 

^Looks like Latencymon isn't actually missing the stuttering. What you have to do is set the recording type to "Kernel Timer Latency". It will then pick up the stuttering, but it still won't catch the responsible driver when the stutter occurs. If it even is a driver causing the problem. tcpip and ndis still spike for me on occasion, but usually there's no definite driver.

Some of the things I've been trying recently (spoiler: with no luck)
>Updated to the latest drivers for my onboard Realtek LAN. When that didn't work, downgraded the driver to the Windows 7 version. Did not work either.
>Disabled all CPU throttling options in the BIOS. Interestingly, I think this makes the spikes less severe, however it did not stop them.
>Disabled HPET in bios. Was disabled by default in Win10. Did nothing to help, though it seems like DPC latency has actually decreased by a small bit for most processes.
>Disabled onboard Realtek Audio. No effect.
>Disabled Legacy USB support in bios. No effect.

 

I am going to try clean install. Disabled LAN helps but it is not the solution.

 

No way... On clean install it does not show any problems with latencymon, but stutter exists! IDK what to do now.

 

Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

What exactly did you mean by this? Does it simply reduce the frequency of the stutter, or did it get rid of it? (Of course, disabling LAN is far from an ideal solution)

Hm. The only piece of hardware we seem to have in common is the GTX 770. Maybe try this: take the GTX 770 out of your system and run off the Intel graphics for a while, see if the stutter persists. I'd do it on my end, but I'm on an AMD system. Honestly I'm not inclined to believe it would be an issue with the graphics card but at this point I'm 100% out of ideas, and shooting in the dark is really all I've got left to do.

 

When LAN Disabled I did not have stutters, but I have not tested for a long time, just a couple of hours.
I am planning to unplug it next night, to see if I have DPC problems.
I don't think that GPU could be a problem, I have tested it just with standard MS driver (Standard VGA adapter).

Which LAN card do you have exactly?
Mine is i217-v and i210T1, both are Intel

 

I've got a Realtek PCIe GBE Controller (8168).

Unrelated: Just installed the new Win10 1511 update. Doubt there'll be any improvement, but I'll keep an eye out and see if the stuttering persists.

Edit: The new update did not help.

 

Tested with LAN card disabled in device manager and, separately, torrent free mode... so far, so good — both no stutters, no DPC problems in latencymon.
Anyway to minimize stutters I've used tcp/ip optimizer from SpeedGuide.net :: TCP Optimizer / Downloads
A little bit helped, used just "optimized" settings... but the reason of stutter is connection number not the speed. SO there is something in windows kernel playing so much with some latency on pcie bus... or anything else.

 

Forgot to say — I have had another "champion" next to ndis.sys, it was Wdf01000.sys with DPC peaks up to 30ms and the reason was... Intel RST that was uninstalled and replaced by standard MSAHCI. Anyway it just helped a bit on overall perfomance.

 

Interesting results. Yeah, I think we can conclusively say that it's something dumb with Win10 and our particular LAN cards. I'd really rather not have to pick up a redundant LAN card though--not like they're expensive or anything but I've currently got no real estate for open PCI slots on my MB. I'll give the optimizer a shot and report back on how well it worked for me.

 

I also experience high DPC latencies however the system has issues only when running a balanced power plan,under high performance there is no DPC issue whatsoever regardless of NIC version or sound card driver.I have noticed though that it is only the internal sound card that is affected by this(popping and stuff) by using a bluetooth headset which has no problems with DPC.I run on a q6600 stock with 4 gigs of ram and a hd4650 with a realtek NIC.

 

I have tested "High Perfomance Plan' firstly, but this did not helped a lot. Now I am running "Balanced" without high DPC usage full day, just internet surfing and video watching, no p2p.