Audio Popping/Crackling/Dropouts, DPC Latency Issues (ndis.sys and HDAudBus.sys). Help please!

I'm not seeing anything ISR or DPC related that suggests you should be getting audio glitches. I maybe see some long running disk I/O that could be an issue. Are you playing locally stored media files or streaming media when the audio glitches? Or both?

There's a tool called Media eXperience Analyzer that is specifically designed for analyzing media playback issues. It uses the GUI version of Windows Performance Recorder to capture traces. We may need to try that if you want to give it a go.
 
I was only streaming media from YouTube, and adjusting the audio slider along with adjusting the Windows volume mixer and clicking off while the volume adjust sound is still playing so you can hear a dropout. I'll download that tool then.

Could you give me a link to it? I can't find it.
 
You basically need a profile from MXA that sets up the GUI version of WPR for audio/video glitch tracing. The WPR dialog should look like this if setup correctly. You first need to import that MXA profile in order to get the option at the very bottom of the list.

WRP_MXA.png
 
This is a zip of the profile if you want to just use it rather than installing MXA. The traces can get quite large so you'll want to try and recreate the problem as quickly as possible when capturing a trace.
 

Attachments

Looking at disk usage I see some 100 percent disk read utilization spikes from a process called wallpaper32.exe which seems to be playing an mp4 - namely C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\Content\431960\846084596\berserk_wallpaper.mp4. Can you disable or uninstall that program and test to see if the audio glitches happen when that's not running?
 
cwsink said:
Looking at disk usage I see some 100 percent disk read utilization spikes from a process called wallpaper32.exe which seems to be playing an mp4 - namely C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\Content\431960\846084596\berserk_wallpaper.mp4. Can you disable or uninstall that program and test to see if the audio glitches happen when that's not running?
Click to expand...
I can quit out if it and see if it happens. When I reset my PC, I still got the issue when it wasn't even installed yet.

Edit:I still get the audio glitches even when it's not running.
 
Can you try triggering the glitches while getting a trace using the GUI version of Windows Performance Recorder and the XMA profile?
 
cwsink said:
Can you try triggering the glitches while getting a trace using the GUI version of Windows Performance Recorder and the XMA profile?
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I will do (I didn't see your reply yesterday, sorry). Can you give me steps to do that? I added the profile to WPR, what would I do, just hit start and that's it?
 
Make sure the only checkbox selected is the one shown in my earlier screenshot and then hit the Start button. That will start the trace so then trigger a few glitches and hit Save. The trace should end up in your "\Documents\WPR Files" folder. They grow large quickly using that profile so be as quick as possible while getting some glitches.
 
It didn't detect any media playback glitches for some reason. It does look like ndis.sys had a few long-ish running DPCs again. Have you tried playing the media in another browser to see if the same thing happens in Edge, for example?
 
cwsink said:
It didn't detect any media playback glitches for some reason. It does look like ndis.sys had a few long-ish running DPCs again. Have you tried playing the media in another browser to see if the same thing happens in Edge, for example?
Click to expand...
I tried it in Edge and I still get audio popping and dropouts when pausing videos and adjusting video while it's playing + adjusting the audio slider. I have the audio issues even out of browser.
 
I'm heading out for the evening but I'll see if I can get an idea what might be going on by looking at what the cores are up to in the trace. I'll check back tomorrow.
 
I'm not seeing anything obvious, unfortunately. Ndis.sys is showing the longest running DPCs. Individually, they don't seem to be running long enough to cause audio stutters but maybe there's a storm of them and so cumulatively they cause audio threads to be starved of CPU time. Where did you get the drivers you're using for your audio and network adapter(s)? Are they from the laptop manufacturer's support page or Windows Update? Have you used any third party driver update utilities (not recommended)?

Ndis.sys is a Microsoft driver and likely not the problem but many other things make use of ndis.sys. I'd want to make sure you're using the latest driver for your network adapters. If you haven't already done so I'd recommend using the Intel Driver and Support Assistant to check for and apply any driver updates it recommends.

I'd also want to make sure you're using the latest audio drivers. It doesn't look like Asus are keeping up-to-date with with drivers for your laptop and there have been quite a few systems that have audio problems with newer versions of Windows 10 - particularly after performing updates from earlier versions of Windows 10. The audio settings/software/drivers sometimes don't seem to be correctly brought along during the update.

Has the system ever not had this problem? If so, did the problem seem to start after a Windows update?
 
It seemed to have started after a Windows Update. I am using the latest drivers for all of that, and I used the ASUS website for drivers. I used the Intel Driver and Support Assistant and it said no drivers need to be updated.

I WILL admit that I did use a third party driver utility AFTER I already had updated all the drivers I could using Windows Update and the ASUS website when I was having the issue then. However, for my audio and network adapters, they're from Windows and the ASUS website.
 
I think this may be an issue with Realtek audio and possibly newer versions of Windows 10. I tried pausing and moving the volume slider on a Haswell and a Ryzen system, both running 19041. They both seem to do as you describe with very brief pops/crackles sounding like static. I've captured a trace while triggering the noise but I'm not seeing any ISR/DPC related problems. I've never noticed it before so never tried it on older versions of Windows 10.
 
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, it's probably because of windows 1903 or something. Before that I didn't recognize an issue. I'm using the default windows audio driver and I am still getting dropouts and crackling but it's way less and I have gotten used to it at this point. I give up. Hope this gets resolved by Windows one day.

Edit: Sorry for the late reply, by the way. Just haven't thought of this issue since.
 

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