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Stuttering/skipping audio when using AirPlay

S

Sniperman

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2015
Posts
14
Good evening everyone,

I've spent more than 15 hours troubleshooting an insanely annoying issue I'm experiencing on the best PC (a quad-core with HyperThreading 4770K with a Geforce GTX 770 and 16GB of RAM) in my house. I'm seeing very bad audio stuttering when attempting to use AirPlay (and Airfoil) to play music on my Yamaha RX-V473 A/V receiver in my living room (the PC in question is in my bedroom). I have 2 vastly inferior PCs (an ancient quad-core Q6600 and a Dell Latitude E5420 laptop) that are able to stream audio FLAWLESSLY (every computer in my home runs Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate). I've written an extensive write-up at the following webpage:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2703198?start=150&tstart=0

I have 3 total posts as Sn1perm4n (2 on page 11, 1 on page 12) and have yet to receive any advice/help. After a *TON* of research I managed to stumble my way to DPC Latency Checker which I then ran. DPC latency spikes occur *RIGHT* when the audio starts cutting out. I then ran xperf for 30 or so seconds while the stuttering was occurring and captured a trace.etl file. I was unfortunately unable to upload the trace.zip file to this forum (the upload never appeared in the File Upload Manager, I'm guessing it's too large?) so I posted it to my website at the following link:

http://reed.blacklight.net/trace.zip

Any help is greatly appreciated, I'm seriously at wits' end and am considering going Office Space on my PC at this point!!!! Please let me know what else I can do/provide to aid in the resolution of this problem.

Much thanks,
-Snipe
 
*bump* still haven't figured this out, could really use some help! =(

Thanks,
-Snipe

Sniperman said:
Good evening everyone,

I've spent more than 15 hours troubleshooting an insanely annoying issue I'm experiencing on the best PC (a quad-core with HyperThreading 4770K with a Geforce GTX 770 and 16GB of RAM) in my house. I'm seeing very bad audio stuttering when attempting to use AirPlay (and Airfoil) to play music on my Yamaha RX-V473 A/V receiver in my living room (the PC in question is in my bedroom). I have 2 vastly inferior PCs (an ancient quad-core Q6600 and a Dell Latitude E5420 laptop) that are able to stream audio FLAWLESSLY (every computer in my home runs Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate). I've written an extensive write-up at the following webpage:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2703198?start=150&tstart=0

I have 3 total posts as Sn1perm4n (2 on page 11, 1 on page 12) and have yet to receive any advice/help. After a *TON* of research I managed to stumble my way to DPC Latency Checker which I then ran. DPC latency spikes occur *RIGHT* when the audio starts cutting out. I then ran xperf for 30 or so seconds while the stuttering was occurring and captured a trace.etl file. I was unfortunately unable to upload the trace.zip file to this forum (the upload never appeared in the File Upload Manager, I'm guessing it's too large?) so I posted it to my website at the following link:

http://reed.blacklight.net/trace.zip

Any help is greatly appreciated, I'm seriously at wits' end and am considering going Office Space on my PC at this point!!!! Please let me know what else I can do/provide to aid in the resolution of this problem.

Much thanks,
-Snipe
Click to expand...
 
Unfortunately I cannot help but I thought I would post and apologize for the delay.

I have asked a few users more experience in this area to look at this when they have time.
 
I will need you to generate a trace file for me of the problem occurring using the Windows Performance Recorder from the Windows Performance Toolkit (part of the Windows 8.1 ADK) for me to provide assistance into what is happening here - instructions below.


1. Download/Run the installer for the Windows 8.1 ADK:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982

2. Use the default installation path, and click "Next":


3. After accepting the EULA, select to install just the Windows Performance Toolkit, and click "Install":


4. Installation should begin:


5. On a 64bit install of Windows, you will need to open an elevated CMD prompt and execute the following command, and then reboot:

If you have run the command successfully (as seen above), you will need to reboot. Reboot now, then continue.

6. Next, again from an elevated CMD prompt, run the following command to bring up the trace UI we will use to select tracing options and begin the trace:


7. This should open a window that looks like the one below (note that you may need to expand the "More Options" chevron on the left to get the full box). Select the "Audio glitches" or "Video glitches" checkboxes, depending on what problem you're having (audio or video stuttering, or both), along with the "First level triage" box (which should already be checked by default). Click the "Start" button to start tracing, and begin reproducing the problem:


8. Once running, you should see something like this - when you've traced the problem for at least a few seconds, click the "Save" button:


9. Enter a path to somewhere you can find it easily - C:\Trace.etl in this example (the file must use the .ETL extension), and then click the "Save" button:


10. If the file saved successfully, you will see something like this:


Compress (.zip, .rar, .7z, etc.) the resulting .etl file and upload to a file sharing site, then link back to your post so it can be downloaded and analyzed.
 
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I looked at the trace you uploaded, and it seemed to indicate the bulk of the delays were in the Intel USB3 driver, and those corresponded with activity run through explorer.exe. Since I've seen that hide other behaviors before, I've requested you do the above to get more in-depth data as to what's happening at that level. I also note that your video card, network card, and chipset are sharing the same IRQL, so I definitely need more accurate data to see if that's also a problem. Note that the common thread here is the Intel USB3 driver, and i217V network card, and Nvidia GTX cards - I've been seeing this combination more and more, so I'm starting to wonder if these things just don't play nicely together...
 
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Thank you for the insightful reply cluberti, I'll do my best to get a trace file generated and uploaded this evening for your more detailed analysis!

-Snipe

cluberti said:
I looked at the trace you uploaded, and it seemed to indicate the bulk of the delays were in the Intel USB3 driver, and those corresponded with activity run through explorer.exe. Since I've seen that hide other behaviors before, I've requested you do the above to get more in-depth data as to what's happening at that level. I also note that your video card, network card, and chipset are sharing the same IRQL, so I definitely need more accurate data to see if that's also a problem. Note that the common thread here is the Intel USB3 driver, and i217V network card, and Nvidia GTX cards - I've been seeing this combination more and more, so I'm starting to wonder if these things just don't play nicely together...
Click to expand...
 
Cluberti, I've had a hectic few days, hoping to collect a trace file for you this evening! In the interim I wanted to share a .JPG of a Wireshark trace I performed while the stuttering was occurring:

AirPlay_Wireshark_Trace.jpg

The skipping AirPlay audio corresponded with every time a "Fragmented IP Protocol" error occurred.

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
A couple of things from what I see here:

1. Install the latest version of hdaudbus.sys, ndis.sys, tcpip.sys, and afd.sys:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2922059
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3014793
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3030039
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3023557

2. You have VirtualBox installed and hooked at the network layer - see if you can (completely) remove this and reproduce the issue - I do indeed see that ndis.sys is being traversed at a high rate and generating a high number of interrupts. While this could simply be network-traffic related, the fact you've got a virtual network stack loaded alongside a physical one at the time is not a good idea while troubleshooting here.

3. Gigabyte supports an older network driver version (May 2014) than the one you have installed (September 2014). For "onboard" devices, use the latest revision supported by the vendor unless there's a reason to upgrade:
GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1150 - GA-Z87X-UD4H (rev. 1.x)


I can't see any viable reason why this behavior is occurring otherwise, unfortunately.
 
Good morning Cluberti,

I'll give #1 and #2 a shot as soon as possible (along with reverting to the Gigabyte-supported NIC drivers) and will get back to you with the results! I was wondering if VirtualBox was a potential cause but my Dell laptop has it installed and has no stuttering issues =/. In regards to #3, I was previously using Gigabyte's supported NIC and Chipset drivers (via their website) to begin with and the stuttering issue was happening, thus why I upgraded and then started this forum thread =(. Should I downgrade my Chipset drivers to the Gigabyte-supported as well? I downloaded my current ones from the Intel website I believe.

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
I performed Step #1 and it resulted in no noticeable change. I then performed Step #3 [I uninstalled the existing NIC drivers, rebooted, reinstalled the ones from the Gigabyte website (which I originally had installed BTW), rebooted, and the AirPlay stuttering went away!! I then step-by-step disabled IPv6, Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4), and Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6), making sure to test for each change to make sure the problem wasn't reintroduced. I ignored Step #2 obviously =). Thank you very much for the help cluberti, I'm surprised a simple driver reinstalled fixed this as the NIC driver was seemingly working fine aside from this issue (thus why I didn't try a reinstall to begin with). So frustrating, but so happy it's fixed! =)

Much thanks,
-Snipe
 
Sigh, I officially spoke too soon, I'm beginning to seriously hate this protocol!!!! The *ENTIRE* Marilyn Manson album played flawlessly, so I then put on 2 different albums from 2 different artists and I now have very bad crackling (at least the stuttering is fixed, joy!). Any ideas? I'm considering downgrading my Chipset drivers to the ones from the Gigabyte website (I updated to the ones from the Intel website when I was trying to troubleshoot this a few weeks ago), but don't want to somehow make things even worse. I'm happy to provide another trace during the crackling if it would be at all beneficial. This is massively annoying and seriously ruining my zen at the moment, nothing is more annoying than thinking you have something fixed only to watch it !@#$!@ the bed again for no apparent reason. All I want to do is listen to my music in peace! ;-(

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
Stuttering would indeed be caused by DPC/ISR behavior, but crackling (assuming the audio is not stuttering) is completely in driver playback - a trace won't help with that at all. You'd have to talk to the OEM at that point to figure out what's wrong in the driver (especially if it works sometimes and not others). I am sorry that's not necessarily good news, but it's still the answer. It would sound like poor memory management in the driver from the symptoms, but I couldn't possibly be sure about that at all, just an educated guess.
 
Sounds like I should probably invest in a PCI-E Gigabit NIC as I'm tired of troubleshooting this on-board POS (I expect better from Intel honestly), do you happen to have one you recommend? =P

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
Sniperman said:
Sounds like I should probably invest in a PCI-E Gigabit NIC as I'm tired of troubleshooting this on-board POS (I expect better from Intel honestly), do you happen to have one you recommend? =P

Thanks,
-Snipe
Click to expand...
That might work - if you're a heavy audio user and you're going to build yourself a machine, strongly consider the higher-end Asus Maximus or workstation series boards. In my experience, they spend more time tuning for audio/video rendering and quality versus strictly just gaming performance. Asus boards are definitely good gaming boards, but it seems like there's just more to them there when it comes to things *not* gaming related. That's just my experience of course, but I've used all sorts of different boards and the high-end Asus boards tend to work best when put under loads that aren't gaming versus some of the competition (MSI boards are good for this as well, but I am an Asus fan). Just something to think about for next time. I have an Asus Maximus Hero VII, for instance, which is running an Intel I218-V (basically the same network chipset as yours), but with driver 12.11.96.1 from March 2014 and I stream audio and video from this particular machine about the house without any issues.
 
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cluberti said:
Sniperman said:
Sounds like I should probably invest in a PCI-E Gigabit NIC as I'm tired of troubleshooting this on-board POS (I expect better from Intel honestly), do you happen to have one you recommend? =P

Thanks,
-Snipe
Click to expand...
That might work - if you're a heavy audio user and you're going to build yourself a machine, strongly consider the higher-end Asus Maximus or workstation series boards. In my experience, they spend more time tuning for audio/video rendering and quality versus strictly just gaming performance. Asus boards are definitely good gaming boards, but it seems like there's just more to them there when it comes to things *not* gaming related. That's just my experience of course, but I've used all sorts of different boards and the high-end Asus boards tend to work best when put under loads that aren't gaming versus some of the competition (MSI boards are good for this as well, but I am an Asus fan). Just something to think about for next time. I have an Asus Maximus Hero VII, for instance, which is running an Intel I218-V (basically the same network chipset as yours), but with driver 12.11.96.1 from March 2014 and I stream audio and video from this particular machine about the house without any issues.
Click to expand...

Good evening cluberti,

Thank you for the input but I have no intention of building a new machine for probably 3 years or so as my current system uses a Gigabyte UD4H motherboard, Intel 4770K (quad-core with HyperThreading) processor, 16GB of RAM, and an EVGA GTX 770. The only component I'll likely upgrade in the near future is my graphics card (I'm pondering an EVGA GTX 970) but this will likely need to wait until I'm no longer unemployed =P. I have an HTPC in my living room that's SIGNIFICANTLY older (uses an ancient Q6600 first-gen quad-core) processor and it has zero issues whatsoever with audio streaming (as does my crappy Dell laptop). So in my eyes it's more than a bit absurd for such a modern machine to not be able to stream audio over a Gigabit wired network without issue. What I find really ridiculous is that this seems to be the only task the modern machine isn't up to snuff for (I get great FPS in modern video games, can play HD movies fluidly, etc.). I don't know what I'll do if the new NIC doesn't resolve this issue...

I definitely appreciate the input on the motherboards, the HTPC uses an XFX Nvidia mobo, and before that I used an ASUS A8N-SLI that lasted me 6+ years. I'll consider an ASUS or MSI for my next build! =)

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
Unfortunately, the Intel Gigabit CT PCI-E NIC I purchased didn't resolve the clicking/popping/static issue. I probably should have bought a NIC that doesn't use the Intel driver =/. I'll be returning the PCI-E NIC I just bought, and am pondering my next course of action after that.

Thanks,
-Snipe
 
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