[SOLVED] Windows 8.1 Sound "crackling" maybe high DPC latency

L

Lord_Eisbaer

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Joined
Feb 9, 2014
Posts
9
Hello,

first english is not my native language, so please forgive my bad english, i'm doing my best.

I just got a new pc and from the beginning the sound was crackling. I did a lot of research and found the DPC latency issues and used the LatencyMonitor tool to find out wheather this might be the case here.
the Tool shows me 2 drivers with more than 30 ms execution time. This two are storahci.sys and CLASSPNP.sys. everything else is below 1 ms so i think this two drivers might be the cause of the problem.
Refering to the driver reference table they are both Windows update related and i can't find anything to do about the issue.
Is there anything i can do to solve this?

Thanks everybody for reading
 
I don't seem to be able to edit my first post so i post a little update here.
After a while there appears another driver that has about 300ms latency. This one is the USBPORT.sys.
 
Hi -

Is your BIOS updated?

Are your audio drivers updated?

Regards. . .

jcgriff2
 
Hi jcgriff2,
I updated every driver i could find a newer version and bios is also updated to newest version i could find.
My windows also has all the updates from its list.
 
Thank you for helping me.
I am now running the driver verifier but there was no opption as Concurrency Stress Test, but from the description it seems like it is the kernel synchronisation delay fuzzing, so i enebled this one instead. I hope this is right and doesnt make the whole thing useless.

regards
Sebastian

 
Here is the System Health report folder. The Verifier is now running for more than 29 Hours and there was no BSOD. I'm not quite sure whether i should let it work until one appears or if there is a file i should also add here. Sorry, sometimes its not that easy to get everything in another language...
View attachment Windows7_Vista_jcgriff2.zip

· OS = Windows 8.1x64
· It is the only system ever installed on this machine
· I bought the PC in a shop and let the install it. there is no indicator whether it is a retail or an oem version.
· The system is about 5 days old (hardware) (counted from the day i got it)

· CPU = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 v3 @ 3.30GHz 3.30GHz
· Video Card = NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
· MotherBoard = MSI B85-G41 PC Mate
· Power Supply - brand & wattage = be quiet! L8CM730W CM! 730W

· ARLT Computer Produkte GmbH
· Exact model number (if laptop, check label on bottom) - Can't find one but it is an idividual PC so i have no idea whether it has one or not

· Laptop or Desktop = Desktop
 
Hi -

Go ahead and turn Driver Verifier OFF. 29 hours in this case with no prior BSODs -- I think it did it's job and simply cannot find anything wrong (violations) with your 3rd party drivers.

Bring up an Admin CMD prompt; type verifier /reset - then re-boot.

I was hoping D/V would flag a driver.

I'll take a look through the rest of the files - they may yield a clue.

Regards. . .

John
 
Does the sound crackle only when using Internet?

i.e., if you were to play an MP3 -- does it crackle?

What app are you using to play "local" music (like MP3s, etc...), movies, etc...?
 
Hi -

Apologies for triple-post, but I am leaving shortly & wanted to get this to you.

Your USB wifi driver is from Dec 2006 - before Vista came out!
Code: 
FWLANUSB     AVM FRITZ!WLAN         AVM FRITZ!WLAN         
Kernel        Manual     Running    OK         TRUE        FALSE        0                 356,352     0          
[COLOR=#ff0000]14/12/2006[/COLOR] 18:04:55    
C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\[COLOR=#ff0000]fwlanusb.sys[/COLOR]         4,096
I can't get the update site translated properly -- check for a driver update for your AVM FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick v1.1 - fwlanusb.sys -

http://sysnative.com/drivers/driver.php?id=fwlanusb.sys

I am very surprised that you have had no networking related BSODs.

If audio crackling occurs w/Internet & you can't find an updated wifi driver, disconnect it & connect via your Realtek Ethernet and see if there is any change in the audio.

I know this all may seem far-fetched, but I've seen many strange things occur over the years!

Regards. . .

jcgriff2
 
Hi,

Personally, I prefer always having XPERF trace for these kind of issues. Could you please also run Windows SDK setup and select to install "Windows Performance Toolkit"? Once it's installed run the following command from elevated (Run As Administrator) command prompt (if the command asks you to modify the registry, please do that, reboot your computer and re-run the command):

Code: 
xperf -on PROC_THREAD+LOADER+PROFILE+INTERRUPT+DPC+DRIVERS -stackwalk Profile -BufferSize 1024 -MinBuffers 256 -MaxBuffers 256 -MaxFile 256 -FileMode Circular

Now, play some audio and do other activities until you experience the crackling. Once you do, run the following command to stop the logging:

Code: 
xperf -stop -d C:\CPU.etl

Compress C:\CPU.etl log file and upload it somewhere (e.g. SkyDrive).

Thanks.
 
Hi,
I tried some musik with the windows musik app. The one that was preinstalled with the OS installation.
With the WLan stick it crackles, without it it doesn't seem to. The Problem is, this is allready the newest version of the driver so it looks like i have to by a new WLan stick or something. Can't test it with an cable.

Hi TomasD, thanks also for trying to help me, i will post the log file asap.
 
Thanks.

The trace looks really interesting:

storahci.JPG​

The image above (the lower part) represents one of the DPC spikes (there are quite many of these) on your system. As LatencyMon already pointed to you, the DPC is related to storahci.sys driver. Now the interesting part is the stack trace (the upper half of the image) for this:

HTML: 
|- ntoskrnl.exe!KiIdleLoop
  |    |- ntoskrnl.exe!KiRetireDpcList
  |    |    ntoskrnl.exe!KiExecuteAllDpcs
  |    |    |- storahci.sys!AhciPortBusChangeDpcRoutine
  |    |    |    storahci.sys!PortBusChangeProcess    // If link speed was limited, restores the supported value, kicks off the Start Channel state machine, requests rescan on this port
  |    |    |    storahci.sys!AhciPortReset           // Performs COMRESET along with completing commands to be retried and restoring settings that may be be persistent across a COMRESET
  |    |    |    storahci.sys!AhciCOMRESET            // Performs interface communication initialization sequence to establish communication. This is functionally equivalent to a hard reset and results in the interface being reset and communications reinitialized
  |    |    |    hal.dll!KeStallExecutionProcessor
  |    |    |    |- hal.dll!KeStallExecutionProcessor<itself>

The interesting things here are:

  1. We have controller port resetting itself
  2. The above (resulting into these DPC spikes) is happening in the Idle loop and are not being triggered by some third party process or driver
For starters, could you please try installing Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver? If I am not mistaken, after installation Intel driver (iaStorA.sys) should take over operations from default Microsoft driver (storahci.sys) or at least add additional layer above it. Since the Intel driver should probably be able to deal with Intel controller better, there's a chance it might solve the issues.

In case the issues persist, please generate a new CPU.etl trace.
 
Thank you both for helping me!
The Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver has solved the problem, after i could make it work.
No more crackling.

Thanks so much!
regards
Sebastian
 
Lord_Eisbaer said:
Thank you both for helping me!
The Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver has solved the problem, after i could make it work.
No more crackling.

Thanks so much!
regards
Sebastian
Click to expand...

Hi,

I'm really glad to hear the issue is resolved now!

If you can, please mark this topic as solved.
 

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