ALC1220 and DPC Latency issues on Windows 10 x64

[GeorgeKps]

Hello people

I have a high DPC problem and sound is crackling and there's stutter and weird behavior on my computer. After running LatencyMon, there are 2 things that have high latency, dxgkrnl.sys and HDAudBus.sys. Also, Wdf01000.sys has really high (actually the highest) ISR count (ISR meaning "Interrupt Service Routine").

Now, i reinstalled Windows (the creator's edition since this is the one the Microsoft Tool downloads), i reinstalled GPU drivers, sound drivers, network drivers and the problem insists. When 1st booting into Windows right after the installation is complete, while windows installs a (probably) generic Sound driver, the sound is fine despite high latency. But unfortunately that driver doesn't support many things not only on the speakers but also on the microphone side of things.

Now, I was trying to find information on the Realtek website about the ALC1220 codec and there was absolutely nothing. I tried installing Realtek 2.81 drivers [which are unified drivers and (theoretically) "should" support this model] as i also installed the drivers from the disk that came with my motherboard. I also installed the driver from the Asus website. (these installations were always done after removing the older versions through Device Manager > Uninstall on the device > Delete the driver software for this device)
The problem remains. I have high DPC Latency measuring an excessive +4000μs. I've used DPC Latency checker and LatencyMon to identify the drivers having the problem.

My question (and kind request) is this. Do you guys also have any problems with high DPC Latency and if you haven't measured it, is it too much to ask of you to download and install these programs to check it yourselves? (links are as followed: http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon)

I'm really baffled by this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[sphinx64]

Try to do a clean boot (https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows), and then uninstall all of the audio drivers and software. Reboot again with clean boot. Install first the ASUS supplied audio driver and then install the software. Then reboot with normal boot settings (https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows) and check if corrected.

[BaneSilvermoon]

Man I could have used those tools back when I first installed Windows 10. My audio was a mess.
Think I'll try these things out.

*update*
I had some things reporting pretty high, so I'm currently in a clean boot, with drivers uninstalled for my audio, gpu, and storage drives. I also lowered my RAM speeds (since I'm still testing RAM timings) and disabled some of my processor power saving features. Going to gradually change these things back and observe any latency changes. There's a definite change from when I first ran LatencyMon though. Its cut down now to my DPC results looking relatively low
313 tcpip.sys
235 ntoskrnl.exe
167 ndis.sys
Highest ISR execution is only 22 - the wdf01000.sys you mentioned.

DPC Latency Checker looks far less happy though. While LatencyMon is showing the highest value on it as 310, DPC Latency Checker is consistently above 1000.

Going to start re-installing things and turning things back on and watch for changes.

[GeorgeKps]

BaneSilvermoon wrote:
Man I could have used those tools back when I first installed Windows 10. My audio was a mess.
Think I'll try these things out.

*update*
I had some things reporting pretty high, so I'm currently in a clean boot, with drivers uninstalled for my audio, gpu, and storage drives. I also lowered my RAM speeds (since I'm still testing RAM timings) and disabled some of my processor power saving features. Going to gradually change these things back and observe any latency changes. There's a definite change from when I first ran LatencyMon though. Its cut down now to my DPC results looking relatively low
313 tcpip.sys
235 ntoskrnl.exe
167 ndis.sys
Highest ISR execution is only 22 - the wdf01000.sys you mentioned.

DPC Latency Checker looks far less happy though. While LatencyMon is showing the highest value on it as 310, DPC Latency Checker is consistently above 1000.

Going to start re-installing things and turning things back on and watch for changes.

I'm starting to think that there's some major change in this Windows update that either MS hasn't notified hardware vendors, or they did so too late and hardware vendors haven't had the time to support this.

My laptop, an Asus K53SV which has an Intel i7 and an nVIDIA GPU also has DPC problems although they are on the +1000μs range.

Thanks for taking the time to try this yourself. I'll try some things too when i get home to see if i come up to a result or something.

[BaneSilvermoon]

I'm still playing around with this. I've managed to clean up the numbers in LatencyMon quite a bit from when I started. Initially HDAudBus.sys and Wdf01000.sys were getting around 1100. Now they're staying under 500 most of the time. Though occasionally storport.sys jumps to pretty high numbers.

....The more interesting part though....
In DPC Latency Checker, I've been hovering at about 1100 the entire time. For hours now while I've been messing with this.
Something I did in the last half hour or so has replicated what you're describing. First time I've seen it, but now when I get into windows, for 30 - 45 seconds it stays at that 1100. Then windows explorer flickers and it jumps to somewhere between 4k - 8k and stays there indefinitely.

I think this is something to do with power settings, but I haven't been able to get it to go back to how it was before yet.
I was playing around with LLC and CPU voltage right before this started.

[BaneSilvermoon]

So setting my BIOS settings back to my normal settings does indeed increase the peak by about 500 and the average by 300 or so. Which may be partially due to the RAM over-clocking/timing testing that I'm in the middle of.

But what is causing the significant latency spikes in my situation, up into the 6k range, is the Razer Chroma SDK. If I disable that in selective startup, the latency goes away with everything else left the same. I tested this turning it on and off numerous times and rebooting. Consistent result every time.
I also uninstalled Synapse entirely, rebooted, and reinstalled with a fresh download. After installation completed, the moment it launched and loaded my settings, the the DPC latency shot back up.

::edit::
I take that back. It's not Chroma SDK, it's Razer Synapse. (which doesn't load successfully if SDK is disabled) I thought I still had the SDK disabled, but I apparently forgot to turn it back off, it's been running and my latency was still down.

[GeorgeKps]

Well, after a big "research" and activating/deactivating program features/options etc, i found the culprit and it was Roccat Swarm. They have this monitoring option activated by default that monitors hardware, actions per minute and mistakes per hit. And this monitoring kept the DPC latency at the ~4000μs. After disabling it, it came down to the normal 7-8μs (when doing absolutely nothing that is...)

[BaneSilvermoon]

Nice!

I'm still sitting in the 1100 or so range on average, which is tolerable. Would be nice if I could identify some specific piece of the razor software that could be turned off though so I could keep my mouse software on. Feels clunky without the custom DPI settings.

[BaneSilvermoon]

Just as an update incase anyone else ever reads this with a similar issue.

I just found that in my case, with the razer software being the issue. Disabling the DPI sensitivity buttons in the mouse profile drops my DPC latency from 4k to about 15.

I reduced my sensitivity stages to 2, set my favorite sensitivity setting to the same value on both of the stages, and disabled the buttons to change it. Latency issue is completely gone.

[GeorgeKps]

Hello guys.

The latency issue seems to have gone (at least for the most part) with the latest driver from Realtek. It's not posted on Realtek's website yet (i guess they haven't made an installer package yet), it doesn't auto-install the Realtek control panel (maybe you can install it on your own but i haven't tried it). But it DOES install the driver for the sound card as well as the speakers etc (i know, it sounds weird but W10 has the "audio inputs and outputs" section in device manager). You can change the options from the Windows 10 panel though (right click on the speaker etc).

You can find it here: https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/5993-latest-realtek-hd-audio-driver-version.html. It's a CAB file which you unzip and update the driver from the device manager. The driver seems to be WHQL signed and it also seems to support Windows 10 creators update.

I used to have crackling sound with all other Realtek/Asus drivers (except the Microsoft/default one) after the creators update in a specific old game, and it seems it's now gone.

Anyway, i hope this helps somehow and it doesn't break someone's Windows 10 installation 🙂