DPC Latency issues and audiostutter on X48-DS4

[khazim]

Hi. I've posted a thread about my problem over at guru3d, but thought I'll fire away here when I noticed that there's a whole Gigabyte-section here.

Oh well. here goes.

I've had audiostutters for a very long time now, and due to not knowing why I've found myself searching the net for it every now and then. I stumbled upon a tool a some time ago, namely the DPC Latency Checker. What you want with this is all green bars. I've mostly got red, though, spiking at about 11ms almost all the time!

I've gotten so far that I'm positive that the DPC latencyissues I'm experiencing is the cause of my audio drop-outs/stutters. However, as for why I'm getting them is a whole other thing. And after checking with Windows Performance Toolkit(xperf), I can see that the culprit seems to be dxgkrnl.sys, which I've ironed out to being the Direct X Graphic Kernel. The DPC latency view shows that dgxkrnl.sys has peaks of 12ms latency, as opposed to the next entry in the list which max is at 0.09ms.

So, the culprit seems to be dxgkrnl.sys, the Direct X Graphic Kernel. That led me to try to disable the Graphics Card Device in Device manager. That actually did the trick, the latency bars in DPC Latency Checker were all green. Xperfs DPC view showed the same story, with dxgkrnl.sys not even being in the list. With further reading I learned that the Standard VGA Graphics Drivers doesn't communicate with dxgkrnl.sys. I now thought that I've got a drivererror with the nvidia-drivers. So, I enabled the Graphics Card Device again, and the latency got back to 11-12ms spikes all over. Then I uninstalled the nvidiadrivers, and the DPC Latency Checker bars went green again.

However, I can't do without graphicsdrivers even if that would fix my soundsproblems. So, I installed an early version of nvidias drivers. That didn't do the trick, so I started going through the released drivers for my 8800GT, hoping for a fix. That's how far I've come at this point. No driver seems to fix my problem.

It's really starting to bug me, since I listen alot to music at my computer while studying and playing games, etc. I also feel it's making my graphics stutter at points.

I hope a wise soul can help me with this matter. Though I've seen in threads a bit here and there, lately, that there seems to be problems like this with the actual motherboards(P35, X38 and X48).


Screens for xperf DPC view and DPC Latency Checker, with nvidia graphics drivers installed.
Notice dxgkrnl doing way to much DPC activity according to xperf, and all that red isn't good!

Screens for xperf DPC view and DPC Latency Checker, with nvidia graphics not installed.
And as soon as I uninstall the nvidia graphics drivers or disable the graphics card in device manager, no activity from dxgkrnl.sys in xperf, and all green bars in DPC Latency Checker.

I've done all driver installs cleanly. Uninstalling the old drivers first, booting to safemode and using DriverSweeper to get rid of all the leftovers of the drivers. Rebooting, and installing other drivers.

Installed newest drivers for Intel chipset, Realtek onbrard and LAN from the manufacturers websites.

Onboard sound disabled in BIOS doesn't make any difference on the DPC Latency. Actually, nothing does, other than disabling the graphics card.

I've even formated my harddrive and reinstalled vista. The same DPC Latency(all red) is there on the clean install aswell, right after installing the graphicsdrivers.
This is the drivers I've tried for my graphics card:
WHQL: 169.02, 169.25, 175.16, 175.19, 181.22, 182.06, 182.08
BETA: 174.74, 182.46

I've even tried both the PCI-E 2.0 slots. But no luck there.

Right now I'm so tired of this and am thinking about buying another motherboard since I do believe that it is the problem. If it isn't however, it's money all wasted.

Hope someone can help me with this.

PS. here's the link to my post at guru3d, if you want to see the replies I've gotten.

Best Regards
Jonas


PS. My hardware-build is as follows:
Videocard: Club3D 8800GT 512MB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4
Memory: DDR2 OCZ Reaper 8500 4GB
Soundcard: Onboard Realtek
LAN: Onboard Realtek
PSU: Corsair 650W

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: DPC Latency issues and audiostutter on X48-DS4

Well This should not affect you since you do not create music, and I see you say you "Feel" it is. So are you sure it is, or you just think so because you now know about the DPC latency checker?

Just letting you know, if you do not create and edit music for a living it should not affect you is all.

This can be cause by any number of things, which you likely know, Hardware, drivers, services, programs, ect. Here is some of those things and a link to DPC's FAQ about the possible causes. Hey, do you have DES installed, if so remove that for sure >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/p35-motherboards-dpc-latency-spiking-26456/index23.html#post264733

Here is the P45 thread (Just so you can see it is a NON Issue)

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/gigabyte-ep45-ds4p-dpc-latency-issue-28386/#post266967

And my Own post about X58 DPC Latency

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/dpc-latency-problems-x58-ud5-30547/#post284917

I can say this has for sure been corrected in P35/P45 and X58 boards if you would like to move on up. I am not sure if it ever was in X48 or not though

[khazim]

Re: DPC Latency issues and audiostutter on X48-DS4

Well This should not affect you since you do not create music, and I see you say you "Feel" it is. So are you sure it is, or you just think so because you now know about the DPC latency checker?

Just letting you know, if you do not create and edit music for a living it should not affect you is all.

Maybe that would be true for some DPC Latency. But it does affect me since it's so high all the time(around 10-12ms).

As I've described before. As soon as I turn off the graphics card or uninstall the drivers, the stutter stops, and when I turn it on or install drivers again, it starts. The wording "Feel" was probably not describing it enough. It is there. It's not just a feeling.

It was because I hear it being there, the stutter, that I checked for DPC Latency in the first place since I learned that this might affect the system into stuttering.

This can be cause by any number of things, which you likely know, Hardware, drivers, services, programs, ect. Here is some of those things and a link to DPC's FAQ about the possible causes. Hey, do you have DES installed, if so remove that for sure >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/p35-motherboards-dpc-latency-spiking-26456/index23.html#post264733

I haven't got DES installed. Aye, heard it can be a hassle aswell.

I can say this has for sure been corrected in P35/P45 and X58 boards if you would like to move on up. I am not sure if it ever was in X48 or not though

I've written to Gigabytes support asking about this problem I've got with the X48, but haven't gotten any confirmation at all. It's about a week ago now.

I'm going to check your links later on today. Busy at schoole now, so don't want to get lost in the reading.

Thanks a bunch for your reply!

EDIT: Managed to borrow another 8800gt gfx-card, and as soon as i started up with this one, the problem is all gone. Latency seems to keep itself between 0.02 and 0.04ms. Quite a difference from before, where it was on 10-12ms. Anyway have to give the gfx back now, and back it is to audiostutter for a while, before i can sort a new card out :(