Hey there guys.
I saw a user on here by the name of Andre who's had a lot of experience in helping solve issues similar to mine. (hope he's still around?)
My issue is what would appear to be "DPC Latency" or something of the sort.
I've been having problems for over six months now with common audio crackling/popping/stuttering going on at random times, for extended periods of time.
At first I thought I might have some sort of basic software issue, a high CPU usage or something odd I could fix by cracking open task manager and poking around, as such I couldn't figure out anything from that.
Next I thought it might be a virus or something, so I backed my things up and did a fresh install of Windows 7 (64bit), everything seemed to be going fine... but it started again. (I'm not a system-savvy person.)
By this point I thought it must be a hardware problem, but I've never been good with hardware or systems at this level.
I actually don't know what the problem is, but it's been driving me insane for the past 6 months+ and I can't figure it out.
(Could it be the HDD dying? The motherboard getting old? My graphics card being nuts?)
The WEIRDEST thing is, it's not doing it ALL THE TIME. It's doing it on random occasions, but then doing it for an extended period, before randomly stopping.
I've looked at what I've been running at these times but nothing looks weird.
My system is about 4-5 years old now.
Basic system specs: (is desktop computer tower)
- Windows 7 64bit. Professional. (SP3)
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 470, 1GB Graphics Card
- Intel Core i7 @2.8GHz
- 6GB DDR3 RAM (3 sticks of 2GB)
- 1TB HDD
The DPC Latency, the problem?
When using DPC Latency Checker, some tool I found lying around, I'm kicking up around 2000us to 3500us constantly, for some reason.
When using LatencyMon, it's telling me to check around for CPU throttling, BIOS updates, dodgy drivers, or even my network card. (How specific.)
I've done a few things so far already:
- Installed the Windows Performance Toolkit and ran xperf things to check it out
---> (link to .ETL file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63581599/DPC_Issue.zip)
http://i.imgur.com/wvj2QXh.png
(if anyone checks out the ETL file, I'm sure it's not my pen and touch drivers being the issue here.)
- Reinstalling Windows.
- Disabled HPET in BIOS.
- Disabled things such as network cards and USB Hubs in Device Manager.
- Installing windows updates. (lol)
- Trying different audio devices.
- Leaving a CD in the disc tray. (it was mentioned somewhere.)
So far the problem's pointing to two possible outcomes, to my knowledge: (but I'm not skilled)
1- somewhere along the way I adopted a dodgy driver I had before reinstalling, and it's doing the same thing.
2- a piece of hardware is dying.
If anyone can help me out with this issue I'd be most appreciative, it's been annoying me for some time, and I'm nearly ready to just buy a new machine instead of dealing with petty problems.
Thanks! :D
PS: If anyone can get Andre Ziegler (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/andre.ziegler/?ws=usercard-mini)
to help, he's probably my best bet at solving this issue. xD