Sound skipping/stuttering

R

roachcraft

Member
Some time within the past week, all the audio I play on my HP PC started skipping and stuttering. Sometimes just a split-second pause, sometimes the machine-gun digital stutter. It doesn't matter if it's iTunes or streaming from my browser. I just downloaded and installed the latest driver from Realtek today; it made no difference. Please help! Thanks.
 

My Computer

System One

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
No luck with Mr. Fixit. Are you saying that if I do a system restore and it doesn't fix the problem, that automatically means the problem isn't with the OS? I don't follow.

I will try the system restore as a last resort. Cruising other forums for solutions now.
 

My Computer

System One

System restore puts the OS back the way it was before the problem. If you go back far enough and the problem is still present, most likley not the OS. This is not etched in stone, but a good starting point.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
It should be noted system restore will remove any programs you have installed after the date you go back to. It will not remove any of your personal files though.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
Is it possible you got the wrong sound driver when you updated?

EDIT:
Go to device manager and expand the sound + and tell me what is listed and I will find the correct driver for you.
Also you need to fill out your system specs better to allow us to give better help. The free program Speccy can help there.

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

I would download CCleaner while you were there as well.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
Run the Latency checker ( DPC Latency Checker ). If it shows a lot of red bars, you most likely have a driver problem. It may even tell you which driver is at fault.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
whs said:
Run the Latency checker ( DPC Latency Checker ). If it shows a lot of red bars, you most likely have a driver problem. It may even tell you which driver is at fault.
Click to expand...

Excellent link Thanks, I have added it to my bookmarks:D
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
Yeah, sometimes this is useful. Has helped a few people.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Thanks, everyone. I'm going to try some of these options and get back to you, but just to be clear, the problem started before I downloaded and installed the updated Realtek driver.
 

My Computer

System One

ilikefree said:
Is it possible you got the wrong sound driver when you updated?

EDIT:
Go to device manager and expand the sound + and tell me what is listed and I will find the correct driver for you.
Also you need to fill out your system specs better to allow us to give better help. The free program Speccy can help there.

Speccy - System Information - Free Download

I would download CCleaner while you were there as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the input. Update:

I got the most recent driver from the Realtek site.

My sound device is Realtek High Definition Audio. My driver is version 6.0.1.6316.

Here are my system specs:

model: HP a6200n

processor: ADM Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.60 GHz

RAM: 2.00 GB

system type: 32-bit operating system

Is there more you need to know?
 

My Computer

System One

whs said:
Run the Latency checker ( DPC Latency Checker ). If it shows a lot of red bars, you most likely have a driver problem. It may even tell you which driver is at fault.
Click to expand...

Here's what DPC Latency Checker says:

"Some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams. To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device Manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time. Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems, internal sound devices, USB host controllers, etc."

I don't quite understand what this process is. Do I disable a device, then sit and watch the Latency Checker to see if there are fewer red bars? Is this the only way to determine which of my drivers is "misbehaving"? And do I have to keep doing this for the rest of my PC's life? I thought Windows Update was supposed to keep my drivers up to date. I don't have any fancy equipment on this thing; the only thing different from the stock tower the way I bought it is the DVD burner.
 

My Computer

System One

Just going to keep posting as I progress...I disabled my network adapter, no change. Then I disabled my modem, and then there were more red bars than ever. Why on Earth would that be?
 

My Computer

System One

Yeah, that is a painful process and there is no one way to go about it. I would stay with those drivers that may have something to do with the problem - e.g. testing the printer driver makes no sense.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Another question: could "hard page faults" have anything to do with audio dropouts? I ran LatencyMon, and it says "Your system appears to be suitable for playing real time audio without dropouts." But it also tells me that ccsvchst.exe, crashplanservice.exe, explorer.exe and system are all causing tons of hard page defaults.

I'm getting the feeling that DPC Latency Checker was going to tell me what it told me no matter what. Would it help at all if I do a screen capture of the DPC readout?
 

My Computer

System One

Yeah, excessive paging activity can certainly cause the system to cough. Paging is an enormous strain on the system. I do not remember how you check paging activity in Vista (have not run a Vista system in 1 year). In /7 it is easy with the Resource Monitor.

You could check, however, whether you get a lot of DPCs (deferred procedure calls). This you can do with Process Explorer ( Process Explorer ). Look at the picture that shows you where you find it.
 

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My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Realtek

Not sure if this link will take you to the download page as I had to except the agreement before getting here.
You should use this one.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
If the problem arrived after a driver update try rolling back the driver in device manager.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
Okay, to reiterate: the problem started BEFORE I got my Realtek driver update. The one you point out IS the one I installed a few days ago, which did not fix the problem.

RE: DPCs, I'm getting a ton of those from NDIS 6.0 wrapper driver, USBPORT.SYS, tcpip.sys, rdbss.sys, storport.sys, nvstor32.sys, dpclat_driver.sys, dxgkrnl.sys...

If these are drivers that can be updated or reinstalled, can someone please point me in the right direction? Or if I'm totally off base, let me know too. I realize I'm very inexperienced with this stuff. Appreciate all the input already; so many forums are completely devoid of helpful people like yourselves.
 

My Computer

System One

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