Audio Latency problem

[Crion]

Hey guys,

 

I'm helping a friend troubleshoot an issue on his rig.  He's having weird audio latency issues.  It occurs on both his Xonar Essence STX and onboard audio although the problem only occurs after the machine has been on for awhile (which makes it a pain to troubleshoot).  Here's his setup:

 

Core i7 4770k

Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H

MSI GeForce GTX 780

Asus Xonar Essence STX

Corsair AX760i

Corsair Vengeance 1866Mhz

 

I thought it might be related to PCI-E configuration so I switched it off of auto to Gen2 so testing that now.  Any other ideas? 

 

[Godlygamer23]

How old is the installation of Windows?

[Crion]

How old is the installation of Windows?

 Maybe two months.  He just built this this summer.

[fracking4oil]

You could try installing the UNi Xonar Drivers and see if that solves the issues.

 

http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/

[lxndrdagreat]

You could try installing the UNi Xonar Drivers and see if that solves the issues.

 

http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/

 

It's my build that Crion is helping with.

 

I actually installed the UNI drivers shortly after the problem first appeared, and I just double-checked and I'm still running the latest version. Sadly, they haven't helped.

 

Also, the PCI-E configuration that Crion had me try hasn't stopped it either.

[fracking4oil]

It's my build that Crion is helping with.

 

I actually installed the UNI drivers shortly after the problem first appeared, and I just double-checked and I'm still running the latest version. Sadly, they haven't helped.

 

Also, the PCI-E configuration that Crion had me try hasn't stopped it either.

 

 

Have you tried your front panel audio jack? Does it still do it?

[Crion]

Welcome to the forums, lxndrdagreat.  It should hopefully be easier with people directly giving you suggestions.

[lxndrdagreat]

Have you tried your front panel audio jack? Does it still do it?

 

Yeah, it doesn't seem to matter which audio jack I use, the same problem still shows up.

[fracking4oil]

Maybe this threat will help you out? I haven't read through the whole thing, but it seems it might have some useful information. Seems this isn't an uncommon issue with that card. 

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/585158/asus-xonar-essence-stx-bugs-problems

[Crion]

I've thought of something else...have you made sure your BIOS is up to date? 

[lxndrdagreat]

I've thought of something else...have you made sure your BIOS is up to date? 

 

Yeah, I've been regularly checking and keeping that up to date.

 

On a random whim, I tried putting the computer to sleep next time the problem showed up (instead of rebooting). I waited a few minutes and woke the machine back up. Running a latency checker and then playing music, everything looks fine again.

[lxndrdagreat]

After a clean boot,  there isn't a problem with the sound. After a while of uptime (less than a day for sure, usually somewhere around eight hours), there will start to be an extremely noticeable problem with the sound. When playing music, it will sound like it has buffering problems, as well as playing at a slightly slower speed than normal. Looking at a latency checker (using DPC Latency Checker), the latency will be in the red, usually over 16000µs. This occurs whether I am using the STX or the onboard audio (I tried removing the STX card altogether for a week with the same results).

 

I will also get a very slight but noticeable stutter with the video at regular intervals (I mostly notice this in-game, but the mouse pointer will stutter going across the desktop as well).

 

As soon as I reboot, the problem disappears for a few hours.

 

I've updated the BIOS, tried rolling back to the drivers that came with my GTX 780, tried the most recent Nvidia drivers, tried the beta Nvidia drivers, disabled all audio drivers in device manager and tried only one at a time.

 

None of these have worked.

 

I have also run Prime95 and done a Memtest, neither of which found any issues.

[Crion]

You may have to contact Gigabyte.  I hate to say it but at this point it's looking to be a mobo issue. 

[lxndrdagreat]

So after digging around in Resource Manager while watching DPC Latency Checker, I actually think the problem has something to do with Corsair's Hardware Link Monitor software. I'm going to start digging into it from that end and see what I find.