mp3 stutter in windows 7

[titan]

I've had a similar issue with the stutter, snap, crackle and pop. Not in Windows 7, but in XP with an Nforce board of some kind and a M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card. Ultimately, the solution was a different motherboard altogether.

The issues I had would only happen during HDD activity, which inherently meant anytime I played audio that was read from my HD and not over the network. So, the workaround was to play the audio from a network source. I think it still had issues during heavy I/O on the HD regardless of source.

The exception to all of the above is when I was in Linux. I had zero issues in Linux. No stuttering or popping or crackling or snapping. With all the same original hardware. No matter how much HD activity.

Obviously, as this is a laptop it'll be a bit tricky to replace the motherboard with a different one altogether, but you could try tweaking some of the settings and drivers related to the storage subsystem.

And are you sure you never had this issue before with XP, Vista or whatever was on the laptop before you installed 7 RTM?

[flamingworm]

hello

I have the same problem. The audio just stutters in Windows 7 RTM 32 and 64 bit. It did not do that in vista. However, in vista I had a different problem with the audio, when no audio was playing, and I started audio, or msn made a sound or something like that, the first 2 seconds were very bad quality. I could fix that with the energy options, simply disable the PCI link state power management, and it was fixed. This doesn't work on windows 7. So I'm kinda stuck. I tried reinstalling windows 7, and just started playing audio, and it stuttered... it's really driving me crazy. I have an Asus M50vm laptop. On my other computer, I had stuttering when I played on an USB-audio card, kinda same like now on my laptop, and I just had to set the power scheme to max-performance, and it was solved. This again doesn't work on my laptop. I'm really desperate. Vista kinda sucks when you got used to windows7, the only option I have left is like ubuntu...

anyway, I think it has to do something with that intel storage manager...

[Flying Fox]

There is a recent reliability and compatibility upgrade to Windows 7, may be try that one first to see if it helps?

[flamingworm]

no, update didn't helped. Tried diffirent sound drivers and different intel matrix storage drivers (7.0,8.5,8.8(latest)) but without succes.. Tomorrow the new ubuntu is comming out, gonna try it with that

[Forkmachine]

Yeah, I just had to stop in and post here because I am furious. I listen to audio all the time, and since I put Win7 Pro x64 on my HP Compaq 8510w two days ago, the audio stutters in Winamp, MPC, and WMP no matter what I do. I have disabled everything I can, uninstalled everything I can, updated every single driver, and my audio stutters very frequently. I have tried using the onboard audio and my Creative Audigy 2 Notebook PCMCIA. I would like to think I am a highly experienced user, and I don't think there are any solutions to this problem. I guess I will be going back to XP - it BSOD'd when I plugged in my headphones while it was running, but hey, the audio didn't stutter...

[Meadows]

What firewall do you use?
I hope you're not using antispyware or antivirus.

[Krogoth]

It sounds like the HDD and/or CPU are getting hit by something. Audio and video shuddering are quite normal if the CPU is overburdened.

FYI, Windows update for 7/Vista typically likes to hog the CPU (Process = TrustedInstallation.exe). That might be the culprit of your ills.

[moriz]

just as an update to my situation:

yes it still occurs for my laptop. after more usage, i found that the stutter applies to just about every sound instance except for gaming. this includes youtube, some default windows sounds, movies...

and unfortunately, i have no real solution. my desktop, thankfully, is not affected at all.

[flamingworm]

so it probably has to do something with the powerstate the cpu/gpu is, or the change of them. When you're gaming, they're both on full power, so they don't change. When you're working normally, they change. I had this problem on vista, and it was solved by setting powerstate on maximum performance. In seven this doesn't solve the problem, so maybe there's something in the registry to disable it all.

[yehuda]

In my experience playback stutter is related to high DPC latencies. There's a tool for measuring them, which you can find here:

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Give it a try, run it on the laptop and see if you get red bars.

[moriz]

using that application, i've isolated that the problem is being caused by my wireless adapter. disabling it will eliminate virtually all latency spikes. i'm now in the process of finding better drivers for it... hopefully this will solve the stuttering audio problem.

[UberGerbil]

using that application, i've isolated that the problem is being caused by my wireless adapter. disabling it will eliminate virtually all latency spikes. i'm now in the process of finding better drivers for it... hopefully this will solve the stuttering audio problem.

Unfortunately, that appears to be a common problem (dating back at least to Vista, if not before); clearly, the folks writing wireless drivers (there really are only a handful of different WiFi client chip suppliers) have dropped the ball -- 64bit support also was very slow to appear. FWIW, excessive DPCs will show up in Process Explorer as well (there's a separate entry for them under the System process).

[flamingworm]

i've checked this allready, with my wireless disabled, the periodically red bars dissappear, but the audio problem isn't solved at all. (in my case)

[moriz]

i've found that if i disable my wireless device, the stuttering disappears. however, there's no way to make the red bars go away without disabling wireless, and that's very bad for obvious reasons. no amount of driver updates/downgrades will make the bars go away.

[flamingworm]

I think I found something, the red bars are gone and the average latency is much lower. And I haven't heard audio cracking since (1 hour allready)
I uninstalled Nvidia's latest drivers, and installed 179.48 (for notebooks, windows 7 64bit, i have 9600M GS), along with the HD audio driver (asked in the install). If you have Nvidia graca and running W7 64bit, like me, try that and then report back here

[morphine]

I think I found something, the red bars are gone and the average latency is much lower. And I haven't heard audio cracking since (1 hour allready)
I uninstalled Nvidia's latest drivers, and installed 179.48 (for notebooks, windows 7 64bit, i have 9600M GS), along with the HD audio driver (asked in the install). If you have Nvidia graca and running W7 64bit, like me, try that and then report

Out of curiosity, how did you install them originally? Straight from Nvidia's site, or a modded version that you did yourself, or from laptopvideo2go.com?

[flamingworm]

originally they where from nvidia's site, and this one to. The ones from my manufacturer (ASUS) are quite old, so I always use Nvidia's own drivers.

I thought of it, because it was allways cracking when I clossed a screen, and thus I installed the new 195 beta drivers for notebooks. But it was even worse. And then I remembered the driver I used for W7 RC1 was the 179 one, and I never had any problems in the RC.

EDIT: I just listened to radioheads pyramid song 5 times in a row (you easily notice cracking in this song, so it's my testsong ), while performing normal tasks and it didn't even stutter once. So I think my problem is solved (touches wood, just in case).

drivers: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/geforce_ ... ta_uk.html

[yehuda]

This is great flamingworm, I hope the issue is resolved and that you can hold on to that driver for now.

i've found that if i disable my wireless device, the stuttering disappears. however, there's no way to make the red bars go away without disabling wireless, and that's very bad for obvious reasons. no amount of driver updates/downgrades will make the bars go away.

I looked up your laptop's specs, and according to HP you have an Intel 4965 adapter. Is this what you have? On Intel's site you have two download options, one is the driver alone, the other is the driver plus management software which replaces the built it management service (WZC) in Windows. Have you tried both of them? Here is a link to Intel.

Also, this recent thread turned up in Google: Intel WifiLink 4965 AGN Driver's DPC Latencies causing audio glitches in Windows 7 X64 (RTM). Two other folks having the same problem.

[yehuda]

FWIW, excessive DPCs will show up in Process Explorer as well (there's a separate entry for them under the System process).

Thanks for the tip. Procexp is very nice, like the other utilities from Sysinternals.

[crapitto]

I also have (had) the same problem on a Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P, Win7x64

If u have Easytunes 6 fromn Gigabyte (ET6) running, disable it.
Finally good sound.