Audio stutter, can't figure out whats causing it

caliban7 · Nov 10, 2016

I have a weird issue with my PC, I've been trying to diagnose this for a while now. When I play movies or games (frequently happens playing Skyrim, but happens on all titles) every 10-15 min I'll hear the audio stutter (buzzes for a second) and the video lags for a second then recovers. Normally it'll just do this randomly but on occasion it'll happen much more frequently (every 5 min or so) and will sometimes force close whatever game I'm playing at the time. The stutter happens when watching videos on Chrome too.

My specs are:
i7-3770
16GB RAM
motherboard from a DELL XPS 8500
EVGA GTX 970
600W Corsair PSU

My graphics card died on me a while back and I replaced it under warranty, the first one showed the same issue before dying and now this new one is showing the same issues. I can't tell if it is the GPU or a mobo issue, or maybe just Windows 10.

Please help!

TimmyGDizzle · Nov 10, 2016

Are you sure the sound drivers are installed and ones that are made for Windows 10?

No way is it the GPU if somehow the video card does it on the new one and the old one. Maybe you mean CPU.

If it was hardware failing I would think it wouldn't be so regular, it would be more like it'd be fine for an hour then happen, the a few seconds and happen. Something happening at a semi regular interval.... Sounds very much like something running in the background is causing it. Close all software thats running, particularly things in the system tray. I've had weird things like mouse software cause stuttering like this. Just close absolutely everything but the game, literally everything including antivirus and all that. Then see if it still happens.

You could also try disabling your sound card altogether. You won't have sound for a bit but if the games play perfectly smooth then you know it has to be something with the sound card / software for it.

caliban7 · Nov 10, 2016

TimmyGDizzle :

I've disabled pretty much everything I can think of and I've checked for audio drivers repeatedly hoping for one that would solve all my problems. I'll have to go through anything else running and see if there is maybe a random program causing the issue.

TimmyGDizzle · Nov 10, 2016

caliban7 :

Something like procmon can be useful thenL https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx

Play the game, when it happens immediately look at the clock on your phone and write down the time, down to the second if possible. Usually phone and computer time are very close since they use some NTP server rather than being set by hand. Then you can look in procmon (it needs to be started and running before you start the game) and look at that time to see what ran. It can be a pain because there can be so many things that run in just a single second of computer time, it's crazy.

Also try disabling the sound card just for fun like I said, just go into device manager, right click and disable. If the gaming never glitches then it has to be the driver or something. You could get a sound blaster live PCI card or whatever will fit in that board for like $5 on ebay and that'd fix it if that were the case, and the sound would be better actually

.

caliban7 · Nov 10, 2016

TimmyGDizzle :

caliban7 :

Something like procmon can be useful thenL https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx

Play the game, when it happens immediately look at the clock on your phone and write down the time, down to the second if possible. Usually phone and computer time are very close since they use some NTP server rather than being set by hand. Then you can look in procmon (it needs to be started and running before you start the game) and look at that time to see what ran. It can be a pain because there can be so many things that run in just a single second of computer time, it's crazy.

Also try disabling the sound card just for fun like I said, just go into device manager, right click and disable. If the gaming never glitches then it has to be the driver or something. You could get a sound blaster live PCI card or whatever will fit in that board for like $5 on ebay and that'd fix it if that were the case, and the sound would be better actually

.

I'll test that out and report back with what I found, hopefully that's the fix

caliban7 · Nov 14, 2016

OOOOk so here's what i found:

I started procmon and had it running while I started playing Skyrim. It took almost 45 minutes for the stutter to happen but when it did i promptly saved the game and closed it to check out the results.
Aaaaaand theres like 6 million events lol
I've narrowed down the results to a few hundred but I dont know what I'm supposed to find, are there any words/ statuses that I'm supposed to look for?

TimmyGDizzle · Nov 14, 2016

caliban7 :

Dang ya I know what you mean, it's crazy how many things run in just a second of computer time.

Ideally there would be some process that started right around that time you saw the stutter. So if it happened at like 4:45 I'd be scrolling around before that time to see what is running.

Of course the game process should be there a ton, then other weird windows things. Scrolling around before and after the stutter you'll see what was normally running anyway.

Then around the time it happens if any other processes happen to pop up, I was hoping something obvious like a norton.exe for example or something you'd be able to spot as another program runnning.

Oh also, I have found that the Nvidia Audio driver causes weird stutters like this. It's installed by default unless you uncheck it during an advanced driver install.

So you may as well check this too to see if it is it, I'd bet it may just be.

Go into device manager (right click my computer, properties, devices) and find the audio devices, expand it and right click on any NVIDIA audio devices and DISABLE them. The only way you'd be using them is if you are actually getting sound out of your monitor speakers via your graphics card, practically no one does this.

So try that, I'd bet that may just be it the more I think about it. Otherwise in procmon you'd want to see if any programs on the list jump out at you. If it all looks like the same stuff over and over, no new programs, then it's gotta be something like drivers, hopefully the nvidia one!

caliban7 · Nov 14, 2016

TimmyGDizzle :

caliban7 :

Dang ya I know what you mean, it's crazy how many things run in just a second of computer time.

Ideally there would be some process that started right around that time you saw the stutter. So if it happened at like 4:45 I'd be scrolling around before that time to see what is running.

Of course the game process should be there a ton, then other weird windows things. Scrolling around before and after the stutter you'll see what was normally running anyway.

Then around the time it happens if any other processes happen to pop up, I was hoping something obvious like a norton.exe for example or something you'd be able to spot as another program runnning.

Oh also, I have found that the Nvidia Audio driver causes weird stutters like this. It's installed by default unless you uncheck it during an advanced driver install.

So you may as well check this too to see if it is it, I'd bet it may just be.

Go into device manager (right click my computer, properties, devices) and find the audio devices, expand it and right click on any NVIDIA audio devices and DISABLE them. The only way you'd be using them is if you are actually getting sound out of your monitor speakers via your graphics card, practically no one does this.

So try that, I'd bet that may just be it the more I think about it. Otherwise in procmon you'd want to see if any programs on the list jump out at you. If it all looks like the same stuff over and over, no new programs, then it's gotta be something like drivers, hopefully the nvidia one!

I don't have antivirus on my PC, so I know that won't be the cause. The setup that I'm using now has my PC running to my TV, and the audio is coming from the TV to a soundbar. Around the time of the stutter I noticed the Realtek audio driver service showed up, before that I didn't see it running. Because my audio out is going through the HDMI cable from the GPU to the TV, would that be the nVidia audio being used? The default output for my audio is through the nVidia GPU, should I disable the Realtek driver?

Sorry lots of questions

TimmyGDizzle · Nov 14, 2016

caliban7 :

TimmyGDizzle :

I don't have antivirus on my PC, so I know that won't be the cause. The setup that I'm using now has my PC running to my TV, and the audio is coming from the TV to a soundbar. Around the time of the stutter I noticed the Realtek audio driver service showed up, before that I didn't see it running. Because my audio out is going through the HDMI cable from the GPU to the TV, would that be the nVidia audio being used? The default output for my audio is through the nVidia GPU, should I disable the Realtek driver?

Sorry lots of questions

Ah ok I bet we are on to something here then.

So ya you wouldn't need / want the realtek audio AND the nvidia audio going at the same time, just to be safe. No way you are using both that I can think of.

So I'd say it most likely has to be the nvidia audio that is being used since you are hooked up to the video card. I'd disable the realtek device in device manager, the service itself, and anything else realtek that is going on.

Something tells me it is related to audio since you have that audio popping happening.

Sorry to send you down a rabbit hole with procmon, most likely nothing going on there it sounds like.

Disable the realtek, make sure you still have sound working, then check if it stutters, I'd bet it doesn't!

caliban7 · Nov 16, 2016

IT WORKED!!!

i went and disabled Realtek's driver and software, then played many hours of video games (for testing purposes... lol). I didn't hear any weird stutters or have any video issues! Apparently if you only use the HDMI on the GPU for both the audio and video, the PC only utilizes the nVidia drivers and software, and the Realtek software interferes with that.

Many thanks for the help!

TimmyGDizzle · Nov 16, 2016

caliban7 :

Heck ya man, glad to hear it! I figured it may just be that. I've seen it the other way around where the nvidia driver will cause problems if you're using the realtek primarily but still have the nvidia driver enabled (which almost everyone does).

Anyway, that's awesome woo hoo!

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