Audio Issues

[mfny]

Hi all,

Up until approximately a week ago my set up was working fine, no audio issues at all.

CPU/Cooler: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo v2
Motherboard: MSI B450M A-Pro MAX
GPU: Inno3D RTX 3060 Twin X2
Memory: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200mhz DDR4
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 1TB nvme SSD
PSU: Corsair RM750 (2021) 750w
Case: Lian-Li Lancool 205 Mesh
USB Audio Interface: Focusrite Scarlett 4i4
OS: Windows 11

However now unless I have the buffer setting at 512+ in the Focusrite Scarlett control panel I get sporadic audio glitches in the form of clicks/pops in for example Tidal, Youtube(via Browser) and other such applications.. I also get a total "breakdown" in audio in some games resulting in completely garbled audio.

There have been no changes in hardware or software that I am aware of that would explain how I am now for some reason unable to set buffer to 256 or less.

I am wondering how I may restore my ability to be able to run at a buffer of 256, and am considering 2 options:

Replace Audio Interface
Replace Motherboard

I can only however do one of these two due to budget constraints.. so which should it be ?

[maanga]

Check your computer CPU and memory usage on some songs that previously worked properly, If they are within limits, then it is the ASIO driver or a clash with display driver (NVIDIA?). See if the drivers are updated. You should also check for startup programs that stick unnecessarily.
Regards.

[mfny]

CPU and Memory usage all seems as it was before, in fact everything else seems normal except for this sudden onset of audio issues on a set up that for a long time has been working fine.

Nvidia drivers are also up to date.

[zerocrossing]

It could be that your machine started indexing drives. I had that happen once and it had to get turned off.

[mfny]

I should also say that these issues are experienced in non ASIO applications, I have not been in a position to have experience of ASIO in use for quite some time due to not having done any music production for some time for reasons unrelated to this issue.

So to clarfify these issues have been happening in regular non audio production/DAW use, and this started about a week ago for no apparent reason.

[BertKoor]

Try rolling back to a system restore point prior to last week. But first run the Dpc Latency Scanner (google that) to finf out what's blocking.

[mfny]

So spent some time with LatancyMon, watching it while idling, carrying out some usual tasks including audio/video playback in Tidal and Edge(Youtube), playing a round or two of Insurgency:Sandstorm and so on

During this time I experienced no audio glitches funnily enough.. but LatancyMon did seem to flag 2 items of concern re DPC times and that is the Nvidia Kernel Driver(nvlddmkm.sys) and the Microsoft Storage driver(Storport.sys)

I did google ways to address these spikes specifically with these drivers and the fixes for Storport.sys make reference to swapping from ATI/AMD SATA drivers to Microsoft ones which is no longer valid since AMD now uses the Microsoft drivers its seems, and also my system was already on the MS SATA drivers anyway.

In addition I also found references to disabling HPET and/or Page File, nether seemed to help.. and in fact disabling one or both of these caused Insurgency: Sandstorm to crash.

And overall given I noticed no audio issues during this time overall not sure how helpful this was. I may run it again the moment I start to notice issues however.

[Karbon L. Forms]

I had pops and clicks when using non-ASIO apps (Browser or whatever) with an ASIO DAW, running thru a Scarlett 2|2 (1st Edition).

Problem completely disappeared when I switched over to a cheap NI Komplete Audio 1 I got in a bundle.

Better, more up to date driver maybe? No idea.

Not sure if same issue as OP.

[mfny]

I had pops and clicks when using non-ASIO apps (Browser or whatever) with an ASIO DAW, running thru a Scarlett 2|2 (1st Edition).

Problem completely disappeared when I switched over to a cheap NI Komplete Audio 1 I got in a bundle.

Better, more up to date driver maybe? No idea.

Not sure if same issue as OP.

My Scarlett is a 3rd Gen, with latest drivers.

[T-CM11]

I should also say that these issues are experienced in non ASIO applications

Then buffers* and (DPC) latency are irrelevant...
(edit: On all audio interfaces that I've had, the buffer setting was for the ASIO driver)

I can't help you troubleshoot since I don't have a Focusrite, but a cheap solution would be to use your motherboard audio chip (Realtek) for Windows playback. I don't know if your speakers (or amp) have multiple inputs, but if not - get a small mixer.

Another thing to try: uninstall and reinstall your Focusrite drivers.

[mfny]

I should also say that these issues are experienced in non ASIO applications

Then buffers* and (DPC) latency are irrelevant...
(edit: On all audio interfaces that I've had, the buffer setting was for the ASIO driver)

I can't help you troubleshoot since I don't have a Focusrite, but a cheap solution would be to use your motherboard audio chip (Realtek) for Windows playback. I don't know if your speakers (or amp) have multiple inputs, but if not - get a small mixer.

Another thing to try: uninstall and reinstall your Focusrite drivers.

It would appear that the settings for Sample rate and buffer size are for both ASIO and non ASIO, but can be overrided by specific settings in ASIO applications, or at least that's always been my understanding.

The clicking/popping issue when it happens has happened with the onboard audio to.

I should also say that I have disabled fTPM/TPM per the following, and this seemed to help but not fully address these issues:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-410
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-i ... ing-issues

[T-CM11]

Have you installed the AMD chipset drivers?
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-A ... ort#driver

edit: another thing to try: try setting a different sample rate/bit depth in Windows control panel. If it's now set to 24bit/48khz, try 16/44 e.g.

[Karbon L. Forms]

I had pops and clicks when using non-ASIO apps (Browser or whatever) with an ASIO DAW, running thru a Scarlett 2|2 (1st Edition).

Problem completely disappeared when I switched over to a cheap NI Komplete Audio 1 I got in a bundle.

Better, more up to date driver maybe? No idea.

Not sure if same issue as OP.

My Scarlett is a 3rd Gen, with latest drivers.

Perhaps NI driver is just better in some way for this kind of thing? I'm not an audio driver expert.

But I used to have no problems with the Scarlett rev 1, Youtube and Bitwig/Live happily both playing at same time. Until a few months back when pops started. I only tried the NI interface on the off-chance, as it was lying unused.

Maybe try borrowing a different interface? Of course, your issues may be unrelated to mine.

[T-CM11]

Maybe try borrowing a different interface? Of course, your issues may be unrelated to mine.

Already mentioned:

The clicking/popping issue when it happens has happened with the onboard audio too.

[Pictus]

I am wondering how I may restore my ability to be able to run at a buffer of 256, and am considering 2 options:

Replace Audio Interface
Replace Motherboard

I can only however do one of these two due to budget constraints.. so which should it be ?

In the BIOS, disable fTPM
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-i ... ing-issues

In the BIOS, make sure the PCIe mode for the GPU is not AUTO, but GEN3 or
GEN4(if the GPU is GEN4). In the past, keeping it GEN3 fixed some weird behavior...

Disable Widgets
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/enable-or ... s-11.1196/

Disable VBS
https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-vbs-disable/

Disable Windows Hibernate
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/285 ... -10-a.html

For AMD 3000 you first install the AMD chipset driver and
use the AMD custom power profile, make sure to get the latest
version and update to the latest motherboard BIOS.


Install a less bloated NVIDIA driver
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/512-1 ... on.433367/

Adjust NVIDIA Power Settings
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers ... erformance


Enable MSI(Message Signaled-Based Interrupts) for the GPU
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windo ... st-5826955


After updating to NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 461.09 or newer, some desktop
apps may flicker or stutter when resizing the window on some PC configurations. (Higher latency)
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers ... a_id/5157/
The registry fix https://nvidia.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/ ... isable.reg

1000hz mouse polling rate causes stuttering
https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/co ... /?sort=new


You may like:

https://github.com/builtbybel/ThisIsWin11
https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
https://www.oo-software.com/en/ooappbuster


In the future you may upgrade the CPU to a 5600X and if you ever
want to buy audio interface, PreSonus improved the USB driver for
the PreSonus Studio line and it is not expensive.

https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.php?p=15796206&postcount=5092

https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/618474-audio-interface-low-latency-performance-data-base-172.html#post15819125