Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro audio dropouts

[FJ5]

New laptop - thin & light, I7 1360p CPU (i.e. Intel 13th Gen), 16GB DDR5 RAM. Primarily for travelling but would like to do some music stuff as well (my main rig is an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with 64GB RAM & no issues!).

I use Cubase Pro (& I know there are possible issues with Intel 12th & 13th gen CPUs & efficiency cores) but dropouts are evident on standalone VSTs too.

After trying the obvious fixes (e.g. shutdown non-essential processes, switch off Wi-Fi & Bluetooth, set power to 'Best Performance' etc.) I still get clicks & pops. CPU stays around 13-15% so not a CPU issue.

I use ASIO4ALL as a driver (Steinberg's Generic Low Latency Driver is terrible) with 512 buffer.

LatencyMon suggests the following are the cultprits:

Highest measured interrupt to process latency: 8215 micro seconds
Highest reported ISR routine execution time: i8042prt.sys i8042 Port Driver (1228 micro seconds)
Highest reported DPC routine execution time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel (8781 micro seconds)

I've had a look online & see this issue crops up frequently but can't find (or understand!) a solution.

Anybody got any thoughts? It's a pretty high-spec laptop & odd that it's pretty poor at audio...

Thanks!

[chk071]

Try an audio interface with a dedicated ASIO driver. ASIO4ALL is definitely prone to have issues like these.

[FJ5]

Yeah thanks, I guess so but it kinda defeats the object of having a light travel laptop if I have to carry around an audio interface too.

That said, Arturia's MiniFuse is an option maybe...

[chk071]

Yeah thanks, I guess so but it kinda defeats the object of having a light travel laptop if I have to carry around an audio interface too.

True, and your LatencyMon results definitely point to a general issue with working with real-time audio. I don't know if you'll be able to tackle that though. At least I wouldn't know where to start.

[T-CM11]

New laptop - thin & light, I7 1360p CPU (i.e. Intel 13th Gen), 16GB DDR5 RAM. Primarily for travelling but would like to do some music stuff as well (my main rig is an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with 64GB RAM & no issues!).

I use Cubase Pro (& I know there are possible issues with Intel 12th & 13th gen CPUs & efficiency cores) but dropouts are evident on standalone VSTs too.

After trying the obvious fixes (e.g. shutdown non-essential processes, switch off Wi-Fi & Bluetooth, set power to 'Best Performance' etc.) I still get clicks & pops. CPU stays around 13-15% so not a CPU issue.

I use ASIO4ALL as a driver (Steinberg's Generic Low Latency Driver is terrible) with 512 buffer.

LatencyMon suggests the following are the cultprits:

Highest measured interrupt to process latency: 8215 micro seconds
Highest reported ISR routine execution time: i8042prt.sys i8042 Port Driver (1228 micro seconds)
Highest reported DPC routine execution time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel (8781 micro seconds)

I've had a look online & see this issue crops up frequently but can't find (or understand!) a solution.

Anybody got any thoughts? It's a pretty high-spec laptop & odd that it's pretty poor at audio...

Thanks!

i8042 > Keyboard/mouse driver
dxgkrnl > Graphics adapter

Try different/older/newer drivers. (I can't do much else to help you from here)

Oh, and don't use 'Best Performance' power plan; let Cubase activate its own when running.

[T-CM11]

An if-all-else-fails plan:
Reinstall Windows from a clean (Microsoft provided) ISO, and only install Samsung drivers if really needed.

[FJ5]

Thanks for that. I guessed that graphics was an issue (though just using the integrated Iris Xe).

Interesting about the keyboard/mouse though.

Thinking now whether an external interface would help. Might try connecting my MOTU M2 (that I use for my main rig) & see if it helps.

Maybe I should've bought a MacBook Air...

[T-CM11]

Thanks for that. I guessed that graphics was an issue (though just using the integrated Iris Xe).

Laptop manufacturers often install their own versions of drivers. How they differ from the Intel or Microsoft ones? Who knows.
Use this:
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/di ... nload.html
Then let Windows install the Microsoft driver.

[FJ5]

Thanks for that. I guessed that graphics was an issue (though just using the integrated Iris Xe).

Laptop manufacturers often install their own versions of drivers. How they differ from the Intel or Microsoft ones? Who knows.
Use this:
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/di ... nload.html
Then let Windows install the Microsoft driver.

Cool thanks will have a look

[chk071]

Oh, and don't use 'Best Performance' power plan; let Cubase activate its own when running.

Didn't know that Cubase does that. Do other DAWs do that as well?

[T-CM11]

Oh, and don't use 'Best Performance' power plan; let Cubase activate its own when running.

Didn't know that Cubase does that. Do other DAWs do that as well?

Cubase does. (Studio>Studio Setup>Audio System>Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme) FL Studio doesn't (or didn't, in v20.8 ). I have no serious experience with other DAWs - maybe other people can answer that.

[chk071]

I never read anywhere that Studio One does something like it, and never found anything in the settings either, so, I'll just assume that it doesn't.

It's a good idea though. Would save people the time always switching power plans, on multi purpose computers. I often forget to switch it back from high performance as well, which means that the CPU never throttles, even when the PC idles 90% of the time...

[FJ5]

Thanks for that. I guessed that graphics was an issue (though just using the integrated Iris Xe).

Laptop manufacturers often install their own versions of drivers. How they differ from the Intel or Microsoft ones? Who knows.
Use this:
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/di ... nload.html
Then let Windows install the Microsoft driver.

So I uninstalled the Iris Xe driver & now have "Microsoft Basic Display Adpater" as my graphics device.

It seems now though that ACPI.sys - ACPI Driver for NT is causing an issue (2289 micro-seconds). I did see this occasionally prior to uninstalling the graphics driver.