Audio crackling/popping when gaming

[favabeans]

When i go into any game or play some music while scrolling the internet, the audio starts to crackle or pop almost like an LP record static.

The funny thing is that when i reboot the computer (not shut down, but clicking reboot) the problem disappears. However if i shut down the computer, wait for about 10 secs then start it up the audio crackles are back.

If i reboot so the problem goes away then i can play games for as long as i want without the problem appearing again, the problem only comes back after the computer has been shut down.

I have used LatencyMonitor and DPC latency checker, but the values are normal, i have run in depth latency checker as well so test for tight loop latency which has some higher results. i get 166,11512 μs. I am using a i7-7700 3.60Ghz processor and it is hyperthreaded.

If i run the In Depth Latency Checker simultaneous while playing a game the audio crackles become even more apparent, this is probably just because the test loops the CPU or something, but the crackles are identical to the ones i am trying to get rid of so that is why i think that this is a CPU issue or a CPU related issue.

I have tried updating GPU driver and sound drivers several times, but the problem is still there.

I am wondering if it is something that happens during the boot-up process that makes the audio crackling appear, because as i said earlier, if i start up the computer and then click restart computer then the audio is back to normal. But if i shut it down and wait a little then start it up again the problem is back.

BTW audio enhancements are disabled and changing CD/DVD/Studio quality and frequency has no effect at all.

GPU: GTX 1080Ti
CPU: i7-7700 3.60Ghz
RAM: 16GB
OS: Win 10 64bit

Any ideas?

Sorry if i have posted this in the wrong forum section

 

[raahelps]

Bump

Not much you can do other then reinstalling the driver.


Try this, remove the audio device from device manager. and let windows install a driver automatically. Shutdown and turn on pc again and see if you still get crackle when gaming.

IF not, then its a driver issue. uninstall all your mobo software, and reinstall audio driver or install latest version.

What sometimes also helps is doing a clean install of gpu driver, and not installing its audio driver during install.

I found in windows 10 it corrupts the drivers sometimes and I have ot reinstall them. I have had the same exact problem on my asus board.

 

[hfarsonist]

Experiencing exactly the same issue, this must be a weirdest and most annoying problem I've faced. When I reboot pc, everything goes back to normal,but if I shut it down and then turn back on,crackles are coming back, like you said,I'm getting it while gaming and watching videos on YouTube + surfing on internet. Also if you check, while surfing and playing YouTube video,audio and video must run out of sync. I'm pretty much sure we have exactly the same problem. Tried many things, including clean install of win 10. Nothing worked. Thought I was only one with that issue. So if someone knows any solution, please let us know. Thanks in advance
P.S. when did this start for you?

 

[xxvolwarexx]

Bump

Not much you can do other then reinstalling the driver.


Try this, remove the audio device from device manager. and let windows install a driver automatically. Shutdown and turn on pc again and see if you still get crackle when gaming.

IF not, then its a driver issue. uninstall all your mobo software, and reinstall audio driver or install latest version.

What sometimes also helps is doing a clean install of gpu driver, and not installing its audio driver during install.

I found in windows 10 it corrupts the drivers sometimes and I have ot reinstall them. I have had the same exact problem on my asus board.

In the same shoes. I'm afraid its some weird ASUS thing.

 

[xxvolwarexx]

Experiencing exactly the same issue, this must be a weirdest and most annoying problem I've faced. When I reboot pc, everything goes back to normal,but if I shut it down and then turn back on,crackles are coming back, like you said,I'm getting it while gaming and watching videos on YouTube + surfing on internet. Also if you check, while surfing and playing YouTube video,audio and video must run out of sync. I'm pretty much sure we have exactly the same problem. Tried many things, including clean install of win 10. Nothing worked. Thought I was only one with that issue. So if someone knows any solution, please let us know. Thanks in advance
P.S. when did this start for you?

Same shoes friend. A reboot seems to fix the issue. I'm on a new Z370 board. I', 99% sure its not hardware failure. Disable your GPU in device manager and EXCLUSIVELY use the onboard GPU. Listen to music/watch videos and see if the issue persists. Keep us posted!

 

[hfarsonist]

Bump

Not much you can do other then reinstalling the driver.


Try this, remove the audio device from device manager. and let windows install a driver automatically. Shutdown and turn on pc again and see if you still get crackle when gaming.

IF not, then its a driver issue. uninstall all your mobo software, and reinstall audio driver or install latest version.

What sometimes also helps is doing a clean install of gpu driver, and not installing its audio driver during install.

I found in windows 10 it corrupts the drivers sometimes and I have ot reinstall them. I have had the same exact problem on my asus board.

In the same shoes. I'm afraid its some weird ASUS thing.

Things I have tried:
1. Disabling realtek/uninstalled and let windows install it.
2. Clean OS install.
3. Updating BIOS.
4. Installation of chipset drivers.
5. I had all the latest drivers, including Nvidia GeForce experience newest drivers. When I did clean OS install, windows installed Nvidia drivers itself, but not the latest one's. It works but better but problem still exists, crackling until I restart pc.

What you said is interesting though,gotta try uninstalling Nvidia audio drivers and leave only realtek.

 

[hfarsonist]

No solution found yet. Uninstalling Nvidia audio drivers doesn't help. Launched DPC latency checker and getting 1000us when chrome is opened,but it may hit up to 2000 or more and that's where it starts crackling,even 1500us is enough to crackle. Rolled back Nvidia drivers to older one's (385 & 384) and it seemed to be better BUT didn't fix the problem. I start thinking that there is no way to fix this issue.

 

[favabeans]

Bump

Not much you can do other then reinstalling the driver.


Try this, remove the audio device from device manager. and let windows install a driver automatically. Shutdown and turn on pc again and see if you still get crackle when gaming.

IF not, then its a driver issue. uninstall all your mobo software, and reinstall audio driver or install latest version.

What sometimes also helps is doing a clean install of gpu driver, and not installing its audio driver during install.

I found in windows 10 it corrupts the drivers sometimes and I have ot reinstall them. I have had the same exact problem on my asus board.

In the same shoes. I'm afraid its some weird ASUS thing.

I doubt its because of the ASUS motherboard, because i have a motherboard from MSI

 

[favabeans]

So for the last couple of weeks i have restarted my computer immediately after boot up just to avoid the issue entirely. Annoying but it works, and so for the first time in a while i tried a normal boot up to see if the problem was still there.

And it still is... Reinstalling drivers, letting windows install them automatically, clean GPU driver install... nothing works

 

[hfarsonist]

Bump

Not much you can do other then reinstalling the driver.


Try this, remove the audio device from device manager. and let windows install a driver automatically. Shutdown and turn on pc again and see if you still get crackle when gaming.

IF not, then its a driver issue. uninstall all your mobo software, and reinstall audio driver or install latest version.

What sometimes also helps is doing a clean install of gpu driver, and not installing its audio driver during install.

I found in windows 10 it corrupts the drivers sometimes and I have ot reinstall them. I have had the same exact problem on my asus board.

In the same shoes. I'm afraid its some weird ASUS thing.

I doubt its because of the ASUS motherboard, because i have a motherboard from MSI

MSI here too. I don't think that it's mobo issue. actually i have no idea what the actual **** is this

 

[favabeans]

I am running Windows 10 Home edition with version 1709, are you all running the same edition? because it may be the common factor

 

[hfarsonist]

I have Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit,version 1709. But to be fair i noticed few cracklings even on 1703.

 

[hfarsonist]

Have you tried running a LatencyMon? Run it,see which system file causes highest DPC latency and post "Stats" here

 

[favabeans]

Have you tried running a LatencyMon? Run it,see which system file causes highest DPC latency and post "Stats" here

I did, back when i first started this thread and the highest latency was an nvidia file but it was nowhere near abnormal, everything was normal actually so i doubt that nvidia file was the cause, I can check again of course, but then i have to recreate the problem first so the results are accurate, but even with the problem recreated the results are always identical to when the problem is away.

 

[hfarsonist]

Have you tried running a LatencyMon? Run it,see which system file causes highest DPC latency and post "Stats" here

I did, back when i first started this thread and the highest latency was an nvidia file but it was nowhere near abnormal, everything was normal actually so i doubt that nvidia file was the cause, I can check again of course, but then i have to recreate the problem first so the results are accurate, but even with the problem recreated the results are always identical to when the problem is away.

Do you have a desync problems as well? (Check my first post when I'm taking about YouTube) to me most times highest latency is wdf0100.sys or something like that.

 

[favabeans]

Have you tried running a LatencyMon? Run it,see which system file causes highest DPC latency and post "Stats" here

I did, back when i first started this thread and the highest latency was an nvidia file but it was nowhere near abnormal, everything was normal actually so i doubt that nvidia file was the cause, I can check again of course, but then i have to recreate the problem first so the results are accurate, but even with the problem recreated the results are always identical to when the problem is away.

Do you have a desync problems as well? (Check my first post when I'm taking about YouTube) to me most times highest latency is wdf0100.sys or something like that.

Oh i haven't checked for desync, it is kinda late here but i will definitely try to find out tomorrow early when i recreate the problem!
As for when my issues started i can't really say for sure, but i think i started to notice it in late September and the human hearing is quite sensitive to sounds being off or glitchy, so i think i heard the bug quite early on instead of gradually becoming aware of the issue.

 

[favabeans]

Ok so i recreated the problem and ran LatencyMon again, the results were the same as i always get:
nvlddmkm.sys 0.858202 microseconds
dxgkrln.sys 0.368437 microseconds
Wdf01000.sys 0.364307 microseconds

However i decided to browse internet some more and open a few more tabs and all of a sudden in LatencyMon under the section for "Highest measured interrupt to process latency" the dxgkrnl.sys file which is described as DirectX Graphics Kernel reaches a super high latency of 2929.202223 microseconds.
This is the first time in LatencyMon i have had that happen. I Doubt it is the only thing that causes the problem because i have had the soundbug without it ever showing up in LatencyMon before, but now the program says:

"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks.You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

One more somewhat related thing, i use Afterburner and Rivatuner to avoid my GPU from overheating due to 1080Ti MSI armor edition's poor choice of adding the heatsink of an older gpu series on the graphics processor and because of this i use the program to underclock the GPU.
I notice that when playing games with the GPU underclocked the soundbug becomes more apparent and when i run the GPU on normal settings i still get the audiobug but it is not as bad, but if i restart the computer then as always the sound-bug disappears entirely.
I have tried to uninstall rivatuner and afterburner to see if it was the cause of the problem somehow but i still got the sound-bug.

Edit: I also checked to see if i got desync when watching YouTube videos but i couldn't notice any.

 

[hofik1979]

Ok so i recreated the problem and ran LatencyMon again, the results were the same as i always get:
nvlddmkm.sys 0.858202 microseconds
dxgkrln.sys 0.368437 microseconds
Wdf01000.sys 0.364307 microseconds

However i decided to browse internet some more and open a few more tabs and all of a sudden in LatencyMon under the section for "Highest measured interrupt to process latency" the dxgkrnl.sys file which is described as DirectX Graphics Kernel reaches a super high latency of 2929.202223 microseconds.
This is the first time in LatencyMon i have had that happen. I Doubt it is the only thing that causes the problem because i have had the soundbug without it ever showing up in LatencyMon before, but now the program says:

"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks.You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

One more somewhat related thing, i use Afterburner and Rivatuner to avoid my GPU from overheating due to 1080Ti MSI armor edition's poor choice of adding the heatsink of an older gpu series on the graphics processor and because of this i use the program to underclock the GPU.
I notice that when playing games with the GPU underclocked the soundbug becomes more apparent and when i run the GPU on normal settings i still get the audiobug but it is not as bad, but if i restart the computer then as always the sound-bug disappears entirely.
I have tried to uninstall rivatuner and afterburner to see if it was the cause of the problem somehow but i still got the sound-bug.

Edit: I also checked to see if i got desync when watching YouTube videos but i couldn't notice any.

You can try my workaround. it works for me - I have posted a longer version here


The short version is:
1. Fast Startup disabled (this feature is hidden under the Windows 10 power options control panel).
2. Set computer to never sleep (power options control panel).

(This may help you if your audio issues disappear after a reboot, if you are experiencing any sort of audio issues after a reboot this workaround won´t be most probably useful to you)

 

[favabeans]

Ok so i recreated the problem and ran LatencyMon again, the results were the same as i always get:
nvlddmkm.sys 0.858202 microseconds
dxgkrln.sys 0.368437 microseconds
Wdf01000.sys 0.364307 microseconds

However i decided to browse internet some more and open a few more tabs and all of a sudden in LatencyMon under the section for "Highest measured interrupt to process latency" the dxgkrnl.sys file which is described as DirectX Graphics Kernel reaches a super high latency of 2929.202223 microseconds.
This is the first time in LatencyMon i have had that happen. I Doubt it is the only thing that causes the problem because i have had the soundbug without it ever showing up in LatencyMon before, but now the program says:

"Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks.You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

One more somewhat related thing, i use Afterburner and Rivatuner to avoid my GPU from overheating due to 1080Ti MSI armor edition's poor choice of adding the heatsink of an older gpu series on the graphics processor and because of this i use the program to underclock the GPU.
I notice that when playing games with the GPU underclocked the soundbug becomes more apparent and when i run the GPU on normal settings i still get the audiobug but it is not as bad, but if i restart the computer then as always the sound-bug disappears entirely.
I have tried to uninstall rivatuner and afterburner to see if it was the cause of the problem somehow but i still got the sound-bug.

Edit: I also checked to see if i got desync when watching YouTube videos but i couldn't notice any.

You can try my workaround. it works for me (I have posted a longer version here- http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3561083/windows-... )

The short version is:
1. Fast Startup disabled (this feature is hidden under the Windows 10 power options control panel).
2. Set computer to never sleep (power options control panel).

(This may help you if your audio issues disappear after a reboot, if you are experiencing any sort of audio issues after a reboot this workaround won´t be most probably useful to you)

I read a little about what fast startup does after i saw this answer and i started to suspect that this function may be the culprit, so i went into the control panel to disable it and i noticed that the button for this function had "does not affect reboot" next to it which made sense to me seeing as the problem disappears only when i reboot.

So i disabled it, shut down my computer, waited a couple of minutes then booted it up. This always triggers the crackles again / recreates the problem. I have a game that always crackle in the main menu that i use to see if the problem persists and today for the first time the issue was gone! Disabling the fast startup works like a charm. I am going to test this for a few days before marking this thread as solved, but for now thank you for letting me know about the fast startup function

 

[takbal]

I am fighting with the same problem for some time. Playing Youtube in a browser is especially prone to have cracks and pops in it. The issue shows up both with my older SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium card, and the mobo's built in sound (Asus Z97-A).

One thing I have noticed and may help is that playing sound through the ASIO drivers do not seem to have the problem. AIMP is a good music player for example that can output sound through ASIO - if the sound card has this feature.