Huge latency spikes (freezes, hiccups) while downloading and streaming audio/video

[rbamm1990]

Hi guys!

I really need your help on this one. Usually I’m good at troubleshooting and finding solutions without having to start my own threads. This time however, it seems impossible to find a solution. Anyway, here’s the thing:

When downloading through utorrent, steam etc and listening to music/watching videos I get huge DPC latency spikes when touching the trackpad. The spikes result in robotic sound, computer hiccups and freezes (minor 1 sec freezes, every 3-5 seconds) But here’s the weird thing. I don’t get the spikes if I’m not touching the trackpad or IF I have a usb mouse connected to my laptop. For some reason, having a usb mouse connected solves the latency problem instantly. Then I can download, listen to audio and watch videos without any problems even though moving the mouse like crazy. So strange.

I have a Lenovo 710 14’ laptop with windows 10. Bought it a week ago. Kaby lake.
I7-7500u
Nvidia 940mx
8 gb ram
256 gb ssd

I have tried a bunch of potential solutions. Creating a bigger pagefile, updating all drivers to newest and also degrading to Lenovo’s website drivers (older). I’ve disabled bits and windows update. I’ve change the power scheme, so that the processor minimum is 100%. And a lot of other things. I can’t even think about everything I’ve tried.

I’ve used latency mon to investigate the latency spikes. Latency mon says that the culprit is WDF01000.sys. I’ve read that it’s difficult to say which driver uses that file etc. While using latency checker I tried disabling the realtek audio adapter. That made the spikes go away. I’m playing music through spotify, which can be quite bandwidth heavy.

It’s like my computer is really sensitive to heavy internet activity, combined with audio/video streaming. The task manager doesn’t show anything special when the spikes occur. The system interrupt process take up a bit more cpu and memory, but that’s basically it.

Otherwise, the computer works fine. It’s just in the specific situation where I download, stream something and don’t have a mouse connected that this happens.
Any ideas would me MUCH appreciated!

 

[Lutfij]

Spotify has been known to exhibit this issue, have you seen if the issue crops up when you're on YouTube or using any other audio app? On another note, did you make sure your BIOS is up to date while also maintaining your trackpad drivers are up to date? For your GPU, I'd ask you to use DDU and reinstall using the latest drivers off of Nvidia's site. Nvidia drivers have been known to also work as an accomplice alongside Realtek drivers and coming up on latency threads like this one.

Last thing I could suggest is trying a repair install and see if the issue is ironed out.

 

[rbamm1990]

Spotify has been known to exhibit this issue, have you seen if the issue crops up when you're on YouTube or using any other audio app? On another note, did you make sure your BIOS is up to date while also maintaining your trackpad drivers are up to date? For your GPU, I'd ask you to use DDU and reinstall using the latest drivers off of Nvidia's site. Nvidia drivers have been known to also work as an accomplice alongside Realtek drivers and coming up on latency threads like this one.

Last thing I could suggest is trying a repair install and see if the issue is ironed out.

Thank you for taking the time to answer, appreciate it! Actually the latency spikes crop up even if I'm not listening to spotify or downloading anything. I've managed to figure out that the elan smartpad driver is a potential culprit. I noticed while having uninstalled the elan driver that the latency spikes stopped occuring when the trackpad was configured as a basic ps/2 mouse without any smart gestures or anything. Then, when I decided to install the newest elan drivers, the latency spikes started again. So there's seems to be something off with the elan drivers. The spikes only occur while moving the mouse, using the trackpad. Doesn't matter if music is playing or not.

And yes, the spikes crop up with youtube and facebook videos as well. It's not tied to spotify alone. I haven't tried updating the bios. I could of course try but I highly doubt that, that is the issue. I noticed now that nvidia released new drivers a couple of days ago, so I'm gonna install that with ddu first. But I honestly don't think that that's gonna make any difference either.

 

[Lutfij]

At this point of time, your best course of action would be start from scratch and go with installation of drivers, one by one. It's easier said than done since Windows 10 likes to download drivers it thinks is best for your system which is not the best scenario at all.

I forgot to inlcude this link for a repair install.