[SOLVED] [10v1709b16299 x64] High DPC/ISR Latency from Wdf01000/ACPI Drivers - FIX: updated audio driver

E

eodynn

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Posts
9
Hello!
I'm trying to produce music on my laptop using Ableton Live 9.7 and my audio interface (Behringer UMC404HD). I noticed some crackling (5-7 times per minute) with a buffer size of 256 samples at a sampling rate of 44.1kHz, which can of course be solved by increasing the buffer size. This won't do for when I'm recording my guitar (plugged directly into the interface), letting a plugin (Helix Native) do some DSP and monitoring the result via the audio output of the UMC404HD, since the latency would be too high to play properly. Also these clicks and pops are noticeable when I'm simply playing back tracks that only use an orchestra plugin that Live reports to cause only about a 20% CPU load.
I already tried to optmize my System using LatencyMon to find the culprits, and after updating my BIOS, updating my GPU driver, disabling my wireless adapter, downloading, importing and setting Windows to the "High Performance" power plan, disabling CPU throttling via regedit and updating my LAN driver, LatencyMon started showing me reasonable numbers (no more DPC calls >5ms) and the crackles have been reduced to about 3-4 per minute.
The only drivers left causing DPC execution times over 1ms were Wdf01000.sys and ACPI.sys. At this point I tried running the same setup from my old laptop, and I am able to play back the same orchestra track with no audio glitches even with UMC404HD's buffer size set as low as 64 Samples (@44.1kHz)! If I try that on my newer laptop, I'm in for loads and loads of crackling. So I'm fairly certain the issue's not a lack of processing power to run those plugins (since my older laptop got an way older.
I recorded an els trace of a Live project running (that uses Helix Native) with Windows Performance Analyzer, you can find it here: Dropbox - LAPTOP-GAV50J7H.01-27-2018.23-23-29.7z
I tried looking at it myself, but I can't seem to find more info than that ACPI.sys is causing the longest DPC times, looking at it's stack doesn't tell me anything useful.

Here is the rest of the info the posting instructions for DPC latency issues require:

HP Omen 17-w111ng Laptop running Windows 10 Home, x64 Bit, was OEM, I believe I did reinstall the OS shortly after getting the PC though (still Win10 Home)
The hardware is about one year old, just like the current OS installation.
CPU: Intel i7-6700HQ running at 2.6GHz
RAM: 16GB of unkown type since speccy won't tell me more
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070
Driver Verifier is not enabled. Got no antivirus running, only the standard windows firewall is enabled.
I sometimes use VPN, but it wasn't running this whole time.
I'm not using disk imaging tools and not over/underclocking.

msinfo dump: Dropbox - msinfo32.nfo

dxdiag dump: Dropbox - DxDiag.txt

speccy dump: Dropbox - LAPTOP-GAV50J7H.speccy

If anybody has got the time to take a closer look or an idea, I'd be very happy to hear about it! Thanks for your time.
 
Okay, it's showing me a fair amout of drivers (see hidden text) whose updates I seem to have missed. Should I update them all?
Read More:
 
Thanks for the reply! I did all of the updates you suggested. Sadly, my BIOS does not seem to support changing the RAM's speed. There is no option for it visible in the BIOS, and this Solved: How to change RAM Speed on my HP Envy m6-1158ca? - HP Support Forum - 2334807 seems to confirm this. The latency issue persists, in LatencyMon as well as when running a test in Live. Maybe I should upgrade the rest of the drivers DUMo suggested to be outdated?
 
I updated some drivers to the version that's available on my manufacturers website (HP Software and Driver Downloads for HP Printers, Laptops, Desktops and More | HP(R) Customer Support)
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework to Version 8.2.11000.2996 Rev.D
Also the HP Wireless Button Driver to Version 1.1.18.1 Rev.A
Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI) to Version 11.6.0.1032 Rev.D

But they're all older than what DUMo found, so maybe it didn't make much sense to to this. Certainly didn't help with the issue.
 
Try right-click on the device, update driver, automatically find driver (in Windows device manager, obviously).
The firewall shouldn't block outgoing connections...
 
I tried something else this morning: I deactivated Battery Status Reporting in the BIOS (so now it only shows me a percentage instead of time remaining), which seemed to calm the ACPI DPC times.
I could now run my project in Live at 128 samples buffer size with practically no crackles!
Only issue left was that sometimes Wdf01000.sys still barges in with sometimes 4-5ms DPC latency, which will sometimes cause a crackle.
That's why I did the updates via Device Manager you suggested right now, it updated the Wireless Button Driver, and ACPI started misbehaving again, and the glitches were back in full! So I rolled that one back - glitches were still there.
Downloaded the version that was running when everything worked from HP, installed that one - glitches are still there. Makes me think I shouldn't have touched the drivers when everything was (somewhat) working. But it really only changed the Wireless Button Driver, and that ones back to the state it was in when ACPI was behaving well for sure, so... not sure what I should do now.
 
So I went through every device in Device Manager and told it to search for updates online as you suggested, evaluating impact after each driver that was updated..
It updated:
WirelessButtonDriver (grr) - no change in latencies or Live's performance.
Realtek PCIe Card Reader - no change in latencies or Live's performance.
Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family LPC Controller - A14 E: This one pretty much broke everything latency-wise, ACPI.sys, Wdf01000.sys and curiously the Nvidia driver too started
causing DPC times of ~5ms after installing and rebooting the newfound drivers for this one. Test in Ableton confirmed it was horrible. Rolled it back, issues are gone (or let's say back to normal with just
ACPI and Wdf01000 causing >1ms DPCs). Since the following devices seem to be running on the same driver I didn't update those as well.:
PCI Express Root Ports 5, 6, 7, 9
Intel Xeon E3 - 1200/1000 v5/6th Gen Intel Core Host Bridge/DRAM Registers - 1910
Intel Xeon E3 - 1200/1000 v5/6th Gen Intel Core PCIe Controller (x16) - 1901

It also updated:
Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PMC - A121 - no change.
Intel Management Engine Interface - no change in latencies or Live's performance.
Steelseries Device Factory - no change in latencies or Live's performance.
 
I got triggerhappy and completely uninstalled the Wireless Button Driver. Didn't help, who would've thunk.
 

Has Sysnative Forums helped you? Please consider donating to help us support the site!

Back
Top