[SOLVED] [Dell Precision M4400 laptop] W10 stuttering. LatencyMon: storport.sys? FIX: reinstalled "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver"

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pckocher

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Like many, my Windows 10 machine is now stuttering every few seconds when playing audio/video. I suspect a Windows update from many months ago. Too late to roll back, and a clean load is not an attractive option for me. Laptop is OLD, but this never used to happen. I've seen some of your members get this solved, so I thought I would see if anyone here can help.

I downloaded LatencyMon, and it certainly looks like storport.sys is a likely problem - screenshot attached.

I used to be a pretty capable geek, but now I'm mostly a user. Running newest available drivers for nVidia graphics, latest BIOS. Tried disabling CPU speed limits and Intel SpeedStep in BIOS. No joy. Suggestions are very welcome. Thanks for your time.
LatencyMon.png
 
SOLVED!

Rolled back SATA/RAID controller driver by downloading "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver" for my machine (Precision M4400) from dell.com. Got the idea from yet another forum, where it fixed the problem for someone else. This driver was released in 2012, and while it reportedly supports Windows 7 installations, it does the trick for my vintage machine running Windows 10. I guess Microsoft replaces certain drivers with their own versions, overriding what worked before? It's all a bit beyond my pay grade, as they say, but I'm glad to have no more audio and video stuttering.

I found it by doing a search for "SATA" on Dell's download page for my machine and selecting Windows 7 64-bit as the OS. Good luck to anyone else who is suffering from these stutters. I suppose I will have to keep this old driver on hand in case Windows Update fouls things up again?
 
Jumping in here, I keep emphasizing that certain companies have a track record of issuing very frequent driver updates, and Intel is one of them.

I do not know whether the fault lies with Intel not supplying same to the various computer OEMs and Microsoft so that they cannot integrate them into their "Great Driver Libraries in the Sky," or whether they're supplying them and the OEMs and Microsoft are ignoring them. Because they have not been showing up either on OEM support pages, or in Microsoft's driver updater, I am presuming the issue lies with Intel.

Thus, I recommend that anyone who has Intel hardware of any sort in their machines that are running Windows 10 download and install the Intel Driver & Support Assistant. It will keep your Intel hardware drivers up to date, and I have yet to have an issue arise because of using the Intel driver versus one from the computer OEM's support page.

AMD is not quite as bad about endlessly churning out driver updates, but they still put out Radeon Graphics updates at a rapid pace. I suggest that those with any AMD graphics hardware go to AMD Driver & Support Page, locate the section entitled, Auto-Detect and Install Radeon™ Graphics Drivers for Windows©, and download and install their driver monitor that does what the title states on an ongoing basis.

Both the Intel and AMD driver monitors have very light footprints and keep quite a bit of issues related to out-of-date drivers for their hardware from cropping up to begin with.
 
Thanks, Brian. In this case, it seems to me that Intel stopped putting out new versions of this driver (I installed what I think is their latest, from something like 2012), and Windows seems to have overridden it with something newer (from 2018 or so). So even with the Intel Support Assistant, wouldn't Windows Update muck this up, anyway? My system is OLD (2008?), and is not officially supported by Intel for use with Windows 10. So I don't expect new drivers for this hardware to be delivered from Intel. My driver-level knowledge is limited. I need a newer computer, but I want MS to just leave my Windows installation alone for a while in the meantime.
 
I have not had Windows Update muck up any drivers that the OEM or hardware manufacturer driver maintainers have put in. As far as I can tell, and that's from trying to manually install, the update process checks to see if what it's about to install is newer than what's already there, and if it's not, it stops the process. Any of the stuff I've seen a driver maintainer (again, I emphasize, sourced ONLY from your computer's OEM or the OEM of the hardware being targeted - NEVER use third party driver updater software as that way lies madness!) put in has always been newer than whatever Microsoft has in its Great Driver Library in the Sky and, thus, it doesn't install what it has.

It has been possible to tell Windows Update to not touch drivers for a very long time, since the dawn of Windows 10, but since most people are so bad about keeping drivers up to date, and the number of issues with Windows Update clobbering a functional driver with a non-functional one has dropped dramatically, I never recommend that. However, that being said, if you want to do this see: Preventing Windows Update from Updating Device Drivers
 
pckocher said:
SOLVED!

Rolled back SATA/RAID controller driver by downloading "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver" for my machine (Precision M4400) from dell.com. Got the idea from yet another forum, where it fixed the problem for someone else. This driver was released in 2012, and while it reportedly supports Windows 7 installations, it does the trick for my vintage machine running Windows 10. I guess Microsoft replaces certain drivers with their own versions, overriding what worked before? It's all a bit beyond my pay grade, as they say, but I'm glad to have no more audio and video stuttering.

I found it by doing a search for "SATA" on Dell's download page for my machine and selecting Windows 7 64-bit as the OS. Good luck to anyone else who is suffering from these stutters. I suppose I will have to keep this old driver on hand in case Windows Update fouls things up again?
Click to expand...
Thank you so much pckocher , I had exactly the same issues after installing Win 10 in my Precision M4400, before I had Win 7 and never found problems with audio, but just after installed Win 10 sounds started snapping. I was looking for a solution since july 2019, more than a year ago, I've tryed reinstalling drivers of audio card, chipset, updating bios, and also buying and external audio card, but all these attempts never solved the problem... finally I found this forum and I read your solution, I've just tryed and it worked for me too. Great help my friend! :-)
I also found very interesting LatencyMon, that you suggested, I didn't know it before, it looks a good sw.
 
Great!! I was struggling with this problem year or two and it was looking like it's time for my old Dell for retirement (and even R.I.P)

But what a surprise - the re-installation of Intel_Rapid-Storage Driver did job

Then, I even did small upgrade of CPU (according to this tutorial
)

and now Precision M4400 (after SSD replacement couple years ago and nwe WI-FI card) is working even better than HP EliteBook (my everyday workstation)

Once again - THANKS pckocher
 

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