High latency/sound stuttering with ndis.sys driver

C

Cel

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Posts
20
I've noticed that you've been helping people a lot with their stuttering/latency issues and i found similar threads regarding that driver which unfortunately was unrelated to my issue or couldn't be applied to my issue.

For more than a year i've been struggling with latency issues on my pc and according to latencymon they to be related to ndis.sys spikes at random intervals whenever i refresh pages, download something or watch online videos.

I've been talking to both Asus and Intel support and they just keep pointing fingers at each other claiming that either this is a motherboard issue or intel's ethernet driver issue. There are pages and threads describing it on both of their forums but unfortunately no solutions has ever worked. I have tried disabling "large send offload" and "interrupt moderation" in ethernet driver's setting and it didn't do anything. I've even tried installing a separate ethernet card but remarkably the issue was still there which made me thing it could be related to something else entirely rather than to ethernet controller or driver alone.

The worst part is - couple of month's ago i've been able to fix or minimize the issue but then i've made a fresh installation of windows 10 with 1607 update and the issue returned with full force.

There are other oddities about it as well - it seems to occur more prominently if i have been downloading something heavy like torrents. It doesn't always occur right away and might take a couple of hours before latency spikes start to become noticeable.

The other problem is that i cannot install the older drivers like some people recommending on intel's, asus and even on this forum. My ethernet controller and windows version are newer than those drivers and they simply wont recognize my device. Even if i try to manually insert older driver - it just refuses to work. I've tried ALL of the newer drivers, each and every version starting from 20.1 but it didn't help and anything below that cannot be installed on my system. So im hoping you can find some other solution.

This is my CPU.etl:

CPU

This is my MsInfo:

MsInfo

And my system information:


  • System Manufacturer - built myself
  • Laptop or Desktop - desktop
  • Exact model number (if laptop, check label on bottom) - n/a
  • OS ? (Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista) - Windows 10 Pro
  • x86 (32bit) or x64 (64bit)? - x64
  • Service pack? - latest one 1607
  • What was original installed OS on system? - n/a fresh installation
  • Is the OS an OEM version (came pre-installed on system) or full retail version (YOU purchased it from retailer)? - purchased/free upgrade
  • Age of system? (hardware) - one year old
  • Age of OS installation? - 2 month's
  • Have you re-installed the OS? - yes
  • CPU - 6700k
  • RAM (brand, model, which slots are you using?) - Corsair CMK32GX4M4A2400C14
  • Video Card - Asus Strix 970 GTX
  • MotherBoard - (if NOT a laptop) - Asus Maximus VIII Hero
  • Power Supply - brand & wattage (if laptop, skip this one) - Seasonic xseris 780W gold
  • What security software are you using? (Firewall, antivirus, antimalware, antispyware, and so forth) - Avast Premier
  • Are you using proxy, vpn, ipfilters or similar software? - no
  • Are you using Disk Image tools? (like daemon tools, alcohol 52% or 120%, virtual CloneDrive, roxio software) - no
  • Are you currently under/overclocking? Are there overclocking software installed on your system? - im running RAM at EMP2 profile meaning 2666 Mhz and CPU is running at 4000-4200 turbo which is a default setting for it
 
Hi Cel ... and welcome to the forums ...


I'm not on a Windows 10 machine tonight (I'm on a Linux laptop), so I'll have to look at your MSINFO log a bit later on tomorrow. Thanks for providing all the system info, especially the motherboard information. As you noticed, we've found lots of tweaks over the past year or so to try and lessen the audio/video issues in high-end computers, but often the solution is to try a different motherboard. Sadly, the problem seems to be at its worst for the very highest-end equipment: the most troubled motherboards seem to be Asus/ASRock Z170 boards - especially when paired with Nvidia 970,980, &1080 cards - and, oddly enough- the onboard Realtek audio. A Z170 board that seems to be unaffected by the audio/video issues and has successfully solved the issue for a few of our threads here is the MSI Z170A Gaming M5 motherboard. It's an option you might want to consider, since the endless tweaking of drivers, Windows settings, video/audio settings, network settings, background processes, indexing, port allocation... ugh: it's enough to make a person crazy - especially when you know that all of it shouldn't be necessary. High-end parts should perform in an above-average manner, period. (We shouldn't have to do back flips & contortions to get things right). Here's an example thread, where after much of the usual tweaks were tried (unsuccessfully), the switch to the MSI board worked right out of the box:
https://www.sysnative.com/forums/wi...atency-audio-crackling.html?highlight=BestLux

Should you wish to have a go at it with your current Asus board, here's my list of tweaks. It's not all that detailed: it's more of an outline of the categories of things you can do to try and limit things from impeding the performance of your audio/video streams. And: since you've already mentioned torrents - along with the infamous ndis driver issues - a good first step is to completely do without torrents during your testing. [They aren't great for your system security, after all]. And make sure to check on the issue with firewalls - since you have the "Pro" version of Avast -- the issue of the software firewall port-scan blocking feature might apply for your system ... for some systems, that feature has to be turned off = not a terrible hit to security: so long as the gateway/modem/router used for the network has that feature already built into its hardware (fairly common for most midrange and premium models).

Some things to try for limiting audio/video glitches due to high latency issues and high hard pagefault issues
_______________
SSDs
Since SSDs are dropping in price and growing in size, I've lately been recommending that the worst-offending audio-pop suffering programs/games be installed onto the SSD. Windows doesn't take up all that much room, and neither do a few games (you can still keep "saved games" and other non-demanding software installed to a larger "spinning" hard drive, along with your photo, music, and video collections).


SATA ports
Some users who haven't seen any improvement by means of updating drivers have had success by altering their SATA port usage. A recent thread here concerns a system where the audio stuttering was helped by unplugging a DVD SATA drive (...and our tech Cluberti was nice enough to help explain why) ... The last few posts are where you will see mention of the SATA ports (and the nature of USB polling & the effect on latencies) .... Here's a link to that thread:
https://www.sysnative.com/forums/wi...efaults-fresh-install-usbport-sys-others.html

Hard Pagefaults
For the high hard pagefaults, it can help to:
1) Limit startup processes that you don't need
2) Limit Windows-Updates file-sharing (in Settings > Updates and security > Windows Update > Advanced Options > Choose how updates are delivered > turn off "updates from more than one place" - that will limit unnecessary background network activity)
3) Limit the amount of "telemetry" (data sent to Microsoft ... choose the "Basic" option in Settings > Privacy > Feedback & Diagnostics ... and you can try "Never" as your "Feedback Frequency" while testing your latency issues)
4) Limit any Notifications that you don't need or want (Settings > System > Notifications & actions ...[especially turn off Windows "tips"]
5) Turn off "Live" tiles on your Start Menu (to limit unnecessary background updating of any information you don't want or need)
6) Uninstall any Windows "Universal" apps that you don't want or need (Settings > System > Apps & features -- click the app you wish to uninstall) ... and for those that you don't want, but can't uninstall (some of the built-in apps) - you can still keep them from starting unwanted services (in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services) or startup modules (in Task Manager > Startup tab)


Drivers
Hunt Windows 10 compatible drivers (this can be an ongoing process). Try generics if the manufacturer supplied drivers cause issues. Try older drivers when the new cause issues. Try and try again. Drivers are sometimes the culprits for high latencies and interrupts.

Nvidia drivers - seem to be having issues on Z170 boards, especially when paired with Realtek onboard audio. When updating to the latest Nvidia driver, try installing it using the "custom" option, and the "clean install" option. You might also see if your want or need all of the background Nvidia services that come with the latest drivers, many as part of the "Nvdia GeForce Experience" - which you can choose to install or not when you choose the "custom" install method. Here's a guide that has some details on the background services installed along with the Nvidia drivers, it might help you decide if you can do without some of them:
Disable NVIDIA Streamer Service and other NVIDIA processes - gHacks Tech News


ASMedia USB 3.1 drivers .... have proved to be an issue for some users, especially for ASRock/ASUS Z170 motherboard owners. Hunt newer versions, try old versions, try generics. Still dicey as of July 2016....


USB device drivers ... USB host controllers, USB gaming periferals (mice, keyboards, headsets...), musical instrument interfaces, wireless dongles - all these can prove to be sources of audio issues.


Antivirus
Some users find that certain modules of their antivirus program can have a rough affect on their audio quality. For some, it is especially noticeable when using the third-party firewall. You can try reverting to using just the Windows firewall, or to turn off a feature in the third-party firewall that blocks port scans (since most routers/modems/gateways have built-in port scanning blocking, it doesn't necessarily lower your defenses, since your hardware provides the service). This issue has shown up for users of BitDefender, Norton, and Avast ... it likely can occur for others as well. The issue also doesn't seem to be "universal" - it only seems to affect a certain blend of hardware/software. (I know users of Avast, BitDefender, & Norton who don't experience any issues at all).

Virtual Memory & a large set range
Since some computers experience the audio/video glitching during gaming, and Latency Monitor graphs often point to high hard pagefaults as a contributing factor (as in the pagefault tips above), I like to recommend testing things with the Virtual Memory settings for your computer manually set to a generous range (generally, with the lowest value the amount of your total installed physical system memory, and the highest value twice that number). This is an overly large range = but it can prove useful for testing. [after testing, the upper range could be lowered to one and a half times the physical memory total]... The reason for the large set range is that some games are infamous for memory leaks, and the large range might give you a better chance of surviving the memory trouble caused by the game with the memory leak.

_____________________________________

I'll make sure to have a look at your files & see how you're doing late tomorrow ... We'll see how it goes!
 
OldGrayGary said:
Hi Cel ... and welcome to the forums ...


I'm not on a Windows 10 machine tonight (I'm on a Linux laptop), so I'll have to look at your MSINFO log a bit later on tomorrow. Thanks for providing all the system info, especially the motherboard information. As you noticed, we've found lots of tweaks over the past year or so to try and lessen the audio/video issues in high-end computers, but often the solution is to try a different motherboard. Sadly, the problem seems to be at its worst for the very highest-end equipment: the most troubled motherboards seem to be Asus/ASRock Z170 boards - especially when paired with Nvidia 970,980, &1080 cards - and, oddly enough- the onboard Realtek audio. A Z170 board that seems to be unaffected by the audio/video issues and has successfully solved the issue for a few of our threads here is the MSI Z170A Gaming M5 motherboard. It's an option you might want to consider, since the endless tweaking of drivers, Windows settings, video/audio settings, network settings, background processes, indexing, port allocation... ugh: it's enough to make a person crazy - especially when you know that all of it shouldn't be necessary. High-end parts should perform in an above-average manner, period. (We shouldn't have to do back flips & contortions to get things right). Here's an example thread, where after much of the usual tweaks were tried (unsuccessfully), the switch to the MSI board worked right out of the box:
https://www.sysnative.com/forums/wi...atency-audio-crackling.html?highlight=BestLux

I'll make sure to have a look at your files & see how you're doing late tomorrow ... We'll see how it goes!
Click to expand...

Those are some very broad suggestions up there :o

Yes it was my intention to buy MSI next time im upgrading my pc. But i do wish to stick to the Asus for the moment since this is perhaps the last issues i've got with it.

I always use custom installation when updating video drivers and i always check clean installation as well.

I will try removing Avast completely if all else fails.

Nvidia doesn't include nvstreamsvc service after the recent update anymore.

Im not sure what exactly i should be doing with sata ports and i am using SSD as my system drive.

I did install asmedia drivers and intel rapid storage though. Should i uninstall them?

Im hoping that you can find the culprit in logs to be honest ><

Im fairly certain i was able to fix it last time. But i cant remember how. It could very well be as simple as removing asmedia or something. Here's another oddity - i've been downloading and playing the whole day today but everything seems fine so far, yesterday however the issue appeared right from the start :/
 
Hi again (sorry that my reply was delayed ... busier than ever!)




Curious to hear if you can discover a reason for the recent improvement. If your audio/video trouble had to do with interruptions by high background activity (like the torrents, Windows notifications, updates, etc.) - possibly you've eliminated some of the sources of that activity?


Now that I'm back on a Windows 10 machine, I took a look at your SysInfo file. It seems to be in a language other than English, and unfortunately not one I'm fluent in (my guess is Russian - or related language with a Cryllic or Cryllic-like alphabet). Can you briefly set your system to English, produce the report, and then post it here? [Then return your system to its original language, of course].


Sata ports .... if you follow the link for that section, read through the thread: it ends with the workaround of unplugging a few optional SATA devices to cut down on the background "traffic" or "chatter". On many systems with the audio issues, USB device communications plus SATA activity can combine to produce the audio glitches. Drivers also play a role in the efficiencies, of course - and that's why there isn't usually any single fix that works for everyone (so much variation in play).


Intel Rapid Storage drivers .... if I'm remembering correctly: you can uninstall the Intel Rapid Storage software from Control Panel/Programs and Features -- yet some settings for your drives persist even after the removal of the rest of the software. This can be helpful, since the settings have good effects. And the generic drivers that replace the Intel drivers can benefit well enough that if things improve even by just a little = that's a plus.


ASMedia USB 3.1 drivers ..... can't hurt to uninstall the ASMedia version & see what the generic from Windows Update does. This well could be a version-specific conflict of some sort -- which will eventually be solved by updates from the vendors involved.


CPU trace .... The machine that I usually use for analyzing traces is out on loan to one of my customers, so I'm without my usual tools to analyze the trace (my Windows 10 testers tend to be very modest in their hardware [Vista era, two of them!] ... and they don't run the Windows Kits all that well ... a bit below average for system memory/cpu/disk space). If we're lucky, another tech might drop by & have a look at the trace. I expect to get back my best tester machine in about a week or two.


LOGS .... An alternative - or a supplement - to the MSINFO file would be to send along an English version EventViewer log: the "Administrative Events" log, as an ETVX file. The ETVX format allows us to sort the results --- which can speed up the troubleshooting considerably.


Another alternative would be to try a version of Latency Monitor 6.50 or newer, and produce the charts easily read by any tech, with or without the Windows kits. I particularly like that the charts can be sorted by interrupts, latency, or pagefaults. But the results have to be read with a grain of salt, since the Latency Monitor programs is itself a source of fairly high latency [so the testing is best done both with the program active, and with the program inactive].
___________________________




Sorry that my list is so general. It's meant as a quick start for attempts at workarounds & quick-fixes.


The causes for audio/video performance issues are so varied, that troubleshooting the exact cause for each system can be a fairly long and involved process.


There is an older guide that gives tips on the tools you can use to delve into details, using the Windows kits, Latency Monitor, and various Windows utilities (like Performance Monitor, and such). It was originally written for Windows Vista/7/8 users, but it has a good overview of the tactics for in-depth troubleshooting. If you are interested in having a quick look at that guide - here's a link to it: https://www.sysnative.com/forums/wi...c-latency-issues-wpa-windows-vista-7-8-a.html


To be completely thorough, you'd narrow down the type of interference: is it latency - or interrupts - or high hard pagefaults - or high cpu/disk activity? Then comb through the EventViewer logs, Performance logs, traces ... and eventually corner the culprit. Even then: sometimes its something that can't be fixed with the current set of drivers/devices/operating system modules. Time consuming stuff!

LATE NOTE: .... There is a new Cumulative Update (KB3194798) available today (October 11 2016) ... it is quite large, and has a lot of fixes: among the fixes are a couple of networking issues -- and, since some of your audio/video issues seem tied to ndis issues, perhaps we'll get lucky & benefit from the changes ...

Let's see how it goes
 
OldGrayGary said:
Hi again (sorry that my reply was delayed ... busier than ever!)
Curious to hear if you can discover a reason for the recent improvement. If your audio/video trouble had to do with interruptions by high background activity (like the torrents, Windows notifications, updates, etc.) - possibly you've eliminated some of the sources of that activity?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it doesn't make any difference. I do not run utorrent all the time - usually it's just mornings, then i switch it off. Couple of days ago it wasn't any different but the issue didn't appear (or appeared in a lesser degree). Yesterday however it appeared as usual after a few hours and in a full strength.

I keep having this feeling that it somehow relates to how much traffic i've used but it sounds implausible.

I've switched system to English and ill post cpu.etl later when the issue clearly appears. Meanwhile:

MsInfo

As for latencymon - if you tell me which pages i should make a screenshot of ill post them here.

To be honest the only relevant information there is a drivers page which constantly shows ndis.sys on top when sorting by highest execution time. Right now it's 4 ms (everything else is below 1) and during spikes it goes up 30.

As for sata devices... the only one "optional" device i have is a dvd-rw drive which i don't use and it sits unpowered all the time. The other two devices are hard drives which i obviously can't unplug. As for USB devices - i've got keyboard and mouse (wi-fi adapter because its wireless). Printer doesn't work all the time as well.

As for asmedia - i've got both usb drivers (asmedia usb host controller driver) and something called "asmedia asm106x sata host controller driver". Should i uninstall it as well?
 
Also:

event view

There are plenty of issues there but none of them are serious. I've been keeping tabs on events since fresh installation and tried to fix most of them. Recent ones are related to microsoft store and packages and as far as im concerned are "normal" behaviour for a system.

Also the rdyboost issues appear recently but they also appear to be normal for a system.

Multiple ACPI warnings are probably related to AIDA64.
 
It seems avast and wow (world of Warcraft) "aren't friends".
If you didn't already try it, try to uninstall avast completely (use ms defender and firewall in the meanwhile) and see how your system behaves without it.
 
xilolee said:
It seems avast and wow (world of Warcraft) "aren't friends".
If you didn't already try it, try to uninstall avast completely (use ms defender and firewall in the meanwhile) and see how your system behaves without it.
Click to expand...

Ill try uninstalling avast. Will have to post results after a couple of days of testing. I've started playing wow recently (less than a month ago). It was just an example of an online game.

As for bios updates - it doesn't make any difference. They've released about 20 of them and i've been upgrading them mostly as they went live. I've missed a couple last ones but it wont matter in my opinion.
 
I've made xperf test and uploaded cpu.etl:

CPU

Just in case - other logs:

MsInfo

event view

It should be in English.

Right now the issue is back and there are clear spikes whenever i update browser pages or download something.
 
There isn't only the new bios, there are also new drivers: realtek audio (Aug 2016), intel mei and chipset (Aug 2016).

Problem devices: ACPI\PNP0A0B\2&DABA3FF&0 --- The drivers for this device are not installed.
You can find its drivers or disable it completely.

Windows and avast firewall services are both running.
I'm not sure if they should run together, but I think no.
 
xilolee said:
There isn't only the new bios, there are also new drivers: realtek audio (Aug 2016), intel mei and chipset (Aug 2016).

Problem devices: ACPI\PNP0A0B\2&DABA3FF&0 --- The drivers for this device are not installed.
You can find its drivers or disable it completely.

Windows and avast firewall services are both running.
I'm not sure if they should run together, but I think no.
Click to expand...

All other drivers except bios are updated. New audio drivers are bugged so im using slightly older ones.

The "problem device" can be disregarded - its a common issue which appeared for all users of that motherboard after some bios update.

I've disabled windows firewall even though it should've been disabled by default. Probably some avast glitch. Or maybe it only disables windows defender. Either way - on firewall pages it states that avast manages firewall settings. It could be that it's working as intended.
 
xilolee said:
And in "safe mode with networking"?
Click to expand...

You can't exactly use pc in safe mode the same way you use it normally. Since the issue doesn't appear right away - it's not easy to test it in safe mode. Im not even sure i will be able to run torrents or games in safe mode.

I can confirm that the issue appeared on a fresh new installation (created new partition). It's almost as good as testing the issue in safe mode.
 
xilolee said:
Did you try to reset winsock, tcp protocols and your network adapter?
Click to expand...

Of course. Those were some of the first things i've tried year ago.

As i wrote above - i've also tried all kinds of different drivers, disabled a bunch of different services, read and wrote at least on 6 different forums. There are a lot of threads about same or similar issues on asus and intel forums but the only solution was to install older drivers which unfortunately do not work on my ethernet controller v-219i. Though considering that im using a separate realtek controller now and the issue is still there - it could be something completely different.
 

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