[SOLVED] Intel NUC8i5BEH Audio cracking. FIX: I uninstalled AVG.

[d3x]

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Hello, @cwsink.
I'm totally new here, I've found this thread - DPC Latency / Audio cracking W10 Intel NUC8i5BEH - as you can imagine - looking for the solution to the exact same issue.
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I've tried everything that came to my mind, and I mean everything.
I do have good 15+ years in IT support, and I'm a music producer for 20 years.
I always built my own computers etc.
But this one just got me.
I even replaced the NUC8 for NUC10 i5, did the memory tests, burn in tests.
Changed mouse and keyboard, screens (1 was using USB-C).
If you are up for a challenge (I meant to say, if by any chance you could spare some time to have a look at my case) I would be more than happy to generate whatever is needed (I've xperf installed already and got some dumps using your script).
It started some time ago, the nature of the issue is at least strange and inconsistent, the one can be easily fooled as it shows up after a while from the reboot.
Here is the list of my findings and the logic behind them:

• It is not the CPU load related as such
  it shows up even with the very small load, however it does manifest itself with the CPU spike on CPU0 and CPU1 so far in all the cases
• The memory was tested, and with 32GB (2x16)
  it doesn't seem to make any difference how loaded is RAM
• I've managed to pin point it to the NDIS.sys driver
  as soon as I disable LAN and WLAN, the issue is gone
  this is the only action that has any actual visible impact on the issue that I can be sure about
• I've replaced the NUC
  I've said that already, the issue came back after a day~
• I've tried to uninstall anything network related - VMWARE workstation, VPN (this one coincidentally was updated around the time when the issue started happening, however adding or removing the app and the virtual interface has zero effect so far)
• I've tried rolling back to the previous backup, again
  I was fooled by the fact that it takes a while for it to happen again after cold boot
• I also blamed the windows update so this time not 20H2 installed, and as spotify app was the most visibly affected, I kept the old versions
• Replaced the keyboard
• disabled the BT (found some posts about USB3+BT issue that could lead to the similar behavior, but this didn't match)
• Obviously disabled AVG
• went down to stopping services, with all the apps closed after the issue started happening, with no luck, it kept happening

I ran out of ideas.
However I can't believe that this is simply the way it is, i5 10th gen with 32GB of ram and M2 NVME ssd not being able to play a simple mp3 file on spotify seems like a nightmare from the deepest and darkest places I can think of.
So if you are able and willing to have a look at this for me, let me know.

Slowly losing my sanity, Dex

 

[xilolee]

Hi!

Did you try to uninstall avg altogether? (in the meanwhile you can use windows defender)
Trace is almost empty: Video STUTTERING, Audio CRACKS/POPS and dpc/isr LATENCY (posting instructions)

 

[d3x]

I am speechless, even tho AVG was blocked, and all the services that I could stop related to AVG were stopped, it actually fixed the issue straight away.
I actually uninstalled it, about an hour before your reply, I desperately accepted the fact that this can end up with OS reinstall as the hardware seems to be ok, so wanted to uninstall app by app to see if it makes any difference. Thanks so much anyway! 10/10 ! ... lesson learnt, as long as the application has access to your PC, you can never be sure that "DISABLED" actually means that it is not interacting in some strange way with the machine ... Now I have to find a buyer for my old NUC

Thanks so much again @xilolee.