DPC Latency - Bluetooth Audio/Bluetooth Mouse Lag and Stutter

k00zmic · Feb 19, 2016

Hello,

Running Windows 10 x64 with the latest drivers, BIOS update etc. Model is Lenovo S540 Core i5, 8GB RAM, ATI 8670M Graphics + Intel HD Integrated Graphics, 500GB HDD.

I've owned the machine for about May 2014. This has been a long running issue (See previous post: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-S-Series-ThinkPad-Yoga/Bluetooth-Audio-Stuttering/m-p/2045346#...)

Audio is fine using wired headphones and from the speakers. However, when using Bluetooth headphones I get stuttering and lag. This is the same case with a Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Mouse.

So far I've tested

Sony Bluetooth Over Ear Headphones (worked fine till around Spring 2015)
BackBeat Go Bluetooth earphones (worked as well fine before)
Tried disabling WiFi
Tried disabling LAN
Tried disabling other components
Use a Netgear USB for WiFi ATM - issue persists
Did verifier earlier and no BSOD
Tried in 3 different houses, Sky, Virgin and some other broadband. Same result
Tried checking for phone interference - e.g. turned off printer, moved away metal, turned phone on airplane mode

Really out of ideas

. Called Lenovo last year to see if they could take a look, they had a daft response saying they can only help if the earphones are Lenovo branded. Useless.

Only thing I can think of now is to replace the WiFi and Bluetooth modules because this Intel 7260 one is crap.

Ran a couple of latency checker programs. See results:

Would appreciate any suggestions.

Thank you for your help in advance.

OldGrayGary · Feb 20, 2016

I don't put a lot of faith in bluetooth headphones in general. Adding the extra compress/decompress step to a weak (30 ft. maybe) signal doesn't fill one with confidence.

I don't see any giant latency issues in your results (just barely enough to notice) ... so I figure the quickest, easiest try would be a different wifi/bluetooth card. The Intel cards actually have one of the better reputations, but if you simply want to try something else as a cheap experiment (that won't make you cry if it doesn't work) ... you can give the little Realtek card a try ... heck, it's less than $9 with free shipping (from China of course)
300M WiFi Card 04W3813 Bluetooth 4 0 RTL8723BE for ThinkPad E440 E540 S440 S540 | eBay

From the zillion notebooks that have passed through my repair shop, I find the Realteks to be like Toyota Corollas - maybe not sexy, but reliable & affordable.

k00zmic · Feb 20, 2016

OldGrayGary said:
I don't put a lot of faith in bluetooth headphones in general. Adding the extra compress/decompress step to a weak (30 ft. maybe) signal doesn't fill one with confidence.

I don't see any giant latency issues in your results (just barely enough to notice) ... so I figure the quickest, easiest try would be a different wifi/bluetooth card. The Intel cards actually have one of the better reputations, but if you simply want to try something else as a cheap experiment (that won't make you cry if it doesn't work) ... you can give the little Realtek card a try ... heck, it's less than £ 6.26 ( £ 6.26 ( $9)) with free shipping (from China of course)
300M WiFi Card 04W3813 Bluetooth 4 0 RTL8723BE for ThinkPad E440 E540 S440 S540 | eBay

From the zillion notebooks that have passed through my repair shop, I find the Realteks to be like Toyota Corollas - maybe not sexy, but reliable & affordable.

Thank you for your reply.

Yeah I can understand that, last night I used the headphones with my Surface 3 and it was fine, same with iPhone so I don't feel like it's the Bluetooth peripherals.

And re. the latency - it's weird in some positions where I sit the audio will be fine but then I'll turn my head and it'll start sputtering but haven't found any sign of interference.

Cheers for the suggestion. I think it's the last course of action.

Edit: Also, any thoughts on this card: Intel 7260.HMWWBR - Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 - Network adapter - PCI Express Half Mini Card - 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 LE: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessorie

Been looking at it for a while, seems the price has dropped. For around £10 more seems good?

k00zmic · Feb 20, 2016

Done some further testing. This time simply streaming audio over the Netgear WiFi adapter (turned off bluetooth).

Not sure what to make of it. Wdf01000.sys still took long to execute.

Listened to a football stream and a YouTube video (tested individually and together) with wired earphones and you can hear a little bit of crackle. Although not as severe as with just listening to audio on Bluetooth headphones.

Leads me to believe it may not be the WiFi and Bluetooth acting up.

Results:

OldGrayGary · Feb 20, 2016

Hi again

The Intel card with the ac capability should be a nice card.

From your latest latency chart, Wdf01000.sys and HDAudBus.sys might be a one-two punch. I'm no expert on each system driver component, but each time I've come across Wdf01000.sys, this component of Windows is likely being put to use by an I/O driver of some sort - in this case, the High Definition Audio driver.

I imagine you've already tried different audio drivers, but if you haven't - it is a likely source of relief, if either an older or newer driver might perform better. Even a beta might be worth trying.

The dual-band ac card might be nice whether or not it helps with your audio trouble ... if you have dual-band capability in your router/gateway, you should enjoy a nice boost in steady speeds.

If things improve, let us know how you solved it: so anyone else with similar audio & headphones can benefit from your success.

k00zmic · Feb 20, 2016

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. Cool, might order that. Yeah I fiddled around last year with them. So just tested, updated the Realtek Audio drivers to 2015 ones from a Dell website for the Realtek ALC283. Seems to have had no impact.

Also, ran Lenovo diagnostics earlier which didn't turn up anything of concern. All hardware seemed to pass.

Re. next steps - I've submitted a support claim with Lenovo earlier today. Let's see what happens this time round. Will post here if anything is diagnosed.

Many thanks for your help!

OldGrayGary · Feb 21, 2016

We'll hope for the best!

k00zmic · Feb 24, 2016

Quick update on this.

So finally got through to Lenovo to make them hear me out. They did a few tests and tried to update the driver and saw the weirdness for themselves via LogMeIn rescue. So they accepted it may be a hardware problem and it can be taken for service under warranty.

If anyone has similar problems, it may actually be hardware related!

OldGrayGary · Feb 24, 2016

If Lenovo is able to fix it, I'd be interested to hear how. Thanks for the update.

k00zmic · Apr 1, 2016

OldGrayGary said:
If Lenovo is able to fix it, I'd be interested to hear how. Thanks for the update.

Update:

So they replaced the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card and it works now and the Wi-Fi is quicker too it seems.

Guess hardware can be work but be defective.

OldGrayGary · Apr 2, 2016

Thanks for giving us the update. That's a nice and easy fix to try for others who might have narrowed things down to the Internet devices [Hopefully some followers of this thread will benefit from your success!].

Glad you can enjoy your system a lot more again.

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