Hi LeoYk ... and welcome to the forums ...
It's interesting that everything ran fine in Windows 10 (for the most part) for several months before misbehaving. And - just so you know - you retain the right to reinstall either Windows 7 or Windows 10 on that hardware. Your product license for Windows 7 can be used to reinstall it, and your "digital entitlement" to Windows 10 allows you to upgrade again to Windows 10 at any time in the future (because a record of it is stored on the Windows 10 Activation servers indefinitely....just like a product key).
So ... if you prefer the way things ran in Windows 7, back up your personal data, reinstall Windows 7, reinstall your programs, restore your saved personal data, and enjoy. You can always give Windows 10 another shot in the next year or two, when it might behave better for you.
If there are features of Windows 10 that make it compelling to keep & fix: read on.
Quick fixes you can try:
1) If you use a third-party antivirus suite with a firewall, try disabling its "block port scanning" feature [your modem/router/gateway hardware likely has this same feature built-in, so you don't compromise your security as the feature is redundant]. Another tactic is to try things with a different antivirus. Another user here on the forum just switched from Avast to Kaspersky, and it helped his PC's audio performance improve. (I like both of those vendors, it all boils down to what runs better on your PC).
2) If you happen to have the ASMedia USB 3.1 chip in your PC - and its driver is listed with that full title, try uninstalling the ASMedia driver, and try using a generic.
3) If you happen to have an Nvidia graphics card, try installing the latest driver, using the "Custom" install option, and the "Clean install" option. This will allow you to pick and choose what to install. Some users find that they do not need some or all of the GeForce Experience modules, and some do without the Nvidia Network Streaming service.
4) If you happen to use USB gaming mice/keyboards/headsets/audio-specialty-boxes (usually for music: controllers, synthesizers, mixers, etc.) -- hunt for Widows 10 compatible drivers - the latest versions, if possible. Hunt for Windows 10 updated versions of any audio programs installed on your computer as well.
If you decide to move back to Windows 7 or if one of the quick fixes improves things enough - very good.
If you want to stick with Windows 10, and none of the quick fixes help ... try using our SysNative info-collecting app to collect information for the devices, drivers, and software running on your system - and post that info here. It can help track down things. No personal data is collected - it's mostly drivers & processes info. The instructions for downloading & running the app are in a thread over on our BSOD forum (you'll post you results here, though, since you have an audio issue rather than a BSOD issue) ---
https://www.sysnative.com/forums/bs...ng-instructions-windows-10-8-1-8-7-vista.html
That thread has other troubleshooting methods mentioned - feel free to try the ideas for running diagnostics, Driver Verifier, and Performance Monitor. Just remember to turn Driver Verifier off after testing with it, and be aware that Performance Monitor has a somewhat "know issue" of not finishing for its basic "health report" scan on some Windows 10 computers (I'm still trying to track down a definitive cause for that particular issue).
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And, a few more things to try - when nothing above is helping:
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 an 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 (this only applies to desktop systems)
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
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
I mentioned the Nvidia drivers earlier. Here is a guide to the optional modules:
Disable NVIDIA Streamer Service and other NVIDIA processes - gHacks Tech News
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.
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See how it goes.