Bose Companion 5 USB Audio stuttering on Vista

[tido]

Using Bose Companion 5 USB speakers on Vista-SP1 32bit edition i have
a problem that is best described as intermittent stuttering, from
mostly minor but always present, to sometimes strong 'dropouts', a few
times loosing the USB connection alltogether. Sounds a bit like my
tapedeck sounded many years ago with a dirty tape.

I tried to find any offending driver or anything that could interfere
with the audio driver to no avail. The Vista installation is clean and
up-to-date w. regard Microsoft updates. Disabled the built-in AC97
soundchip in the Bios, removed all sound related drivers. Removed all
special codecs. The speakers are connected directly to a USB 2.0 port
without a hub.

I then tried the Companion 5 speakers under Windows-XP SP2 and Ubuntu
Linux on the same PC hardware (multiboot). Under both these Operating
Systems the Companion 5 speakers perform flawless USB audio, no
installation problems of any kind, no stuttering of any kind, just
very perfect sound.

Next I tried an external Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX USB card on Vista,
connecting it with stereo cable to the line input on the Bose
speakers. No stuttering whatsoever occured. Only this way you loose
the 5.1 audio, and it is not so nice looking, since the line input is
on the desktop volume control hockey puck. So the Audigy USB card was
able to do good non stuttering USB audio on Vista!

As far as I can tell the stuttering really is a Vista / Bose specific
USB Audio driver problem.

It seems that the API for the USB audio driver has changed slightly
under Vista as compared to XP, and the driver must actively request /
configure realtime performance from the MSWMM subsystem.

Hoping Bose or Microsoft will release a USB audio driver fix very soon
now.

 

[tido]

Have been trying hard to understand what the problem really is, but it
is still very unclear to me...

It seems the 'Bose USB audio' driver is released by Microsoft.
So should I talk to Microsoft or Bose to get this fixed??
What exactly is the problem, which driver is causing it; usbaudio.sys?

Any help, hints or ideas on how to narrow down this USB audio problem
under Vista very much appreciated..

 

[Paul Montgomery]

It seems the 'Bose USB audio' driver is released by Microsoft.
So should I talk to Microsoft or Bose to get this fixed??

Bose. Definitely Bose.

 

[tido]

Bose.  Definitely Bose.

Today I had an opportunity to connect the Bose Companion 5 speakers to
another PC, also running Vista Ultimate.
No fluttering of any kind occurred, just nice perfect sound...

PC1, that has fluttering sound under Vista Ultimate, uses an Asus A8N-
SLI motherboard (nForce4, Athlon64 X2 4400+)
PC2, that has good sound under Vista Ultimate, uses an Asus P5N32E-SLI
motherboard (nForce680i, Core2 Duo E6600)
Both systems have 2Gig of memory.

Could the difference in behavior of the Bose USB audio be related to
the chipset or CPU?

Are there any known problems with the nForce4 chipset or Athlon64 CPU
that might explain it?

Rem

 

[Paul Montgomery]

Today I had an opportunity to connect the Bose Companion 5 speakers to
another PC, also running Vista Ultimate.
No fluttering of any kind occurred, just nice perfect sound...

PC1, that has fluttering sound under Vista Ultimate, uses an Asus A8N-
SLI motherboard (nForce4, Athlon64 X2 4400+)
PC2, that has good sound under Vista Ultimate, uses an Asus P5N32E-SLI
motherboard (nForce680i, Core2 Duo E6600)
Both systems have 2Gig of memory.

Could the difference in behavior of the Bose USB audio be related to
the chipset or CPU?

Are there any known problems with the nForce4 chipset or Athlon64 CPU
that might explain it?

Rem

You initially asked:

It seems the 'Bose USB audio' driver is released by Microsoft.
So should I talk to Microsoft or Bose to get this fixed??

I answered:

Bose.  Definitely Bose.

Which part of my answer did you find difficult to understand?

 

[tido]

You initially asked:


I answered:


Which part of my answer did you find difficult to understand?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Your answer was very clear indeed, my apologies if it seems I ignored
it.
Please read below why I extended this thread. I do intend to ask Bose
to resolve once the case is more clear.

After the additional testing I performed yesterday the issue now seems
related not just to Vista and the Bose USB audio driver, but to
include the motherboard as well, which seems relevant.

Without that information the guys at Bose probably will have a hard
time to resolve, and conclude they can't reproduce the issue. A good
analysis is often is more than 3/4 of the solution...

Confirmation from anyone describing a similar problem of stuttering
audio using Bose Companion 5 USB speakers on Vista and using an
nForce4 Mobo would make the case stronger I guess. I haven't found too
many similar problems clearly described so far.

There is however quite some talk about latency problems with the
nForce4 chipset, affecting the PCI bus. However USB audio should not
be affected, as it is supposed to be connected to the PCIe bus. This
is still puzzling me.

Any confirmation, additional background info and hints really
appreciated.

 

[skylightdiver]

I am suffering from the same symptoms but with microsoft Lifechat
lx3000 which I think uses the same usb audio driver. My motherboard is
an MSI k9n sli platinum with an athlon 64 x2 6000+. Have same problem
on another computer with the exact same setup. So far I have had no
answers either Any help at all would be appreciated.

 

[tido]

I am suffering from the same symptoms but with microsoft Lifechat
lx3000 which I think uses the same usb audio driver. My motherboard is
an MSI k9n sli platinum with an athlon 64 x2 6000+. Have same problem
on another computer with the exact same setup. So far I have had no
answers either Any help at all would be appreciated.

Thanks for confirming this issue.

Maybe I've now found a root cause AND a workaround for the issue of
stuttering audio using the Bose USB audio driver.

It seems that in my case the stuttering is related to AMD's Cool 'n
Quiet feature, especially when the CPU clock frequency and voltage is
dynamically changed depending on the CPU load.

Download and install AMD's Power monitor tool v1.2.3 to view the
actual clock frequency, but also to select a power scheme. The
availaible schemes are 1: High performance, 2: Power save and
3:Balanced.

Download here: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/AMD_Power_Monitor_123.zip

Actually 1: means full clock 2200MHz @ 1.35V, 2: means clock of
1000MHz @ 1.1V while 3: means dynamically variable clock in between
these values.

Selecting either the High performance OR the Power save scheme the
audio is perfect, and not stuttering at all, even at 100% CPU load!
Only in dynamic clock mode scheme "Balanced" the audio is stuttering.
The USB audio driver apparently gets confused by the quickly changing
clock...

So it seems the combination of Windows Vista AND an AMD CPU with Cool
'n Quiet enabled for dynamically adjusting the CPU clock AND a Bose
USB audio driver for the Companion 5 speakers is exhibiting the
stuttering audio problem.

Note the problem does not occur on WinXP or Linux on the same
hardware.

Switching the clock to a stable situation completely resolves the
issue for me.

Would really appreciate some independent confirmation, to get a
stronger case to ask Bose to improve their USB audio driver.