System stutter

[Guest]

I have a problem. At exactly every 15 seconds I have a stutter on the system.
When working with programs such as word processing or browsers it is not
noticeable, but when using a program that has some sort of sound playback its
extremely annoying. The sound stutters for about a half second. I have the
latest audio and video drivers. I don't really know what to do. Has somebody
else experienced this?

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Do you have a SigmaTel audio adapter?
I have seen several posts in here that if you disable Audio Enhancement in the
Playback Devices properties, it will cure this problem.
(Right click on Speaker Icon in the Notification Area to get there quickly.)

 

[Guest]

No. It is some sort of realtek adapter. It's just called "High Definition
Audio". Is the "Audio Enhancements" the ones I've disabled in this
screenshot?: http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/6776/soundza1.png (the
checkbox in the red circle says something like "disable all expansions", it
could possibly be "enhancements" instead of "expansions" though).
The above screenshot is from the preferences window of the audio device
(http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5600/sound2we0.jpg)
The drivers I used is the Vista drivers here:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

 

[Guest]

Oh, I forgot to mention that the thing I disabled in the screenshot posted
above didn't help

 

[Cal Bear '66]

That solution, I believe, was only for Sigma Tel adapters.

I also have a High Definition Realtek Audio Adapter, and on that page I have not
disabled any of the enhancements and I do not have any audio problems.

What seems very unusual to me, is that in the second screenshot you have two
identical analog devices. I only have only two playback devices, one for analog
output and one for digital. Did you uninstall any Realtek HD audio drivers
before you applied the latest update?

What does Device Manager show? Does it show two instances of the Realtek
adapter? If it does, you could uninstall them in Device Manager, reboot and let
Vista auto detect and reinstall them. Or, maybe better, you could go to Programs
and Features in Control Panel, uninstall all Realtek entries, reboot and
reinstall the drivers from the Realtek site.

 

[Guest]

I don't know why it shows two audio playback devices. There is only one in
the device manager.

If I install a slightly older version of the drivers which I have on a disc
from my computer's manufacturer it only shows one audio playback device (or
as you say, the analog and the digital one).

The stutter problem occurs with the drivers Vista finds itself (if
uninstalling and rebooting), with the one before-mentioned and the latest
from realtek's website. So it appears not to be an audio driver problem,
right?

 

[Cal Bear '66]

All I can tell you is that my sound here, using the latest drivers (ver. 1.66)
is very good and I have only two analog devices in Playback Devices.

Might you have installed some multimedia program that is interfering with your
sound? Although, as I said you should NOT have two analog devices showing in
your Playback Devices window. Was this a clean Vista install or an upgrade?

Did you try once more to uninstall everything from Realtek in Control
Panel>Programs and Features AND uninstalling the Realtek item in Device Manager
(including checking the box to remove driver files, IF available), rebooting,
and IF Vista asks if you want to install the device when you reboot clicking Not
this Time or Cancel, reinstalling the ver. 1.66 drivers, and rebooting again.

If this does not work, I would go back to Playback Devices and right click on
one of the analog devices and selecting disable, setting the other as default
and if this doesn't work reversing the selections and trying again.

I do hope you get this sorted out since here it does not appear to be a driver
problem

By the way, where are you? Is that language Scandinavian?

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Sorry my error: I meant to say I have only ONE analog device in Playback
Devices.

 

[TE]

Are there any wireless devices in the system? WLan or Bluetooth?

I have seen sound issues caused by the transmitter and if it is happening
every 15 seconds you might try to disable any transmitters and see if the
problem continues.

 

[Guest]

It was a clean install of Home Premium. I tried doing as you said about
uninstalling and installing the Realtek drivers again--that took care of the
problem about showing multiple playback devices.

The stutter still appears though, but by watching the CPU graph on the task
manager made me see something really odd. At one of the CPU cores (I have a
dual-core processor) I saw there was some spikes appearing a regular interval
(exactly 15 seconds). While playing a sound file I saw that the stutter
appeared at the same time as the spike. Screenshot:
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1155/cpugraphrx5.png

By the way, where are you? Is that language Scandinavian?

I'm in Denmark, so yes, it is a Scandinavian language.

 

[Guest]

I have both bluetooth and wlan. I tried disabling them and then playing a
sound file, but unfortunately it didn't help

 

[Cal Bear '66]

You only see these spikes when playing a sound file?

Good to hear you got rid of the multiple playback devices.

I'm sorry but I don't have any further ideas. There are several people in these
newsgroups with an amazing knowledge who might be able to help you track down
the problem.

Good luck.

P.S. I believe that the Danish Crown Prince recently received his degree from
my Alma Mater, U. C., Berkeley.
Wish I could spend my summer in Denmark instead of this hot, humid NYC!

 

[Guest]

Well, thanks for trying anyways

The spikes seem to appear all the time. Even when the system is idle.

 

[Michael]

Daniel,

The 'Reliability and Performance Monitor' can provide large quantities of
data about the operations of your system. You might use it to see what is
happening to correlate to your spikes. (personally I would suspect network,
most other things wont cause the system to be non-responsive.)
(under administrative tools).

It provides a lot more info than can be seen in task manager, the hard part
is figuring what to look for!.

Michael

 

[Pete Russell]

Open task manager and click on the CPU heading to have the process using the
cpu cycles move to the top. The process list will constantly re-organiza
itself. Look for the process that is using the cpu cycles in the task
manager and post back here what the process name is.

 

[Pete Russell]

From the main window you will see the CPU section, Expand this and click on
the CPU heading. This will move the process using cpu cycles to the top of
the window.

P.S Sorry this posted twice. I just did another post about task manager but
this way will tell more info.

 

[Guest]

What I could get out of the reliability and performance monitor is that the
following (background) programs have the highest average CPU time:
- mfpmp.exe <- don't know exactly what it is, but stuff like windows media
player won't work without
- dwm.exe <- automatically restarts
- sidebar.exe <- doesn't help shutting it down

If shutting down the network devices and the problem still appears, then I
guess you could assume that they aren't the problem, right?

 

[Michael]

My rational for suspecting network as 'system pause' type problems is that
if most processes are busy they slow down other processes but don't 'stop'
them. Interrupt driven things (like network) sometimes need to complete
certain steps without interruption and so turn off interrupts. This prevents
anything else working. Normally such periods are very short but if there are
problems then excessive time can be spent in these interrupt routines until
the process gives up and aborts the attempt to do whatever.

If you disabled all networking and you still have the 15second spikes than
my guess is all wet.

Things you might check. Are disk opertions (bytes written/read) correlated
with the 15 sec spikes.

Also start up with all 'startup' programs disabled and see if the 15sec
spike quits. If you have bluetooth there are some reports of problems (I
don't have bluetooth so this is only rumor for me). Some cd/dvd drives do
not have proper hardware for notifiction that a disk has been inserted and
the operating system instead polls the drives to see if anything changed.

Just things tossed out, you have your work cut out to track down that 15 sec
spike. Good luck!

Michael

 

[Guest]

I tried the following things:
booting in safe mode (no network) - no spikes
booting in safe mode (with network) - no spikes
enabling diagnostic start from msconfig - spikes

If there aren't any in safe mode with network. Then I guess it isn't a
network or disk problem. It can't be the thing about cd/dvd drive either can
it? I have bluetooth, but it is always disabled when I don't need it, so I
guess it isn't that either.

I really don't get it. It worked fine on XP, but as soon as I installed
Vista this started

 

[Michael]

On my system starting in diagnostic mode resulted in only two services
enabled.

Group Policy Client
Task Scheduler

If you have others you might try manually stopping them.

Could you possibly have something in Task Scheduler that is set to start
every 15 Seconds?

(Task Scheduler cannot be disabled or stopped on my machine)

Michael