Stuttering sound during system activity (Win7)

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

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I've noticed lately that my rig is playing up (Biostar TPower I45, E8600, 2x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 1066MHz, GeForce 8600GT, Seagate Barracuda 500GB 32MB cache 7,200rpm SATAII hdd). I'm running the Win 7 RC (i.e. latest official build).

I have Shark007's Win7 codec pack installed and mostly use WMPCHC but also sometimes the inbuilt WMP depending on what I want to do.

In the last week or two, whenever I have audio playing it stutters badly if there's any system activity. So, it'll play smoothly as usual until I'm loading a webpage, opening an app, sending a message on WLM, you get the idea. During the activity the song stutters/slows down slightly and garbles; once the activity stops the audio is fine again. Something's definitely wrong. Loading a webpage isn't exactly hard work - especially for a rig like this!

I've also noticed what appears to be the same symptom inside HL2. Every now and then when I'm playing it'll stutter quite badly and pause for a while, then resume :mad:

I have clean-installed Shark007's codecs to the latest version so I don't think it's those. Maybe the inbuilt Win7 codecs?

I'm guessing RAM or HDD though? If it is hardware, I'd suspect the hdd tbh, but didn't really know - hence this generalised thread. The rig was only built this year, but the hdd is a year older (salvaged from my old build). I only get around 20MB/sec to 30MB/sec on hdd activity most of the time (!) and it can get quite noisy/grindy. It's set to (and acknowledged as) SATA2 in the BIOS btw.

I'll run memtest later when I don't need to use the PC, but any input is welcome. I wasn't sure if this was a hardware or software issue (it could still be a Win7 or codec issue!) so apologies if this would have been better elsewhere. Until I know what's causing it, it could belong in any one of the sub forums lol :)

Cheers.
 
Thanks for the link. :) I'm not so sure it's resource based though; a web page loading is hardly resource intensive, for example and the system itself is barely consuming anything. I've noticed having just rebooted and left the PC in standby for a while that even the Windows logon sound stutters too! I'm going to uninstall the codec pack, the Realtek HD Audio Manager and see what happens when I'm back to bare basics.

BTW even with Firefox running several tabs, Thunderbird, Avira, and the usual background stuff my CPU is only hovering between 0% and 6% usage and 38% RAM usage while this problem is occurring. It's never hit over 50% even during intensive use.
 
Just an update, this seems to be fixed. I've uninstalled all codecs and (crucially, I think) the Realtek HD Audio Manager driver that came with my mobo. I'm pretty sure it was that which messed up with the RC of Win7. It had worked fine on earlier versions of the beta though.

Without it I can only use my speakers OR my headphones using the line-out (green) jack on the back of the mobo. My front panel connectors don't work on this case because they're the old type of connector (IH97 or something) whereas the mobo only recognises the newer digital type.

The Realtek HD manager allowed me to plug in the headphones to any port on the back (eg the 'left side surround' port) and the manager popped up to ask what was plugged in. I just told it headphones and voila! I can't do this with Win7's inbuilt manager :(

Oh well that's what happens when you play with betas/RCs :D Thanks for the input.
 
i get a sort of stutter/barble on mine when scrolling web pages with music through winamp its annoying

E5200 @ 2.5
4Gb ddr2
using asus P5N-E sli spdif
 
I have a similar problem, the sound seems to stutter when UAC appears and on a few other occasions. Possibly a bug with drivers/windows 7? Going to leave the drivers as they are for now, as they seem to be the only ones easily available and running smoothly on windows 7.

Edit:

System Spec:
Dell Vostro 1500 Laptop
Intel T7100 1.8
2GB DDR2 RAM
Nvidia 8600m gt
 
Rainmaker said:
Just an update, this seems to be fixed. I've uninstalled all codecs and (crucially, I think) the Realtek HD Audio Manager driver that came with my mobo. I'm pretty sure it was that which messed up with the RC of Win7. It had worked fine on earlier versions of the beta though.
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Ahh good. My next suggestion would have been to delete the sound card from Device Manager and reboot and allow it to redetect. Sounds like you did something similar.

Rainmaker said:
Without it I can only use my speakers OR my headphones using the line-out (green) jack on the back of the mobo. My front panel connectors don't work on this case because they're the old type of connector (IH97 or something) whereas the mobo only recognises the newer digital type.

The Realtek HD manager allowed me to plug in the headphones to any port on the back (eg the 'left side surround' port) and the manager popped up to ask what was plugged in. I just told it headphones and voila! I can't do this with Win7's inbuilt manager :(
Click to expand...
I loved that with my new system. There are 6 audio ports on the MB and, even though they're colour-coded, it doesn't matter what you plug in. The utility pops up and asks what it is and configures it accordingly. :)

Rainmaker said:
Oh well that's what happens when you play with betas/RCs :D Thanks for the input.
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I just hope they get proper drivers out quickly with the final release. I waited a long time to upgrade to Vista because of that.
 
Just to finish/confirm. I reinstalled the Realtek utility and all the Shark007 Win7 codec stuff (x86 and x64) and after a reboot my sound is still perfect. Something obviously just bugged up. No matter what it was a clean reinstall of all the sound related bits has fixed it. I suggest the other posters with similar issues try the same. :)
 
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