Audio stutter - Solution

tireblock · 8th March 2008, 17:29

After countless hours of work on my computer (Dell Latitude 510/610) I have determined why my audio was stuttering. Conclusion - it was the network card's enhanced power management that was enabled, had to select off.

To change any network card setting, go to Start | Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager|Network Adapters|3com 3C920 for me| right click, properties | Advanced | under Property go to "Enh LAN Power Mgmt" | for value select off.

This was discovered by first disabling all items in Startup - Start | Run | cmd | msconfig | Startup | disable all then restart computer. I then began shutting off all services one by one - right click my computer | manage | Servicea and Applications | Services | select a service and stop, if no change start the service and proceed to the next. In my case when I shut off "DHCP Client" the stuttering stopped and so did any internet connection. This told me it was a network issue and not a Hard drive PIO/DMA issue or USB because I was using an external HD.

I then loaded and ran proexp.exe from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx | Process Utilities. This showed me the excessive, >12%, "Deferred Procedure Calls" which was in sync with the audio stutter. I began suspending all applications first then each Svchost.exe shown. Again, anything link to the network would stop the stuttering and sometimes everything else. In all cases I was able to resume the application and continue working. This all lead me to further examine all things network, i.e., the network card. I first downloaded a new driver - no change, then started poking around, and documenting, all the network card setting - Voila, success. No more stuttering. Deferred Procedure Call nearly always stay below 3%. FYI - DPC is used to "hold" a process until the processor has time to work on it based on priority. The power management on the network card was causing the processor to wait repeatedly until the card would power up thus dumping a number of items in the DPC pile thus timing out the audio card's buffer.

3-4 months of hunting and digging is well worth it to have my audio back. I had resorted to using another junk computer with remote desktop over the network to run my music.

Also, the stuttering audio would also manifest itself as a stuttering mouse and stuttering Windows Media Player.

System: Windows XP, Winamp 5.52

problematique · 30th November 2008, 21:04

I'm also experiencing stutter with winamp, and since it does increasingly so when downloading/opening a heavy webpage the above might be of interest to me. However, my network card does not seem to have the option described above. Or, better, me being a tech-noob cannot find it.

My networkcard has these options:

Which one to change?

EDIT: sorry for the big pictures, but URLs don't seem to be working?

8th March 2008, 17:29	#1
tireblock Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 1	Audio stutter - Solution After countless hours of work on my computer (Dell Latitude 510/610) I have determined why my audio was stuttering. Conclusion - it was the network card's enhanced power management that was enabled, had to select off. To change any network card setting, go to Start \| Control Panel \| System \| Hardware \| Device Manager\|Network Adapters\|3com 3C920 for me\| right click, properties \| Advanced \| under Property go to "Enh LAN Power Mgmt" \| for value select off. This was discovered by first disabling all items in Startup - Start \| Run \| cmd \| msconfig \| Startup \| disable all then restart computer. I then began shutting off all services one by one - right click my computer \| manage \| Servicea and Applications \| Services \| select a service and stop, if no change start the service and proceed to the next. In my case when I shut off "DHCP Client" the stuttering stopped and so did any internet connection. This told me it was a network issue and not a Hard drive PIO/DMA issue or USB because I was using an external HD. I then loaded and ran proexp.exe from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx \| Process Utilities. This showed me the excessive, >12%, "Deferred Procedure Calls" which was in sync with the audio stutter. I began suspending all applications first then each Svchost.exe shown. Again, anything link to the network would stop the stuttering and sometimes everything else. In all cases I was able to resume the application and continue working. This all lead me to further examine all things network, i.e., the network card. I first downloaded a new driver - no change, then started poking around, and documenting, all the network card setting - Voila, success. No more stuttering. Deferred Procedure Call nearly always stay below 3%. FYI - DPC is used to "hold" a process until the processor has time to work on it based on priority. The power management on the network card was causing the processor to wait repeatedly until the card would power up thus dumping a number of items in the DPC pile thus timing out the audio card's buffer. 3-4 months of hunting and digging is well worth it to have my audio back. I had resorted to using another junk computer with remote desktop over the network to run my music. Also, the stuttering audio would also manifest itself as a stuttering mouse and stuttering Windows Media Player. System: Windows XP, Winamp 5.52

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30th November 2008, 21:04	#2
problematique Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	I'm also experiencing stutter with winamp, and since it does increasingly so when downloading/opening a heavy webpage the above might be of interest to me. However, my network card does not seem to have the option described above. Or, better, me being a tech-noob cannot find it. My networkcard has these options: Which one to change? EDIT: sorry for the big pictures, but URLs don't seem to be working?