RAM and latency

L

Luca1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 14, 2008
Messages
349
Hi,

having massive problems with RAM latency causing all havoc on my pc (soundcard crackling, programs slow, occasional system lockup)



a) Is this normal for 3GB tri channel Corsair dominator 1600MHz RAM C8D?

and b) performance tab in task manager constantly shows around 1GB of physical memory usage at all times, then sky rocketing when I doing anything.. is this also common?

Any help would be awesome! This latency thing has plagued me for ages..

Dunno if this helps. It a i7920 @ 2.6GHz but only shows around 1.6GHz.. the CPU usage shows around 1 percent so I assume the CPU slows down when not under load.. correct?




:Luca
 
Last edited:
Many of the performance measures (namely, clock speed and latency) in memory tend to only matter in synthetic benchmarks, so this is probably not your problem.
 
None of what you described is related to memory latency. It also does not sound like a memory issue at all. Can you provide a bit more information?
 
Ok so..

It started with crackling issues coming through speakers via soundcard (doesn't do it with onboard sound).

Pinned it to latency because I ran DPC latency checker and it showed massive amounts of latency.
Also when PC is idle, there a whole lot of loading going on for no reason sometimes and thats when the crackling starts. Upon PC restart, crackling goes away for a while but after PC been on for a while it starts again.

Updated all drivers, ran memtest 7 passes, stress tests and all show up ok, but still latency and crackling/popping.

Sold card (Xonar D2X) and bought new one (couldn't be bothered with RMA), all was good again until recently.

Fresh install of Windows 7 with latest Xonar drivers. Installed no other programs. After a hour or so crackling starts again, RAM shows constant 30 percent usage at all time, DPC shows red spikes of system latency




I trying to figure out what causing this latency as the crackling popping issue only comes on then. It even gets to the point where everything I do lags, even opening windows, running media player, shit like that..

My system is in my sig. Thinking about going to a X-Fi prelude if it the card.. but no other users of Xonar reporting this issue that I can find.. I just don't know...

Feels like something on mobo not communicating right and slowing stuff down, as in not the RAM itself but the way it communicating with other components.. but again.. a guess on my part..

Any ideas?..

:Luca
 
Last edited:
UPDATE!

PC just turned on, no progs installed except audio drivers.. playing a song in media player..





Turn off music and shut down media player

..


Same shit when I play games (COD4, Half life and the like)..
 
Looks to me like a OS problem. I would track down what application is making constant usage of the hard drive(s). File indexing for faster searches?
 
drescherjm said:
Looks to me like a OS problem. I would track down what application is making constant usage of the hard drive(s). File indexing for faster searches?
Click to expand...

Sounds smart. Where do I start?


This is what I have, no crackling at the moment, this is just desktop by itself running




:Luca
 
Last edited:
and now I play music through media player and...




Sweet as! This is the shit I put up with... crackle pop one second.. restart PC then... all good... for a while.. then the crackle will start again..

:Luca
 
Post the task manager output when things are going bad. This could also be caused by an incompatible audio driver.
 





What I noticed is when the crackling is going, I had a picture open in picture viewer (while listening to music). When I dragged the size of the picture window the crackling went bananas.. then when I let it sit, the crackling mellowed out but still there... then again I dragged the picture window wider and instantly the crackling went nanas again..

What could this be? Its like my pc cant handle even playing a song without dying in the ass..

:Luca
 
Last edited:
Uninstall the Asus sound card drivers.
Uninstall the sound card itself
Install the onboard audio drivers if they're not installed already
See what happens.
 
You said it' doesn't do it with onboard sound? that's indicative of a driver incompatibility, or the sound card itself is faulty. This used to be (may still be?) a common problem with Creative sound cards, but I don't know much about Asus cards.
 
ryan_975 said:
You said it' doesn't do it with onboard sound? that's indicative of a driver incompatibility, or the sound card itself is faulty. This used to be (may still be?) a common problem with Creative sound cards, but I don't know much about Asus cards.
Click to expand...

The driver being incompatible with what though?

Can I stress test mobo, soundcard seperatly?.. to find out what it incompatible with, or is it likely the OS?..

It done this when I had Vista installed aswell, now moved onto Windows7. I don't think it did it with XP tho can't remember if there was one occasion..

Could it be my OS, slowing shit up, or my PC just not being able to run the Xonar aswell as media player?...

:Luca
 
Luca1 said:
The driver being incompatible with what though?

Can I stress test mobo, soundcard seperatly?.. to find out what it incompatible with, or is it likely the OS?..

It done this when I had Vista installed aswell, now moved onto Windows7. I don't think it did it with XP tho can't remember if there was one occasion..

Could it be my OS, slowing shit up, or my PC just not being able to run the Xonar aswell as media player?...

:Luca
Click to expand...

Incompatible with the OS. Or it's just plain buggy.
 
ryan_975 said:
Incompatible with the OS. Or it's just plain buggy.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what I starting to think... but 'how' can I test those things to find out do you think?

Buy different brand soundcard.. try that out...

Try different OS again?

There gotta be heaps of people using this card with this OS and not getting problems.. so how do I find out why I am?...

:Luca
 
If you have a copy of XP, try it out. If the issue is still prevalent, then it's the sound card itself.

Or if you don't want to be lazy, just buy a different sound card. Either way, it looks like you will be getting a new sound card.

IMO, it's a buggy/defective sound card since the issue occurred in Vista meaning there's less of a chance of an OS issue.
 
Danny Bui said:
If you have a copy of XP, try it out. If the issue is still prevalent, then it's the sound card itself.

Or if you don't want to be lazy, just buy a different sound card. Either way, it looks like you will be getting a new sound card.

IMO, it's a buggy/defective sound card since the issue occurred in Vista meaning there's less of a chance of an OS issue.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I don't think really it the OS, it either the card, which I don't think it is, because the last one I had, I lent to a friend for him to test, and he had no issues with it on his PC..

Which is why I think it either shit drivers, but alot of people own this card and don't have issues, so that narrows that down I think..

Or its my system.. something is conflicting.. unless someone can tell me how to test if its conflicting with my hardware, then I will buy a Auzentech X-fi prelude and see if that does the same thing.. if it does, then I will definitely know its my system...

Sound?

:Luca
 
Luca1 said:
unless someone can tell me how to test if its conflicting with my hardware, then I will buy a Auzentech X-fi prelude and see if that does the same thing.. if it does, then I will definitely know its my system...

Sound?
Click to expand...

You answered your own question: To test if there's a conflict, TRY ANOTHER SOUND CARD. In fact, get the same exact card if you want to and see if the issues still prevails. If it does, definitely shitty drivers.

With that said, you said yourself that the onboard sound worked fine.
 
So if its shitty drivers then theres not much I can do about that is there?
 
Installed old ass drivers that came of disk. Crackling gone but can't adjust volume in Xonar control center.. only in windows sound manager..

Is it possible that the Xonar driver has been conflicting with windows.. as in they are both running the sound through the Xonar soundcard? I mean, the mobo audio drivers aren't installed, only the Xonar drivers, but could windows sound be trying to run the card at the same time as the Xonar control center?.. causing system lag and subsequent crackling of sound..

:Luca
 
No, only 1 driver will access the hardware. Its more like the new Xonar driver is incompatible with windows 7.
 
I've had crackles in my sound on two different cards in this machine, neither of which was ever fixed by driver revisions. One, an m-audio Delta410 was traced to AMD cool'n quiet being active in bios+os, when the cpu would ramp speeds up and down the audio would crackle constantly.

My x-fi was unaffected by cnq, but when I upgraded to 4 gigs of ram it started having issues. Sometimes the audio would snap and crackle loudly rendering games unplayable, at others it would be crystal clear. Sometimes rebooting or changing some oddball setting in sound manager would make it go away, only for it to come back a few minutes later. I tried every memory timing setting I could, trying to reduce whatever load on the memory was causing this.

Oddly enough ever since replacing my x1800xl with a 5770 it hasn't happened again, except for the one time I tried OC'ing the 5770's memory. After backing it back down to stock the crackles went away. It should be noted that I also changed the memory voltage in bios from "auto" to 2.6 at the same time, but I don't think that had much to do with it. Noticed in cpu-z that it was listed as 2.5, and ddr400 is rated for 2.6. Even though I changed the value in bios it doesn't register anywhere, cpu-z, sandra, etc all still register it as 2.5 .
 
I've had crackles in my sound on two different cards in this machine, neither of which was ever fixed by driver revisions. One, an m-audio Delta410 was traced to AMD cool'n quiet being active in bios+os, when the cpu would ramp speeds up and down the audio would crackle constantly.
Click to expand...

The OP said that the machine was an i7 system.
 
Yoda4561 said:
Speedstep, CNQ, same idea different manufacturer.
Click to expand...

That is EXACTLY what is happening here!! And its been on Win7 and Vista when I had that installed, and I think it did it a little in XP..

So how can I test what is fucking with my sound? Trying every bios setting under the sun?

My graphics card is OC'd factory (XFX GTX285), could that be it?

Maybe I will just buy a Auzentech X-fi and see what happens.. I mean its not really a step down is it?..

:Luca
 
First thing I'd try is opening up "windows control panel" and hitting power options, change plan settings, change advanced power settings, change settings that are currently unavailable. Somewhere in that list should be cpu speed min/max options, set them both to 100% and see if that takes care of it. I have CnQ disabled now in bios so it doesn't show up in my list, but doing that took care of the issues with my Delta 410 crackling when cpu usage changed. Your bios should have some setting for EIST or something to that effect, which if I'm not mistaken is intel's speedstep.

The x-fi issue was impossible to trace. Ram timings, cpu/ram voltages, underclocking, rearranging pci slots, uninstalling other pci devices, every single audio setting available in windows, the aformentioned speedstep stuff, etc. None of those fixed it longer than a reboot or two. Changing my video card (and keeping ram at stock clockspeeds) finally seems to have fixed it but I'm not 100%. I've thought I "fixed" it too many times to call it just yet.
 
Last edited:
Yoda4561 said:
. I've thought I "fixed" it too many times to call it just yet.
Click to expand...

Bwa ha!! Yup I've been saying that for 8 months now.. every pluddy time.. I know... trust me I know... will start with what you suggested.

Thanks, good to hear from somebody who had the same problem ;)

:Luca
 
disconnected tv capture card from mobo. changed power settings so minimum processor state is 100%, in PCI-e setting I turned off link state power management (Xonar is PCI-e), system cooling policy is active.

No crackling yet... but shit... who knows :rolleyes:

:Luca
 
Still massive crackling!!! Fuck!!! When the pc just sitting there playing a cd it crackles a little, but then, even just moving the mouse (I know!!) causes the latency chart to go all to shit in the red and the crackling goes mental. Then I let it sit... little crackle... move the mouse just a amall amount for 2 seconds = loud crackling for 2 seconds... and so on..

Gonna try replacing graphics card now.. just to check..

:Luca
 
Hmm, sounds like more of a soundcard problem with that information. Not enough buffer size or something. Try onboard sound alone, if the graphics card doesn't work. Also mute/disable any line-in/mic-ins that don't need to be on.
 
Yoda4561 said:
Hmm, sounds like more of a soundcard problem with that information. Not enough buffer size or something. Try onboard sound alone, if the graphics card doesn't work. Also mute/disable any line-in/mic-ins that don't need to be on.
Click to expand...

will do, cheers
 
Ugh, first two things that come to mind are update your motherboard's chipset drivers.
Update your bios if available for your motherboard
Uninstall/Reinstall your mouse's drivers. If you are using the generic HUD usb mouse driver, install the one specifically for your mouse if one exists(IE Logitech ___ mouse driver).

You mentioned when resizing the image the crackling/poping happens? Is that because your moving your mouse and sending a signal through your usb port in order to resize the photo?

My recommendation would be to try those three things. You said it yourself, other xonar users don't seem to be reporting this issue and on-board sound works fine. That leaves your Xonar is defective, but, you already are on your second xonar.

From here, I'm thinking its a conflict with a certain set of hardware or hardware /w bios verion that other xonar users might not have. Hence making the issue pretty rare.
 
you say crackling I say bad caps?

make/model of the PSU powering a monster CPU and monster GPU?
 
WBurchnall said:
Ugh, first two things that come to mind are update your motherboard's chipset drivers.
Update your bios if available for your motherboard
Uninstall/Reinstall your mouse's drivers. If you are using the generic HUD usb mouse driver, install the one specifically for your mouse if one exists(IE Logitech ___ mouse driver).

You mentioned when resizing the image the crackling/poping happens? Is that because your moving your mouse and sending a signal through your usb port in order to resize the photo?

My recommendation would be to try those three things. You said it yourself, other xonar users don't seem to be reporting this issue and on-board sound works fine. That leaves your Xonar is defective, but, you already are on your second xonar.

From here, I'm thinking its a conflict with a certain set of hardware or hardware /w bios verion that other xonar users might not have. Hence making the issue pretty rare.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice man :)

Unfortunately I have tried all these things to no avail. The crackling happens even when I rezise a 'window'... even my browser window, or picture window, or media player window, or even just the my documents window.. it seems to be because of lag. Its like the pc can't take the strain of running a OS and a soundcard.. but check my sig... thats gotta be bullshit right?..

I am also thinking its a conflict with hardware, which is why I removed my tv card to see, but still crackling, so next I will replace graphics card temporarily..

At the moment I've uninstalled windows7 and gone back to XP to see if the crackling is there.. the more I think about it, it all started when I first played COD4 which was moments after I installed Vista. Then went back to XP and I 'think' it went away, then moving to Windows7 it started again.

I have dld'd all latest drivers for each hardware on the corresponding OS's.. but no luck. Soooo... back to square 1 for now.. damn...

:Luca
 
MrWizard6600 said:
you say crackling I say bad caps?

make/model of the PSU powering a monster CPU and monster GPU?
Click to expand...

Everyone I talk to here thinks the HX620 is plenty for what I am running.. HOWEVER.. when I first installed my 1st Xonar, I fried it, including the power cable from the PSU. So upon replacing the Xonar the 2nd time I am now using an after market cable. But I think maybe it all started with Vista, then Windows 7, but not XP.

So going back to XP for a bit to see if it makes a difference..

Cheers

:Luca
 
snefan said:
fried what? the PSU, Soundcard, Mobo? That might be the reason you're having these issues.
Click to expand...

fried the soundcard, but that one was RMA'd and fixed. The cable that runs from the PSU got fried aswell but I replaced that with a new 1. I have had this issue on 2 completely different, brand new Xonar's..

:Luca
 
OK FINALLY I HAVE AN ANSWER..

after running xp for over a week now and having ABSOLUTELY NO CRACKLING from my soundcard (and therefore practically no system latency).. and the fact that I am now sure that the whole crackling thing first arose when I installed Vista, then went away when I went back to XP then came back again when I installed Windows7 (technically a derivative of Vista).. i think it is safe to say that it is not the soundcard, nor the RAM, nor the Mobo, nor the graphics card.. it IS the Operating System..

so why?? WHY!??! Do my Xonars not like Vista or Windows7?

Riddle me this..

:Luca
 
Poor driver support on the part of Asus probably.

It is weird how you're the only person I know of that has this issue with a Xonar and Windows Vista/7. Everyone I know with a Xonar card and Windows 7 or Vista doesn't have this issue whatsoever.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top