Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 7 DPC Latency Issue

[grendelrt]

I am getting sound pops and stutters when I game with my new skylake setup. I have spent probably about 20-30over the last week researching and trying things that have resolved DPC issues. The driver that is showing the issues is the nvidia driver and hdaudio driver most times. When the system is idle Nvidia stuff hits around .6ms alone, when gaming its in the 2.5ms range (using latency mon). I am using HDMI out on the gpu to send out sound.

Things I have tried:

1. Refresh of Windows 10
2. Driver Verifier flags are off
3. Multiple Nvidia Drivers
4. Disabled PCIE power saving in windows and nvidia
5. Remving/changing slots of SBZ
6. Turn off speed throttling tech on CPU
7. Turn off Hyperthreading on CPU
8. uninstalled all software that isn't required (including Gigabyte software)
9. updated Intel Drivers from the Motherboard site
10. disabled the intel i219-v ethernet controller
11. rearranged SATA HDDs
12. unplugged SATA DVD Drive
13. Moved the GPUs from IRQ to MSI
14. disabling unused hardware
15. onboard audio and vga are disabled
16. only m+kb plugged in
17. disable HPET in bios
18. Stock and XMP Profile Memory
19. dropping to gen2 pcie

So far only dropping the PCIE to gen2 seems to fix it, but its still pretty high, just not making the sound pop. I am pulling my hair out and feel like I should send back the motherboard to Newegg, but I am not even sure what I would replace it with. I noticed in the recent reviews there have been complaints about dpc latency, i emailed gigabyte but they havent replied.

 

[primetime]

Try swapping sound card to different slot? Or maybe you have no other free slots right? I suppose you using the latest drivers from creative SBZ_CD_L13_1_01_03. I have never actually had a sound pop from my z card. Sounds like the days of creative cards having compatibility issues are back. I would not hold out on a driver fix for creative lol if indeed that is whats going on....have you looked on there website? maybe you not the only one

 

[grendelrt]

Try swapping sound card to different slot? Or maybe you have no other free slots right? I suppose you using the latest drivers from creative SBZ_CD_L13_1_01_03. I have never actually had a sound pop from my z card

Ive tried 2 pcie slots and removing it all the way. I am actually using hdmi out currently on gpu (i only use the z for headphones), I prob should add that to the OP, thanks!

 

[thehardwarecat]

I am getting sound pops and stutters when I game with my new skylake setup. I have spent probably about 20-30over the last week researching and trying things that have resolved DPC issues. The driver that is showing the issues is the nvidia driver and hdaudio driver most times. When the system is idle Nvidia stuff hits around .6ms alone, when gaming its in the 2.5ms range (using latency mon). I am using HDMI out on the gpu to send out sound.

Things I have tried:

1. Refresh of Windows 10
2. Driver Verifier flags are off
3. Multiple Nvidia Drivers
4. Disabled PCIE power saving in windows and nvidia
5. Remving/changing slots of SBZ
6. Turn off speed throttling tech on CPU
7. Turn off Hyperthreading on CPU
8. uninstalled all software that isn't required (including Gigabyte software)
9. updated Intel Drivers from the Motherboard site
10. disabled the intel i219-v ethernet controller
11. rearranged SATA HDDs
12. unplugged SATA DVD Drive
13. Moved the GPUs from IRQ to MSI
14. disabling unused hardware
15. onboard audio and vga are disabled
16. only m+kb plugged in
17. disable HPET in bios
18. Stock and XMP Profile Memory
19. dropping to gen2 pcie

So far only dropping the PCIE to gen2 seems to fix it, but its still pretty high, just not making the sound pop. I am pulling my hair out and feel like I should send back the motherboard to Newegg, but I am not even sure what I would replace it with. I noticed in the recent reviews there have been complaints about dpc latency, i emailed gigabyte but they havent replied.

I had the same issue with this mobo, with a similar setup, but I've managed to solve it (rig details below).

Fix:
What did it for me was to up some of the BIOS voltages. I suspect that the Auto voltage is not sufficient enough for some of the components, and it was causing the DPC latency issues that you described. I bet that you only have to up one or two of these settings, but to be safe I set all of the following voltages to get stable.

BIOS: F6
Under Advanced Voltage Settings:

CPU Core Voltage Control​

CPU Vcore: 1.200v​

CPU VCCIO: 1.060v​

CPU System Agent: 1.160v​

Chipset Voltage Control​

PCH Core: 1.100v​

I read somewhere that some people need to up the PCH voltage to get stock to be stable for some motherboards, so that may be a good place to start upping voltages.

I'm currently overclocked and have almost no DPC issues (one or two spikes (3ms or less), but nothing that stops video streaming, or gaming, also virtually all mouse lag, and audio popping is gone). I tried basically everything you listed above to troubleshoot/fix the issue, and the only remotely stable fix was upping the voltage.


I hope this helps.


Rig
==============================
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-GAMING 7
Intel Core i5 6600k (OC'ed to 4.4GHz Turbo)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
2 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 2133MHz (OC'ed to 2800MHz)
MSI nVidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G
Samsung 850 EVO 256 GB
TP-Link Archer T9E AC1900 PCI-E Wireless Card
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 B2 PSU
==============================

 

[grendelrt]

Thanks some much for the reply man!! Unfortunately, I put in my RMA ticket with newegg and ordered an ASROCK Extreme 7+. If anything though its good to know what was causing the issue so if I have similar issues with the new board. I contacted Gigabyte and they told me to RMA the board so they didnt really have any suggestions to fix it, I had been trying to fix it for over a week so I didnt want to get stuck with a bad board. Thanks for the reply though it is much appreciated!!

 

[c3k]

Thanks for posting the fix.

 

[ashmelev75]

isn't the DPC Latency Checker tool completely broken under Win 8 / 10 ?
It showed random values last time I checked.

 

[Dan_D]

You have to use something like Latencymon under Windows 10.