E6400 audio skipping problem

Over the past few months, I've noticed a hiccuping sound in my audio (perhaps video-related as well?) during any and all kinds of multimedia playback (youtube, DVD, audio CD). Every 3-4 seconds, I get a stuttering or jerking sound.

I have a similar buffering problem when playing youtube videos sometimes but I don't know if these are related.

I called Dell the other day and they sent someone out to replace the motherboard and cd/dvd drive after updating my audio and video drivers didn't help the issue.

The thing is, the problem persists! Any suggestions? Also, now with the new motherboard and CD drive I sometimes hear a slight knocking sound coming from the machine when I put my ear to the keyboard. This could be due to the fact there is a 2 mm gap between the palmrest and the underlying case where they failed to put the thing back together correctly, but I'm unsure.

 

My first thought is that you have a big latency problem. See this thread and run dpclat.

Regarding the noise, perhaps you are hearing some head movement from the HDD. An unwanted gap will help let the noise out.

John

 

What is latency? Does this occur during all audio events or only during real-time (streaming) multimedia? I get the sound even when the computer first boots up.

I just tried the latency checker, and I saw multiple red spikes. Here is the message I got:

"Some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams. To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device Manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time. Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems, internal sound devices, USB host controllers, etc."

Let me make sure I understand this correctly: I disable the driver, then run the latency checker and see if everything checks out (ie., there are no red spikes)? If I keep getting red spikes, then re-enable and move to the next driver?

I will also try upgrading to Windows 7, I have been meaning to do this for some time but have been putting it off.

 

"Latency" in this context means that some software / driver is hogging the system and making everything else wait. Potential culprits are anything that is listed at the start of the E6400 latency thread (and maybe a few others).

The bigger the red spike then the worse the problem. The driver(s) that cause the red spikes are the ones to be disabled / replaced (the Intel Matrix storage manager (not the driver) used to cause me problems). The target is to get the bars in dpclat down into the green zone.

Upgrading to Windows 7 may clear the problem but it would be prudent to monitor the latency as you install the various drivers.

I'm unimpressed that Dell support didn't think of latency as the cause of skipping audio.

John

 

John

I just installed Windows 7 and so far, so good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Now can you advise me on what to do as far as getting drivers installed? Should I use the original install CD I got from Dell (for Vista), should I go to Dell's website to get the drivers, or should I just let Windows search for drivers under Device Manager?

thanks!
David

 

Windows Update will do a reasonably good job of getting the right drivers. However, I would recommend that you get the latest drivers off the Dell website (enter your service tag to get a list of the relevant drivers). Note that the one that should be installed first is the System Software in the system utilities section. There may also be an update to the optical drive firmware for Windows 7 compatibility.

John

 

Thus far, I've installed, in this order from Dell Support:

1. System software
2. BIOS update
3. NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M

Is there anything else that is really, really important that I try to get from Dell? I'm hesitant to install Dell's audio driver since the sound is working good now.

The only yellow warning I'm getting in Device Manager is "Broadcom USH." Can you explain what this is?

One more question: On the Dell download page, under Chipset, it lists three different downloads....

1) Intel Driver - applies to AMT SOL / LMS (listed as urgent)
2) Intel Driver - applies to AMT HECI (listed as urgent)
3) Ricoh Driver - applies to R5C847 (listed as recommended)

Any idea which of these I need for my system?

Thanks!
David

 

The Broadcom USH is for security features. If you don't use a fingerprint reader or smartcards, you don't need to worry about the Broadcom USH (its driver is a 100MB+ EXE).

The two Intel files are for Active Management. If you don't know what they are, you probably don't use its features. The Ricoh is the SD card driver, which is listed under IDE Controllers as a MMC Controller in the Device Manager.

 

If you don't need it then I also suggest you disable the device in the device manager. This'll get rid of the yellow exclamation mark.

I think it's worth taking a few minutes to study the drivers list from Dell to determine which ones you need and which ones you don't. There's no point in having processes running and memory taken up for functions you never use or devices that aren't even present on your machine. The less stuff you have running the better.

If you're feeling really adventurous look into turning off a lot of unnecessary Windows services. You'd be surprised at how much functionality is loaded that you'll probably never use.