Studio 1535 Continuous DPC Latency Issue

Hi,

I've posted about this problem in several forums but thought I'd try for a solution here. Essentially my issue is with a continuous DPC latency spike every 5 seconds on my laptop. Normally, it wouldn't be an issue -- but I'm using this laptop for high-end real-time DJing and it causes a "pop" when I'm playing (using Traktor Scratch.) More info about what I've tried already, fully detailed in this post on Native Instruments forum here:

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75067

Dell denies there is a problem because they say that they aren't "trained" in using the DPC Latency Checker as a diagnostic tool. I'm just about to sell my laptop on EBAY (since I can't return it) and buy a Mac instead but thought I'd try for one more push for a solution.

Essentially, I've already tried disabling my Wi-Fi card (and EVERYTHING network related) in both the BIOS and Device Manager. Still occurs. I tried installing XP in addition to Vista -- STILL occurs. I've done a lot of battery manipulation (device driver disabling, power cycling, removing the battery) -- STILL OCCURS. I can't DJ with this sound popping -- it's just unacceptable -- even if it is a "minor" pop now. The problem used to be much worse -- my audio cutting out every 30 seconds. I fixed that my disabling my network card. This other issue, though, continues...

Please just check out that above thread as it's got the details.

I know others affected by this (posted in the Dell forum and 3 other users said they have the same issue) so I'm not alone.

Anyone offer a solution?

THANKS!

 

Have you tried installing their new drivers?

 

Yep. I just went to Dell's site and tried their 1/12/09 release update for the WLAN Mini-Card.

Still keeps occuring. I also made sure my video card was up to date too.

 

Hey SoulLifter,

One of my friends has recently purchased the same laptop and has exactly the same issue - it is even causing a drop out in audio being played by Windows Media Player, and has the same DLC latency spike as you are having in DLC Latency Checker.

I have been through everything you mentioned above as I had the same with my Dell XPS M1530, elthough not so serious. On my M1530, it was fixed by using a registry hack to disable 'Powermizer' on my Geforce 8600m graphics card. This causes the card to adjust the clock speed of the GFX core according to computer usage, and it fixed all my problems.

However, this Studio has an ATI graphics card and so I'm wondering if there is a similar edit that can be done with this. I'll report back with any solutions if I get them, if you could do the same that'd be great.

 

I'm not quite sure if there is an ATI equivalent. If anyone can help with this, let me know.

I will tell you I disabled the ATI card and ran video only low-res from motherboard and still had latency spike issue.

It also occurs without networking in "safe" mode.

any other ideas? It's clearly something low-level.

 

THANK GOD DUDE ..SOULIFTER...3MONTHS NOW! I AM GOING NUTS WITH THE SAME PROBLEM AS YOU...I JUST SWITCHED BACK TO MY OLD LATITIDE 520 WITH XP AND TRAKTOR SCRATCH AND THERE ARE NO DROP OUTS OR POPS ETC...DID EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND OTHERS SUGGESTED.... NO DICE YET.... HAVE A TICKET IN WITH THIS KID VANGELIS AT NATIVE INSTRUMENTS. MY STUDIO 1735 AND AUDIO 8 DONT LIKE EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!! DAM VISTA!!! ,,,,BUT I FEEL ITS A DELL ISSUE AS THE DPC CHECKER INDICATES NO MATTER WHAT I DO IT SPIKE EVERY FIVE SECONDS YES I HAVE NO MORE DROPOUTS (I SHUT MY ROUTER/AND WLAN CARD OFF) BUT I STILL GTE POP,CRAKLE ETC...IM SO FUSTRATED MAN. .... SO FOR NOW I AM USING XP ON A DELL LATITUDE AND THE DPC IS OK ONLY HITS YELLOW SOMETIMES....DUDE WE HAVE TO FIX THIS MAN PLEASE EMAIL ME BROTHER . [email protected] HOPE THIS CAN BE RESOLVED...WE WILL FIX THIS WE HAVE TO HAVE FAITH. I KNOW I SPENT TO MUCH MONEY TO BE S=DEALING WITH THIS FOR THIS LONG!!

 

This issue makes me wanna pull my hair out. I also recently got a Studio 1535 (2.5 GHz with ATI card) intending to do some sound production on it and it's just not possible with the 5 second DPC spike.

So far I have only tried XP SP3, have all the hardware working except for the microphone. DPC latency checker shows the persistent ~5000us spike every 5 or so seconds, same one you see in other people's screenshots.

Tried the following fixes as suggested on various forums:
- Upgrading to A06 BIOS
- Disabling all hardware in the device manager that actually has a "disable device" option
- Disabling hardware in BIOS (mine allowed to disable external USB ports and all of network devices)
- Killing all of the processes and services that are possible to disable
- Opening the laptop and unplugging LAN and WIFI cards from the motherboard
- Disabling swap files, changing process priority between applications/background services

Nothing helped with the 5 second spike issue, though the low green bars did get somewhat lower from some of the fixes.

RATT tool shows NDIS.SYS as having the longest DPC times but I'm not sure if it is really the problem. Disabling the two NDIS related hidden devices (view->show hidden devices in device manager) resulted in BSOD upon boot, had to boot to safe mode to reenable them.

Things I haven't tried yet:
- physically removing the battery, though I doubt this will have any impact
- see with my own eyes that same problem persists in VISTA, though there's plenty of people complaining about the same issue there.
- clean install of XP without any of the (officially unsupported) drivers, though there are reports that the problem is there from the very beginning.
- haven't seen any attempts to install Windows 2000, even if to just test for the same problem without any of the drivers installed
- haven't seen any attempts to install Windows 7 Beta and test for this problem

Anything I've missed? It's a shame really because I love everything else about the laptop and if it wasn't for audio production software I would have never noticed that something was wrong with it.

 

TanXimDon--

Sounds like you have tried just as much as I have. I have tried removing the battery but it's a no-fix.

I just sent a detailed "trouble ticket" to Dell's tech support referencing 6 threads on the Internet where mutliple users are having this issue. They can't deny it now. I would encourage both you and DJAVANTI to do the same and reference my ticket number (KMM92188322I57L0KM) in yours, respectively. The more people that show them there is a problem -- the more likely they will look into a solution. As of now I feel, there is no energy on Dell's part to get this fixed (or even acknowledge there is an issue.)

Is it too late for either of you to get a refund?

I really would rather get this fixed than having to either pursue the matter either legally (about getting a refund) or EBAYing the laptop and cutting my losses.

They clearly did not think of DPC latency when building this unit.

 

Update:

I decided to fork over $50 and pay for Dell's Premium Tech service so I could talk to someone in America who can understand me.

They have all the details from this forum post and mutliple other sites and are researching it. I get a call-back Monday -- I'm hopeful they will come up with something.

If not, EBAY ahoy and time to cut my losses and get a new laptop.

Wish me/us luck!

 

Hey SoulLifter
I know you from Dell's forums (radu.pintilie).
Good thing we managed somehow to get together and maybe get Dell's attention.
If you can get an e-mail from someone who actually writes the BIOS please post it here so I can write too.
Good luck.

 

I've been having this same issue, under both XP and Vista. I have disabled every non-system critical function and driver under both OSes to no avail. I have noticed that on my system, under XP and Vista, the HDD activity light comes on at least once every 2-5 seconds even if there is literally nothing going on. I have disabled all of the search/indexing functions, etc. Is there a possibility that a bad HD/HDD controller could cause this issue?

I will say that audio production using Ardour on Linux is somewhat more stable, but I think that's because you can specify an arbitrarily high buffer configuration if you don't need low-latency performance. This 1535 still doesn't perform as well as my old 1.8GHz Athlon-based no-name laptop I had for the last several years when it comes to audio.

 

Unfortunately you know how this story ends. The Dell tech was a capable guy who tried to learn about Traktor Scratch, DPCs and buffer sizing but the problem continues. Dell can't troubleshoot this issue unfortunately so we are all out of luck unless someone figures it out on their own.

Since I most likely can't return it (I have one more option up my sleeve to try first) it's time for EBAY and I guess, shudder, a Mac. Hell has frozen over. PCs have me miffed at the moment now. And my friend has no trouble with his Mac and Traktor.

The last 3 months I've been trying to fix this issue. I'm over it. Time to move on. If you are in the return window, return the laptop while you can.
Good luck to you all.

 

I'm pretty much of the same opinion. I've tried my best to figure out this DPC Latency problem on my Dell Studio 1537 but have come to the same problems as everybody else. The best I could do was lower the spikes to about 4621 us every 4 seconds. This was on both Vista x64 and Windows 7 Beta x64.

Sadly due to this problem I'll probably have to return the notebook. A clean install with the latest drivers on Windows 7 did seem to eliminate 99% of the audio stutters in media player though. So outside of audio pro applications it became tolerable.

Here's my DPC Latency screenshot on Windows 7.

 

I have the spikes on mine, but it doesnt affect my audio at all.

 

Guys try to disable powerplay via catalyst center. See if that works and try to put your notebook in high peformance.

 

I tried switching it to high performance and it didn't change the latency. My machine doesn't have Catalyst as it's the one with the Intel 4500 graphics.

 

It's a design issue fixable via BIOS. There's nothing else we can do but wait for a new BIOS.

 

I might buy one again if/when they fix the DPC Latency problem. I really think this is an incredible machine otherwise for the price. The LED screen on mine is beautiful after Windows 7 color calibration. I get 5.5 hours of battery life on BALANCED power settings (not even power saver!). Even sleep seems to work properly under Windows 7. It loses only 1% power per hour, so sleeping it overnight and then waking it up again it's good to go with only about 6-8% battery life lost. With a clean install it's super fast. I am going to miss this machine dearly after I return it, that's for sure.

 

to tubby how do u get 5.5 hours of batter life? do u have the 9cell? cuz i get like 3-4hours i think

 

I only have the 6 cell 4800mah battery but the hardware I have in my 1537 includes,

Intel Dual Core T3400 2.16 ghz
Intel 4500 Graphics Card
Dell 1510 Wireless a/g/n Card (Broadcom)
4 Gigs Ram
250 Gig HD
DVD Recorder Slot Drive
WLED 1280 x 800 Screen
IDT Integrated Sound

Your battery life will vary if you have different hardware. To get 5.5 hours on this setup I downloaded the Windows 7 public 64 bit beta and did a clean install. I then performed all Windows Updates. After that I performed the optional driver updates through Windows Update. Then I went to the Dell web site and installed the latest Vista 64 bit wireless driver and the infrared reciever driver. I then got the "all operating systems" version of the latest Intel GL45 chipset driver from Intel and installed that (the Vista 64 bit version from Dell doesn't work since it checks if you have Vista 64 and fails while the all operating systems version doesn't do the check). I also installed Dell QuickSet so that my media/volume/brightness keys show the onscreen indicator when pressed.

I then ran the Windows Experience Score to update my scores which autotuned the system. After that from a full charge I get 5.5 hours of battery life.

Oh I also disabled Windows Superfetch and Windows Search and turned off the windows pagefile. Those three tweaks made the hard drive get accessed less and probably accounted for some of the battery life gains.

 

Hey what's up?

You guys will recognize me from the NI forums.

There is another problem which points to bios or driver issues. I wiped Vista off my 1737 and ghosted my previous WinXP build over.

I got the blue-ray drive in my config and whe I eject a CD it spikes the system hard and interrupts and freezes Traktor for about 1 sec. It also causes the onboard sound to stutter when ejecting a disc.

I'm reading about this problem and trying to resolve it even though it's not horrible on my system.

I had the same problem with my HP and TS1 initially. I just had to keep updating drivers and it got nailed down to the wireless adapter so I would just disable it while using Traktor Scratch.

The weird thing is Maschine is completely immune to it.

I've only had my studio 17 for a few days so I'm working on it as well to correct this problem because it's a sick laptop.

 

Another problem I ran into is changing latencies within TS Pro. I was trying to run at 4ms and it would just lock up the system forcing a manual power down.

So I'm suspecting serious ACPI problems. So we will need a manual power management tool because the bios has no options.

My HP laptop allowed me to disable it from the bios which cured a lot of problems right there.

 

I'm quite new on this forum, and desperate about dpc latencies. I've received my studio 1537 friday, and discovered the latencies on monday with the dpc tool latency checker.

Impossible to record or play music with this laptop... I've worked on that problem checking with xperf finding no solutions, and found exactly the same problem descritption about the studio 1535/37 on several forum. I've tried everything i've found on the net (disabling almost everything, disconected almost everything...).

The tech support of dell is quite poor, but the problem is well known (even if hidden for commercial reasons):
- every four seconds a dpc peak of about 4ms is observed on these laptops (means something is asking for "real time" ressources at 0.25hz).

I've some solutions now:
1. Trying to install winxp? (Somebody does that test?)
2. Trying to install win 7? (Somebody does that test?)
3. Sell my computer...

Is there some new input concerning this problem?

 

Thats awfull guys!
I was just planning to get the Studio 17...

Are there no hardcore-pc-nerd-forums out there?
There must be.

Or doesnt anybody know anybody who is seriously into computers?
It seems that if "yes", you would have tried it, but i have the feeling that this is the way to go here since like everything else with computers (=robots) there is a reason for everything.

@frex: they tried 1) and 2) and some might be allready on the way to 3) :/

 

@Scep: Thx for your encouragement

Is there anyway to get a "dpc latency printscreen" on vista and on win xp on the same studio 153x? (to spare some xp instalation time before doin it by myself...)
This question just to be very sure that the problem is not a Vista issue, but an hardware problem.

The last action I'll try is to extensively use windows tool "xperf". With this tool you can point out "dpc users" and the time they spend on it. The first results I had with this tool, is that acpi.sys drivers were spending a lot of dpc times.

 

I'm running Windows XP right now, and honestly it's running very well.

Maschine does not have any pops or clicks occurring. It's only Traktor Scratch Pro that is slightly intermittently affected.

Not to mention it's such a minute pop that no one notices. Only I know it's there because I have the headphones on.

I'm on a three day tour right now in my home city, we are performing at 12 schools and have a concert.

We have 4 schools left today and the concert is tonight. So far everything has been smooth.

 

What kind of dell machine? Did you had some troubles before on vista?

 

From other testing on other models is does appear that XP suffers less than Vista from DPC Latency spikes (Win 7 looks like being better than Vista too).

 

Breakthrough!

Found this posting on the net, http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PID=23533

I downloaded and ran Process Explorer. I suspended the acpi.sys thread under system and the spikes IMMEDIATELY disappeared in the DPC latency checker.

So I will have to speak with Dell again today and track down where the problem is.

One thing I noticed is when I suspended the acpi.sys thread, I can no longer eject my dvd drive via the touch control or Fn + F10. I have to soft eject from my computer.

I now have ZERO spikes regardless.

Here is my thread on the NI site, http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?p=504507#post504507

 

Thx for the input, i'll try it asap and send back some inputs.
I've runned "xperf" and seen that acpi.sys was requesting a lot of time.

 

don't use standard audio driver. use an ASIO driver for your audio output.
standard drivers are not designed for low-latency output... so you get high CPU usage.. or audio crackling.

I have cuBase 4 running on my studio 17 laptop , and it runs fine.... as long as I use low-latency ASIO drivers.

There is a freeware driver available called ASIO4ALL ( www.asio4all.com). I would suggest you install that.

 

Thank you for the trick, but even if not indicated i'm using asio.

 

Wow! You are the first person that I know of to have successfully solved the DPC latency problem on the Dell Studio machines! A big congrats is in order! If you were around when I had the problem I wouldn't have returned my machine.

Could you post your hardware configuration so others can see which components are guaranteed to work? I've attached your DPC screenshot from your other thread. Again, awesome work!

 

I've tried and tried to kill acpi.sys but no way to do that with procexp (the tool indicated in your post).
Did you do that on Vista or XP?
Could you please describe the procedure with more precision (step by step)?

For the moment being, no way to reduce these f***g peaks. No one is interrested in buying this laptop, dell support is absolutely weak, i feel a little bit angry now.
Frex

 

After some suffering, i'v tried it on windows xp on my 1537 and the red peaks went away!!!! I dont know if my system is unstable now but i'll try it.
The trick doenst seems to work under Vista....

 

Thanks a lot djquartz!

 

Since Studio 13 (1340) users can't install XP at the moment due to lack of drivers I have an idea.


Once thing that may be in common with all these machines having the DPC Latency issue is TSST DVD±RW drives.

Would anyone be willing to try and either disable or physically remove the drive (I know it will be tougher because it is slot load but it can be done with some patience) and test with DPC tool to see if it resolves the issue.

These drives have been a problem for a few folks and issues have been resolved by swapping them out with other makes. If this is it this notebook could be a really awesome package capable of just about anything besides heavy gaming.

 

My S15 has an Optiarc drive and has same issue.

 

Hey,

I have a Dell Studio 1735 with Vista. I'm having issues with audio glitches and drop-outs using a Presonus Firepod, with the latest Vista drivers, via an ExpressCard with a Texas Instruments firewire chipset.

Everything I can think of is disabled (I've been at this for months!!!).

The DPC Latency Tool is showing the described peaks every 5 secs (of 4.5ms), however, I ran xperf and it didn't show any kind of significant DPC latency/IRQ requests. Even the maximum requests were around 0.9ms.

I then enabled my wireless device, ran xperf again, and saw a few large 10+ms spikes.

I may be reading xperf incorrectly (it was late, I was tired/fed up), but is there any chance the latency checker utility is not reporting accurately? Or is it more likely I'm analysing xperf incorrectly?

I think I'll go down the route of installing XP or a partition, dual boot, and troubleshoot on that, if the issue is clearer.... may as well!

Anyone else find a Vista/Studio 1735 solution?

Of course it could be the drivers that are contributing to my issue...???

 

***A POSSIBLE SOLUTION???***

New Studio 1537 BIOS A09 Out:
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=316579

DPC Latency is reduced SIGNIFICANTLY after upgrading to A09. Not Perfect, but there is no longer a spike every 4 seconds caused by ACPI! Yay!

 

Prior to upgrading to BIOS A09, I had DPC spikes every four seconds as described by this issue. After upgrading, the high DPC spikes have indeed gone away, so it looks like this BIOS update may do some real good.

 

I've updated to A09, the red bars are almost completely gone, but those yellow ones still cause clicks/pops/etc when low latency is needed.
I've disabled every device from device manager, used the laptop without battery, but I couldn't get rid off them.
I've installed XP in dualboot, but I can't get ASIO4ALL to work on it. That's because there isn't a proper driver assigned to the soundcard that Dell 1537 has. The ones from samsware.com are obviously from another soundcard.

Even in XP the situation isn't that great, DPC latency averages between 150-200us. I don't get yellow or red bars, but the lowest latency is far from what I've got in Vista.(The lowest in WinXP was ~110us, and in Vista it was 29us). I'm still dreaming @ <60uS continous latencies.

 

Has anyone tried this?
It's removed the spikes and reduced my avg. DPC Latency

In RMClock 2.35
--> Management Page
--> Enable "Run HLT command when OS is idle"

PS:
Attached are screens of DPC Latency checker with
"Run HLT command when OS is idle" Enabled & "Run HLT command when OS is idle" Disabled.

 

So the Bios a09 for the 1737 sounds like it did some real good. Ive been dealing with this problem relentlessly for the last month, any word of when the fix will come for the studio 1535?

 

The Studio 1535, and even its replacement, the 1537, have been dead for quite some time now. Dell hasn't sold them new in months since they released the 1555. I wouldn't count on anything new for the 1535, especially not a BIOS update.

 

Same issue with dell xps m1530... months and months without solution. But there will be one.

Starting in safe mode and runnin xperf tools shows minimal dpc (or NO dpc latency). So... there is something there needed to be discovered.