Process Monitor Results - Disable IDT Audio Service

I've been using the brilliant Process Monitor recently to analyse everything that's going on in the background of Windows. It is truly incredible how many things are going on that you don't know about and I advise anyone to download and run it in it's default state to see for themselves.

One thing I did notice among other things was the IDT Audio service ( STacSV.exe) calling loads of registry entries every few milliseconds. It was literally taking up around half of the real time events. Stupidly overkill for a service which only monitors the audio input jacks. I have disabled the service ( Audio Service) and everything still runs perfectly so I would advise that if anyone else has the same issues to do the same. Very bad programming.

Process Monitor will show you information on every single running task so you will also be able to see if things like Sidebar Gadgets are not behaving properly. Process Explorer is another great tool for monitoring exactly how many CPU cycles each task is using (Run As Administrator, enable the CPU Cycles Delta column and then sort by that column).

 

Wow, nice find. My 6860fx also had about half its processes being called by StacSV. I'm definitely disabling it and stopping it from booting on startup.

 

Considering my laptop doesnt automatically switch to speakers when I plug them in, I don't see why I shouldn't disable this service. But if I do disable it, will HDMI automatically switch to external monitor when plugged in, etc?

What is the point of this service anyway if it does nothing, any more info on it?

 

I think it's only used for monitoring the input jacks, not all the methods of output. You know that selection box that pops up when you plug something into the mic jack.

 

Ah, yup, don't need it, I don't even use the mic jack

 

isn't that the service that causes sound stuttering? you know when you're watching a movie and all of a sudden the sound starts to stutter for a few seconds?

 

Wierd... Ican't find this process anywhere, maybe its 6860 specific?

 

Yeah I think you have a different audio device on the 7811.

 

not on a 7811.

 

the ocz has sound stuttering issues after resuming from sleep - wonder if this will fix it..

 

Crappy sound drivers. Not just on board driver but also Creative has a crappy sound drivers still 32bit and thast a pretty mes for a driver.

 

hi ^^

i'm new to this site, it's january 1st, 4:22am and i'm trying to solve an issue w/my laptop...

i have a Gateway M-6866. It comes with an integrated microphone which up until recently used to work just fine.

I had Windows Vista x64 Home Premium installed and i could talk for almost half a meter away of the mic and it worked just fine... i now installed Windows XP x64 and the mic still works, but it barely catches any sound.

I'm using the IDT driver since there seems to be no other driver out there (and i also read that SigmaTel was bought by IDT or something like that)

i was wondering if someone out here could help me out or point me in the right direction, because i was really starting to love that microphone...

Thnx

 

Oh yeah, i forgot to write my Sound Device:

SigmaTel STAC9205X @ Intel 82801HBM ICH8M - High Definition Audio Controller PCI

according to Everest Corporate Trial Edition.

In the Gateway site (awful btw) it only says that i have a 2-Channel High Definition Audio... nothing further as to who built them.

So yeah... i believe that's it... Thnx again for anything

And happy new year to all ^^

 

7811 has Conexant? 6860 has IDT.... Ive found that IDT is minimal in design cept for the process you described which I disabled

 

Confirmed that the P172X FX has it, STacSV.exe that is and it has been disabled, I always thought "Audio Service" was more than a jack monitor, what a waste.