Sound hiccups in Win7 32-bit on FZ290

EDIT: Problem solved, issue was with Nvidia's powermizer feature downclocking causing a latency spike, which caused the audio to studder. I disabled Powermizer using these instructions:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929

or you can use a simple tool that applies those registry settings found here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273276

Details on my last post.

Original message:

Hi, last week I clean installed Windows 7 Professional 32-bit on my Vaio vgn-FZ290. It seems like everything is working fine with my laptop using a combination of drivers from Windows Update, as well as a few official Vista Drivers. There is one issue though. With Windows 7 and only 7 whenever I play music, watch a dvd, watch youtube, etc the sound seems to "hiccup" every 10-20 seconds. By which i mean the sound would be playing normally, then a split second "click" or "pop" in the audio. If I were to rewind and play the same portion where the pop happened, it wouldn't be there anymore, and the clicks would happen somewhere else. This happens in all audio programs (WMP, itunes) as well as you tube and even I heard it click during the windows logon sound.

This happens with the normal "HD audio driver" that came with Win7, as well as the official Vista "Sigmatel" drivers on the sony site for my laptop, both the original and updated versions. Ive tried tinkering around with the settings inside the control panel, including disabling enhancements, exclusive mode, and "default Format" for playing in shared mode.

None of these solved the problem, Ive also tried installing win7 again clean, same problem. I am a power user and an expert so it seems like ive tried everything. Any ideas guys? Thank You.

P.S. This issue is not happening in WinXP which is the second os i have. Didnt occur with vista either, this has to be a Win7 issue or something.

 

i really hate to bump, but this issue is annoying!!!
are there any utilities that i could use to find the problem?

 

I don't have any issue like this in my FZ-190 with the Win 7 default driver or the IDT driver. Update your chipset driver and see if the problem is resolved.

 

I tried the windows vista's chipset driver on sony's site for my model, and i tried going to Intel to get the latest drivers, but all they give me is the intel storage matrix drivers and a bunch of graphics drivers.

The intel chipset detection software tells me that i have an "Intel PM965 Express Chipset"

Is there any other way to get a specific update for this chipset?

The Intel Storage Matrix driver doesnt help

EDIT: Ok I found the actual Chipset Drivers and I tried installing them, didn't help it seems.

I might be getting a new hard drive soon so ill wipe it clean and start over, installing these new chipset drivers first.

 

Do you have any codecs installed?

 

what do you mean by codecs? Sigmatel HD Audio Codec?

 

I meant any audio, video codecs (codec pack).

 

i usually install codecs when i need them, i did try installing the k-lite codec pack though, that didn't help either.

 

I have a similar problem with 32bit, video playback itself is sometimes choppy. the whole machine just momentarily hiccups. Vista had the same problem early on on some computers, and I forget if there was a fix or it took a service pack to fix it. Oddly this problem does not exist on 64bit Win7.

 

The video and the rest of my machine dont seem to miss a beat when the hiccup happens in the audio, for me its just the audio. I almost want to say that there is some kind of mismatch in sample rate, maybe when it playes in 44,100 hz, something tries to convert it to something else, if that makes any sense.

In Control Panel>Hardware and Sound>Manage Audio Devices when I double click the default device and go to the Advanced tab, there is a drop down menu to select the bit depth and sample rate when "it runs in shared mode". if i select something else and hit apply while im playing music, i hear the hiccup.

So maybe there is a program that is interfering with this. Wild guess but im all out of ideas.

 

I think I fixed my problem...

After lots of troubleshooting, I discovered that it was the NVIDIA graphics driver that was causing the sound hiccups. I had 190.40 installed from laptopvideo2go.com.

I reinstalled Win7 and played an mp3 right away, no hiccups. So i played it everytime i installed a driver and right after installing the Nvidia driver, the hiccups started.

I installed this "official" driver that everyone seems to like: (186.91)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=415774

...and the hiccups stopped. I tried updating to 195.55 and this driver seems to work too. I like 195.55 better because it does not flicker the screen while shutting down like the 186.91 driver did.

Thank you all for your help

Its funny how a VIDEO driver caused AUDIO issues, i hate computers....haha

 

Never mind, it seems like the problem came back......FML

Ive been searching around the net and it seems like a lot of people are having sound issues similar to mine. Something to do with Powermizer settings for NVIDIA drivers?

I dont know what else i am going to do. This small issue is very annoying and im almost ready to say f*** it and go back to using vista and xp.

 

I don't think that the Nvidia driver is the culprit. What Sigmatel driver are you using?

 

I am using the standard driver that comes with Windows 7. When I first ran into this issue the first thing I tried is installing different Sigmatel/IDT drivers (The original and updated versions from esupport.Sony.com) as well as another driver from ftp.vaio-link.com. No effect. I manually updated the chipset and sata drivers. No effect.

I reformatted and reinstalled windows 7 several times in the past month (tried x64 too) troubleshooting the problem. I played an mp3 as soon as i finished installing Win7, then after installing chipset and sata drivers, then after running windows update.....

It was after installing Nvidia driver 190.40 (From laptopvideo2go.com) and enabling Aero that the issue started. disabling aero sometimes fixed it, sometimes not. I deleted the drivers (using Driver Sweeper) and tested other versions. 195.39 seemed to be doin fine, 195.50 and 195.55 there was still some pops but not as much as 190.40. I also tried 186.91 from this page:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=415774

which is an update from Microsoft Update Catalog. This one seemed fine too but the screen flickered at the end and people complained that this driver was slower than others, so I stayed away.

Before I reinstalled win7 again the other day, i reinstalled 190.40 to make sure that this driver causes very frequent sound problems and it did.

So when I installed win7 i used 195.39 which seemed like the best choice. But now the issue is back, sort of. It actually comes and goes.

I searched the net again and i found a lot of talk about the powermizer feature and that it might be the culprit. I am still working to confirm it, but i do believe that this is whats causing it. Sorry for the long post....

Edit: Im using a DPC Latency Graph Tool that spikes everytime the "hiccup" happens in an audio track... so for sure somethin is goin on...

 

WIN7 64 bit sound hiccups on my machine too. I also have an NVIDIA video card, but because I have a laptop with dual screens built in I am using the driver from Lenovo (8.15).

I had no problems with the sound in Windows Vista 64 bit, and nothing I've tried to do has affected the problem at all.

I'd love to know what is causing the problem as this cripples my kick- laptop. Giving a slideshow to a customer with the sound hiccuping totally blows.

If anyone finds a solution that works I'd love to hear about it.

Geoff

 

You can try the driver 186.40 for AW-390 below (supports Nvidia 8400M GT)
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAW390&upd_id=5080&os_id=49

Extract the exe using uniextract and modify the SUBSYS in all the places in the nvszf.inf file to match your Nvidia 8400M GT.

 

One solution i heard of is to disable the powermizer feature by editing the registry. However disabling the powermizer will make the notebook run at full performance mode constantly, thus making the notebook hotter. Search "disable powermizer" in google for instructions.

I think I might just stick with the most up to date Nvidia driver 195.62 (actual driver version is 8.17.11.9562) , the hiccups are less frequent, and i will pray that nvidia will realize this and fix this soon. I cant call sony or nvidia because my laptop is not officially supported for Windows 7.

In win vista i never had this problem either. In vista i used the official nvidia driver (7.15.11.6760), I wonder if powermizer existed in this version....

EDIT: coolguy, i will test this driver later. I already tested 186.10 and the hiccups are the least frequent in that, so ill see if this one is better. Thank You.

 

It's not the Powermizer issue. I have similar hardware and there is no sound hiccup in my FZ-190.

 

i dont know what else it could be though. Two days ago, I installed windows 7 then right away (without even plugging in a network cable) i played a whole cds worth of music for two hours, no hiccups.

Then i manually installed the newest chipset drivers (the same way you did coolguy, by updating each individual device and rebooting when required), then played music for 30 min, no hiccups. Installed SATA drivers, played music, no hiccups. Installed one of the newer Nvidia drivers, rebooted, it activates Aero automatically, played music, within 15 seconds....a split sec drop in audio (or a click, or a squirm, which i call a hiccup), and this repeats every 10-30 seconds depending on the driver.

I repeated this process using different nvidia drivers and/or chipset and sata drivers. Whichever chipset or sata driver i use (newest vs original), that doesnt matter. Different nvidia drivers have caused clicks. 190.40 giving me the most hiccups (every 10 sec); 195.xx, 186.91 and 186.10 were better

Last few times i reinstalled win7, i only installed the nvidia driver (no chipset or sata). No hiccups before the driver, hiccups after. That is why I think the nvidia driver is the culprit. I would love to hear other suggestions though, i want to see this through to the end without going back to vista.

Im going to try 186.40 and i will try the original vista driver again.

 

I installed GPU-Z 0.3.8 and played an audio file. Everytime the GPU Core Clock, Memory Clock, and GPU Shader Clock downclock, i hear the audio studder that I have been complaining about for so long. So I disabled powermizer using these instructions:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929

and restarted. Without powermizer downclocking, there are no audio hiccups at all.

I do this using laptopvideo2go's 195.62 drivers. The temperature difference is not too bad, actually it seems to be on average 1-2 degrees higher. Sometimes it idles at 50 degrees C just like when powermizer is on.

For now, ill leave powermizer off until there is a latency fix for Nvidia.
Thank You for all your tips guys.

Edit: It is also worth noting that the registry change disables powermizer only when the laptop is plugged in to A/C. On battery, powermizer kicks in again to save battery life.

 

I have no clue why you are getting the sound hiccups with Nvidia Powermizer on. I am using the same 195.62 driver (modded myself) with the Powermizer setting unchanged and I am not having any issue with the audio.

 

I don't have a clue, i wish i knew as powermizer seems to be a good feature.
How did you mod your inf file exactly? Just curious, i dont think it would make a difference.

 

You can refer my amended guide.

 

no1uknow, I just noticed the sound hiccup when the GPU downclocks in my FZ-190 with Windows 7 64-bit and 195.62 driver. So it's time to switch to a different driver or disable powermizer in AC.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. You probably wouldn't have noticed it if i didn't make such a fuss about it.

Now, you are using the official 195.62 driver downloaded from Nvidia, correct. I noticed that sometimes those registry entries like perflevelsrc, PowermizerLevel, and PowermizerLevelAC are not there unless you are using laptopvideo2go's driver. I heard you can manually add those entries, or use this nifty tool:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273276

On a side note, i noticed that in WinXP, powermizer does NOT downclock the GPU even though its on according to Nvidia control panel. This is why i never heard a hiccup in XP.