Stuttering Sound, help needed

There are many posts on "stuttering" sound but I don't think there is one overall fix.  Seems many are different situations. 

One thing to try is uninstall the sound in the Windows Device Manager, then restart Windows and the sound will be detected and reinstalled (refreshed).  This seems to fix a lot of different problems and worth a try for yours.

However, even with a high powered machine, potentially there can be audio issues as audio is a low priority interrupt, which means the PC could interrupt the sound to service a higher priority interrupt - just depends on what's happening.  Maybe some day Microsoft will treat audio with a higher priority and some of these problems will go away. 

What programs do you have running?  Both applications and whatever is in startup?  One of them may be the culprit and is requiring more CPU time.  Look at the Windows Task Manager and the processes and see if anyone process is "hogging" CPU time.

I have a similar problem with my Dell Dimension 9150, 2GB RAM, Dual Core 3GHz CPU (930) and two 160GB disks in RAID0. I've been searching all over the internet to find a solution, but have not been able to find a good one.

What I have found out however is that in my case the stuttering was mainly caused by 1 program: Bitcomet. Once I shut that down, the stuttering was gone, except for an occasional stutter. I'm not sure why Bitcomet is causing this. It's not because of high CPU load, I have put some load on the CPU by starting up and shutting down a virtual machine, and that produces more CPU load than Bitcomet, but no stuttering occured during this. I also thought that maybe it's the load on the network card, eventhough bitcomet doesn't put much load on it. But when I copy a file over the LAN the load is 80% on the network card, and there's not stuttering...

So I'm a bit lost here... anyone got any idea why this is happening?

Update: I was playing some MP3 files when I got an incoming Skype call. My PC suddenly became extremely slow, the music started stuttering like crazy and had gaps. I stopped the music and tried to talk on Skype, but the audio didn't seem to work. I closed Skype and continued playing the music. I then decided to select some new MP3 files, but suddenly there was no sound at all anymore. No system sounds, no music, nothing at all. So I decided to reboot and after that the sound worked again. But to my surprise there was no stuttering anymore when I started up Bitcomet... the music keeps playing fine, no stuttering at all... maybe I just need to reboot my machine everyday... or buy a decent soundcard.

Message Edited by arjanr on 06-11-200609:21 AM

Let me add onto Fireberd's good suggestions.
1. Run msconfig and uncheck everything on Startup tab EXCEPT those items related to antiviral software, firewall, video, mouse. None of the other things (eg, Sonic, DVDLauncher, RealPlayer, Quicktime, Acrobat, Jusched, etc) need to load when you boot the PC. You may think you only have a few apps running, but with all that other stuff running in the background, many of which are constantly trying to phone home for updates. Exit msconfig and reboot when you're done. Then put a check in the "Don't show this again box".

2. What video card do you have? Some geForce 6800 video cards installed by Dell were defective and caused audio stuttering. If you have a 6800, post back and we'll help you troubleshoot it.

Ron

Message Edited by RoHe on 06-11-200605:53 PM

I DO have a GeForce 6800 in my system. How do I check if it's faulty?

I bought my system about a month ago, so I'm assuming that Dell would have fixed any defective 6800's?

Go to www.sysinternals.com and download free Process Explorer. Launch PE and on toolbar set Options>Always on top. Now play audio. When the music starts to stutter, look at "CPU" column in PE window to see what's using the CPU, aside from System Idle Process. If you see Deferred Procedure Calls (DPCs) using more than maybe 5% CPU time, then I would suspect the 6800 card. If you read these forums, defective 6800 cards almost always cause excessive DPCs and audio stutter. On my 8400 with 6800 card, multiple apps open and CD playing, DPCs never go above ~3%, and the music doesn't stutter.

Obviously, if you see something else using lots of CPU time, aside from System Idle, then you need to check that out.

If you find high DPCs, contact Dell Tech Support and insist they replace the 6800 card. Don't let them tell you to reformat/reinstall XP etc. That's just a waste of time.

Ron

Thanks fireberd, arjanr & RoHe

My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 7300. I tried unchecking programs with the msconfig and other startup managers. I still have the same problems with the sound and then some more. I am wondering if you could tell me how good is this sound card: Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio (SBAHD)and if it has any incompatibilities with SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC.

Now sometimes after more than 10 hours without rebooting the PC, the sound disappears and when Windows exits because of rebooting or turning off the machine, it always makes a loud noise, like an explosion. Incredibly annoying and alarming. I'm beginning to wonder if all these sound problems are a sign of bigger problems to come. Quite worrying because this is a new machine bought only a few weeks ago

My system specs:

Hardware
Type Description
DVD/CD-ROM Drives TSSTcorp CD-RW TS-H292B
PHILIPS DVD+-RW DVD8801
Disk Drives ARRAY 465.6Gb
Display Adapters NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE 512Mb
IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 27DF
Primary IDE Channel
Keyboards USB Human Interface Device
Mice and Other Pointing Devices USB Human Interface Device
Monitors Plug and Play Monitor - (Standard monitor types)
Sound Devices SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device
USB Controllers Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27C8
Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27C9
Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27CA
Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27CB
Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 27CC

Message Edited by Tantalus on 06-14-200604:41 AM

Tantalus,
Any signs of overheating? If it's making loud noises and shutting down, I'd get onto Dell Tech Support right away and ask for assistance. Possibly a bad power supply?

You might want to reboot, press F12 and run all the diagnostics, especially for fans.

Ron

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@RoHe wrote:
Tantalus,
Any signs of overheating? If it's making loud noises and shutting down, I'd get onto Dell Tech Support right away and ask for assistance. Possibly a bad power supply?

You might want to reboot, press F12 and run all the diagnostics, especially for fans.

Ron

---

thanks RoHe for the quick answer

no, no signs of overheating. I ran the diagnostics and everything seems ok, yet the sound is disappearing faster after each reboot. A few days ago the PC went mute after 10-12 hours, now its after 5 hours. No sound at all, regardless of what media or non media program I try. Not even windows sounds. Thats until the system exits to reboot or turn off, then you can hear that loud noise.

Right now im concerned about this sound disappearing more than the audio stuttering. I'm completely at lost, have no clue what can it be. I have reinstalled every driver and tried everything I can think of. Anyway, do you know of a good sound diagnostics program that can tell me whats wrong with my computer? The guys at DELL support were lost as well. Ive also checked every speakers connection and changed them. Tried every possible combination without success.

.......

Message Edited by Tantalus on 06-14-200605:30 PM

If it's losing audio and then crashing, it's possible the audio card is failing. You could try uninstalling the audio drivers and removing the card from the slot. You may also have to go into BIOS setup and enable internal audio, if your system has it. Then run system for a while and see if it crashes again. If not, the audio card is probably defective. If it crashes without the audio card, I'd suspect power supply or maybe a fan that freezes. Internal noise says "hardware" to me rather than software.

You can also look in Windows Event viewer to see if it logged the crashes. Click Start>programs>administrative tools>event viewer. Click System in left pane and look in right pane around time of crash for error messages. If any listed, double-click and see what they have to say. Some may offer link to Microsoft with info related to the cause of the error. Then click Application in left pane and look for error messages again.

Ron