Precision M4400 Audio Drivers crash

Same problem here... Waiting since December for a new version of IDT Drivers.. Without any bugs....

Bill,

Thanks for the answer. I've uninstalled A05 and reinstalled A04. It looks that the crashes has gone (for now), but now I am getting cracking noise when playing the sound.

To easilly reproduce the problem:

- open Control Panel
- click Sound Icon
- click Configure which brings you to Speaker setup dialog. When you test the sound it plays the left and then the right speaker. While playing, you can here the cracking noise

I encountered this problem before, and it dissapeared when I upgradetd to the latest BIOS and A05 drivers).

Additional information:
While  trying to describe the steps above, I closed the Speker  Setup dialog. When I tried to repoen Sound incon in Cotrol pannel, I've got the llowing message:

--------------------------------
Audio Enchancements Problems
---

Windows has detected that audio enchancements for the following devices are causing problems:

Speaker  /Headpone (IDTC High Definition Audio CODED)

Would you like to disable Driver Enchancements for this Device?

------

I've cliked "Yes" and repeted the test. I still hear random cracking noise....

Matej

Additional info: I have uploaded a recording of sound problems to: http://www.sendspace.com/file/b8n487

If you listen, the first 10 seconds are OK, but after that you can hear cracks in the sound.

Matej

I have the same problem problem (cracking sound) on my Dell Precision M6400 with both driver versions, A04 and A05 on Windows Vista.

While using Windows XP there was no problem at all!

So I hope there will be some fix and a new audio driver version soon.

Markus

I've read about Band-A somewhere else.  I disabled Band-a. It looks that things were better yesterday (I was unable to reproduce the problem in 10 minutes with Band-A disabled). But even when Band-A enabled it was harder to reproduce the problem yesterday. Some times it wokrs better, and some times it is much worse.

Matej

P.S:

Another piece of (my be related) information:

I am getting constantly high DCP latency with DCP Latency checker (dpclat.exe) - for most of the time it is  some where betwwen 8000 us and 16000 us. It drops to under 500 us while I am writing DVD (but he DVDs that I've written on my DVD writer are unreadable - verification fails).  The latency increased after I ve installe INtel Matrix Storage driver (without this driver, I wasn't even able to start wirting the DVDs). The latency still remains high if I phisically remove my DVD from the slot.

Another trouble: Today I have 50% statsvc.exe usage because of the AUTIO driver.

I have the same problem. I have Vista 64 bit and sata, can anyone tell me if there is any solution?

I'm currently having the same audio stuttering problems on an M4400 with the A11 bios, and version 6.10.0.6124 of the audio drivers (Vista Ultimate). Also using the dpclat.exe DPC latency checker shows constant spikes over 10000 and, at a lower frequency, constant spikes around 510000!!!

The only thing I've added to the machine since new is Firefox. In fact I've even un-installed alot of the control point junk..

This is driving me N-U-T-S

For the audio stuttering problem, try the following (if you haven't already).

1. Roll back the driver for the Intel E-SATA controller from the most recent (8.7.0.1007) to the 8.2.2.1001 (driver date 6/2008).

2. Roll back the nVidia video driver from the most recent (7.15.11.7607, A01) to the native Vista standard VGA graphics adapter (6.0.6001.18000).  

It does seem to be related to the E-SATA controller.. Disabling the E-SATA controller in the bios seems to make the problem go away. I'll try the rolled back E-SATA driver you mentioned.

I have to ask, why the suggestion to use native Vista standard VGA graphivs drivers? The whole point of this laptop is it's workstation graphics card...

I have to ask, why the suggestion to use native Vista standard VGA graphivs drivers? The whole point of this laptop is it's workstation graphics card...

Because it eliminated the audio stuttering problem for me.  That's the only reason. 

I have the Latitude E-6500 but I believe it uses the same nVidia driver as the M4400.  I found that eliminating the audio stuttering problem was dependent upon both of the suggestions above.  If I did one without the other, the stuttering was reduced, but not eliminated.  This is just a temporary fix.  Hopefully, Dell will release updated drivers for video, storage controllers and audio that will resolve the issue once and for all.

I have DCP spikes around 16000 with latest Matrix Storage Driver, latest video driver and previous evrsion of audio driver. I've found out that spikes are gone while writting the DVD (althoug I am unable to read the DVDs that I have written).

 Can anyone else try to verify if spikes are reduced when wrting DVD?

Matej

Does anyone has idea when we can expect new drivers?

This problem, as well as others, is well documented on the net, but there currently is no good solution.  The people that have contacted Dell have not gotten anywhere...yet.  I'm running Vista 32 and have run into the same service crashes, mostly on battery.

There is no SATA driver that works completely.  You trade DVD writer errors for high system latency.  You can disable eSATA and the modular bay with the 8.7 driver, and the system works pretty well.  I've found that the Intel 8.5 version gives me less trouble than 8.2 or 8.7, but others disagree.

The A03 audio driver stutters, the A04 has high CPU usage, and the A05 has crashing services.

The Microsoft video driver appears to make the system more stable, but you lose functionality.

There are other system issues which are probably related to the above issues.  The latency problem can be verified with the DPC Latency Checker from Thesycon.

I have not been able to rely on my system since October.  I hope the hardware manufacturers can fix these issues with updates.  Some of these issues are not just Dell.

Just notice that Dell released version A06 (6.10.0.6159) of the IDT HD Audio drivers for Vista.  Unfortunately after installing, my system still has latency issues (audio dropouts, skips etc.).  The only fix for me is to remove the DVD writer or disable the modular bay in the BIOS.  This is unacceptable for a "Precision Workstation" and Dell support has no fix for this issue.