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629248
Studio XPS 13" Audio Popping/Slow-Motion
I don't quite understand what it is with these new laptops that are coming out nowadays. It's as if the companies selling them don't test them fully at all. I don't make random accusations, I speak purely from first-hand, personal experience.
About two months ago I bought myself the 13" Macbook Aluminum. I never liked the Mac OS much, so I installed Vista Home Premium using Boot Camp. First thing I noticed was, when I played any music, videos, or games, the audio would at regular intervals play in a slow-motion manner, and distinct popping noises can be heard in the background. So I did some research and found out that it was due to the Broadcom Wireless N network card's driver having some compatibility issues. After updating the driver, the problem was solved. But I wasn't happy with the way the trackpad worked in Vista, so I returned the Macbook.
Now two months later, here I am with this very sexy Studio XPS laptop. I have to admit, the quality of these Dell computers (at least aesthetically) has dramatically improved. I can walk around with this thing in my hands with as much confidence as if I were to walk around with the sleek and sexy Macbook Aluminum. But as I turned on my Studio XPS, and I'm talking within the first hour of receiving this laptop, I came across two major problems.
1) My optical drive was definitely defective. It makes INSANELY loud grinding noises when any disk is put in, and at times the disk would stop spinning completely during an installation, and the installation would either pause or abort.
2) To my surprise, really, to my surprise, this Dell has the same problem my Macbook Alunimum had when running in Vista. The audio makes popping noises, and at regular intervals it would play in a slow-motion manner. So once again I Googled around and wanted to look for some answers, but nothing useful came up. So I called Dell Technical Support, and the lady was extremely patient and professional, but she wasn't able to solve the problem for me. So here I am, with a $2000 investment that I am not completely satisfied with.
Dell is sending me a box within the next few days so I can send this Studio XPS back for repairs. For some reason I really doubt the audio problem will be taken care of after it comes back to me. The optical drive should be easy, if they decide to swap a new (functional) one for me.
If anyone has the same audio problem that I am experiencing, and has found a way to take care of the problem without such compromises as turning off WiFi, please feel free to comment and share.
And lastly, on a side note, if anybody cares, I was extremely disappointed in the time it took for me to get this laptop from Dell. I initially placed my order on January 19, 2009. I received the laptop on February 20, 2009. It took an entire month for the laptop to finally come, and now I'm looking at another 20 days or so for this thing to go through shipping and repairs. Seriously thinking about getting a refund on this Dell and going for something else now.
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
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August 27th, 2009 09:00
The BIOS release that was set for the August block did not pass testing, and has to be reworked. The reworked BIOS will definitely be pushed out of block to the web as soon as it passes testing. I hesitate to give an ETA at this point, but when I have a firm release date at hand I will post it immediately.
George Ludwig
2 Posts
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August 27th, 2009 16:00
Bill,
I would appreciate the heads up! I created a forum account here just to add my voice to the DPC latency and the BIOS issues. I'm really stressing because I bought a high-end xps 1340 some months ago, and I bought it for exactly one reason: to use it as my portable music computer as a gigging musician. I invested about 2K in this thing; I really tricked it out.
Since purchasing it I've learned of the DPC and related BIOS issues, and I've never been able to use this machine for what it was intended. I am at the point now where I feel I can't be held hostage to this thing anymore. I need to get something that works even if it means spending yet another 2k.
Needless to say, I am extremely unhappy at this situation. I can give it another couple of weeks, but after that I'll need to order a purpose-built audio laptop and dump this like-new xps on ebay. And if I have to do that, I swear I will never buy another Dell again. If Dell makes it good, I'll get over it. Just telling it like it is. :)
My (extremely frustrated) .02
-George
augustr
2 Posts
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August 27th, 2009 23:00
I hope that Dell has learned something from this. A high-end laptop shouldn't go through testing with issues like this.
Bill: Can I be sure that any new (high-end) systems released are completely tested for this issue? Which other models have these problems right now? What about the Studio 14z?
Anyways, thanks for this communication channel! Explaining a problem like this to the telephone support would be close to impossible I suppose.
niehls
2 Posts
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September 1st, 2009 12:00
I had the same problem that has previously been described in this thread. I just wanted to tell you that I have now solved this problem.
For those not interested in the troubleshooting details; visit nvidia's homepage and download the latest driver for your graphics card. This solved the problem for me (I have an 9500m card).
Using the dpc latency monitor described previously(http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml), I have peaks around 16ms every time I do anything on the computer basically, be it scrolling in acrobat or firefox, or switching fast between different windows. The DPC latency monitor does not tell you what driver is causing the problems though.
I downloaded microsoft's 'windows performance kit' (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/default.aspx) in order to run xperf.exe and monitor my dpc latencies. By running 'xperf.exe -on Latency' the program starts logging dpc latencies. At this time you should do something that causes the dropouts in audio. After a while, run 'xperf.exe -stop'
This produces a file c: \kernel.etl by default. You can view this file by issuing the command 'xperfview \kernel.etl'. Scroll down to the dpc graph, right click and pick 'summary table'. This gives you a table showing the different dpc latencies for different drivers. By sorting by dpc you should be able to identify the bad driver. For me it was dxgkrnl.sys that was causing the large spikes in DPC. This belongs to the nvidia driver. By disabling the graphics driver the large spikes disappeared.
Even though I disabled the graphics driver, I still hav periodic spikes of height ~5ms and periodicity of around 5s. One more analysis using xperf.exe showed that this is caused by acpi.sys which seems to control the cpu throttling in windows. Disabling this with process hacker (http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/) the periodic spikes also disappears.
Finally, I noticed that nvidia released a new driver a few days ago. This seems to deal with most of the 16ms spikes. I still get them from time to time, but from my aspect, this is now at a reasonable level. I guess for you guys producing audio, you may still be in a bit of trouble.
I have not been able to remove the 5s periodic 5ms spikes except by disabling the thread 'acpi.sys!DeRegisterOpRegionHandler' in process hacker.
I hope this will help!
Best,
Kristian
niehls
2 Posts
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September 1st, 2009 12:00
Oh, and my specifications are:
Studio xps 1340
intel core 2 duo P9600 @ 2.67GHz
6GB RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
Nvidia 9500m graphics card
ag121
1 Message
0
September 1st, 2009 21:00
I have the dell studio xps 1340 and have the same annoying crackle pop skipping noise when i listen to any music or watch a video. the only way i can get rid of it is to push the little wifi button on the top of the keyboard and the noises all go away. It is kind of a hassle, especially if i want to listen to something online. but at least i can listen to my music with out that noise
Robboman
35 Posts
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September 3rd, 2009 23:00
Thanks Bill.
I can confirm that Process Hacker 1.5 IS able to suspend the acpi.sys thread in Vista x64, and the result is as expected: NO MORE red bar spikes in DPC Latency Checker. All green!
Does anyone know, could there be any potential danger of overheating or anything if I leave acpi.sys suspended for long periods? While on AC power at least, there appears to be no application side effects to leaving PH running with acpi.sys suspended, so this might be a useable workaround to finally get down to some serious audio work while we wait for the proper permanent fix.
My machine is Studio XPS 1340 with Nvidia 9400 M G video driver. I should mention that prior to this I installed the Aug 27th Nvidia driver update from Nvidia website, that alone made no apparent difference for me.
moreclever
1 Message
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September 7th, 2009 19:00
Just picked up a 13" Studio XPS at Best Buy, and was very disappointed when I discovered this issue -- and this forum -- Bill, is there any hope for a fix this month? Picked up this machine to (of all things) use with Serato and Ableton, and it is unusable!
-moreclever
delyank
13 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 09:00
For the time being, it's best to follow niehls' advice and suspend the acpi.sys thread that causes the latency. Bear in mind though that suspending (or terminating) the thread will disable the radio button on your laptop.
I am starting to think that this single fix might actually improve battery life as I've noticed that merely 40% of the time is spent in C3 during normal usage (compare with >60% on a 2-year old Toshiba).
l1am
16 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 14:00
See my output below... I cannot disable acpi.sys on Vista 32bit. I cannot see it listed in Process Hacker, although I see ACPI listed as a service. Should I disable this?
zack183
14 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 14:00
I am having the exact same issue in Vista 64.
It will not allow me to disable the ACPI service.
I assumed I didn't know my way around Process Hacker sufficiently.
Anyone have a step by step solution?
zack183
14 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 15:00
Thanks!
That finally did it.
For the first time since I've owned this computer (months) no red bars!
Maybe now that the customers have identified the issues Dell will finally issue a proper fix.
l1am
16 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 15:00
Thanks that worked. I wonder if terminating the thread is dangerous. Also is it going to start up again when I restart the computer?
Robboman
35 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 15:00
I'm at work thus not looking at my affected laptop, so this might not be exact...
In Process Hacker, it's not the ACPI service we need to suspend, it's the THREAD called 'acpi.sys!DeRegisterOpRegionHandler', which you can see by double-clicking the "System" process. Once you are viewing the long list of threads inside "System", sort alphabetically and 'acpi.sys!DeRegisterOpRegionHandler' should be near the top. Right-click, "suspend".
George Ludwig
2 Posts
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September 8th, 2009 16:00
I lost patience with mine. It only has the 5ms DPC spike, but I got fed up last week and bought a MacBook Pro. I am very happy with it!
My like-new Xps is now on eBay and may sell for an unbelievably low price. If anyone is interested, here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290346799573&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
I'm done with Dell.