stacsv.exe running all the time

I am sorry for not clarifying.  I do not have either 50% cpu or sound jumps that I am aware of.  I am simply troubleshooting system performance for many of our computers and trying to determine why the Stacsv.exe process is constantly querying the registry every second of every day.  This does not seem to be favorable for performance of any machine.  I could expect activity on startup or if I were making adjustments to sound configuration or settings or playing some media files.  But, when the system is sitting idle for more than 5 minutes and I am still seeing contant reg opens, reg queries, reg closes every second just as shown in the previous thread. 

Is this considered to be normal?

thank you Bill.  I appreciate the assistance.  We have alot of D630's and I havent even gottent to the peformance testing of the other units.  I will await your resolution.

Hi, Moe.

I'm emailing you for some requested information at the gmail address  you registered with us on the forums. Please reply at your convenience. Thanks.

Hello Bill -

I am having the exact same problem on my Dell Latitude 630 that Moe reports - stacsv.exe hitting the registry over an dover again.

Is there a solution to this issue? 

Thanks,

Ann

Just got a reply. Looks like driver version A05 and above do not exhibit this problem. Is this not the case? Notes from engineering's issue management system:

1/13/2009 10:27:34 AM
 A05 and A06 versions of the driver do not exhibit issue

I never got an answer.

Sorry, Moe. I will take another stab at this one.

In the meantime, what happens when you roll back the driver? Any change at all?

Thanks Bill -

I just installed the latest Sigmatel driver (v 5.10.0.5515) and I am still seeing the same behavior.  Any other thoughts?

This is the info from the version.txt file:

Title: Audio: SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio Driver
Version    : A11
OEM name   : SIGMATEL
OEM Version: 5.10.0.5515_RC22-WHQL
Computers  : MXC051; Inspiron: 1420, 1501, 1520, 1720, 1721, B120, B135/1400, ME051, MM061, MP061, MXC061; Latitude: 120L , 131L, ATG D630, D420, D430, D520, D530, D531, D620, D620, D630, D630c, D631, D820, D830, XFR D630, XT; Precision: M2300, M4300, M6300, M65, M90; Vostro Notebook: 1000, 1400, 1500, 1700; XPS Notebook: M1330, M1730, MXC062, MXG061
OSes       : Windows 2000 Professional,Windows XP Home Edition,Windows XP Media Center Edition,Windows XP Professional,Windows XP x64 Professional Client
Languages  : Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese-S, Chinese-T, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
Created    : Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Thanks,

Ann

Bill,

If you recall, we went down this road previously and I verified several D630's with XP SP3 exhibiting the same symptoms and provided you will several machines and tags, you passed the information along, they requested a ticket number, i provided the ticket number to you and you forwarded it.  That is where we left off.  We have many units running XP and the latest driver exhibiting the issue.  The 2 Vista boxes I have do not exhibit the issue and are running the Microsoft provided driver.

Hope this helps them to discover the issue.

If you would like me to forward you back the original email thread surround the issue and the steps we took together, let me know.

Thanks,

Moe

Bill, Has there been any progress on this issue?

I was reminded of it again today when I was troubleshooting a boot issue with a Latitude D630 and in reviewing the boot events, recognized there were over 400,000 events attributed to stacsv.exe reading the registry.

Please let me know what I can do to help Dell resolve this issue that obviously exists with more than just myself and my machines.

If there is a utility that is Dell approved and I can run, please let me know.  Your engineers must use some utility to prove this is not happening and if the utility I use is not approved, then I will use whatever they use.

I have reach a begging situation as my normal means of troubleshooting, providing valid facts and requesting a fix have not worked.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Moe

Hi,

I'm encountering the same problem with my E6400 running on vista business.  After reocer form sleep mode, the stacsv.exe will take up around 50 % of my CPU which slows things down.

Any remedy to this problem?

Thank you.

I hate to jump into what may be a dead thread, but I wanted to add my own 2 cents (and to check and see if Bill had any updates). 

6.10.0.6187 is the first driver that I have tried in the 6.10.x.x series that does not exibit the stacsv64.exe high cpu problem.  All 6.10.x.62xx drivers that I have tried result in out of control cpu usage.  Does this match others' experiances?  Was this bug reintroduced in the 62xx drivers after it was fixed in 6187?

Full disclosure:  All 6.10.x.x drivers that I am using have been modified so that they will run on my lattitude D430.  This is really my only option since IDT does not release new drivers for older sigmatel chipsets.  All in all, 6187 is running great, but if we can get a 62xx version that works (with its extra features) so much the better.

@NemesisDB

I have never been able to resolve.  While it was recommended to roll back to previous drivers, several attempts did resolve the issue.  The only resolve I have found at this time was to disable sound.

I have contacted Dell Gold Support Directly, posted in the forum and provided specific examples without resolve.  I have a feeling this will not be solved and honestly do not have time to troubleshoot this for Dell.  Occassionally I will try a new driver if available but that will be the extent of my troubleshooting.

For some reason, everyone else in the IT community uses and trusts PROCMON from Mark Russonivich, but whatever you do, do not mention the use of this tool as Dell Support Techs will tell you they do not support third party tools.  Will they provide you a supported tool....NO

Moe, I'm fairly sure the answer is yes, but can you confirm that you tried 6.10.0.6187  and that you still had the problem?  Also, what OS do you have and is it 32 or 64 bit?  You have my apologies if you covered this earlier in the thread.

I just had my first Blue Screen ever on my XP430 and when looking in System Reliability to see what might be causing it I found that STacSV64.exe has been crashing regularly, like every day or every few days. I knew it had been but I have come to ignore it since it seems to cause no problems with my audio when it crashes. My audio works perfectly fine as far as I can tell; I listen to MP3's and videos etc and have had no problems with audio performance.

However, I have tried to solve this IDT audio problem since I first got my computer and I have replaced the driver and have had Dell techs look at it via remote and they have not solved the problem.

Research on the net shows that Dell and HP computers using stacs.exe all have problems with it.

It seems to me that Dell should provide new audio boards or whatever it takes to resolve this problem. I'm sure most people - like me - can show a history of failures with this audio product from the beginning, since we bought our Dell computers. All you have to do is look in System Reliability and see crash after crash of this Application!

Yet, reading this thread you see a very knowledgeable consumer trying to help Dell resolve the issue yet he has been left in the cold along with the rest of us.

So, how do we get them to fix it?

p.s. I found this in an hp thread on this problem:

"I've decided to disable the audio service that it belongs to, until they sort it out.

all the service says it does is control the audio jacks, which seem to work ok with out it.

Not rebooted yet, hope it stays disabled."

SO: How do I disable the service, then? If this solves the problem, I am happy to disable it if it seems to not cause any issues... Anyone help me with this?