XPS 8950, SoundCloud streaming issue, slight buffer

Question

Every time I stream YouTube videos or songs from SoundCloud, a slight buffer happens with a split-second bzzt. Sound with a bit of choppiness. Can anyone tell me what it is? It's not a web browser problem case it happens between all browsers. One thing I've noticed is that when this happens my external hard drive flashes its light, is it an electrical circuit issue, GPU, or CPU maybe? Is anyone else having this problem? My computer has fully updated windows os, CPU, GPU and bios are up to date.

RoHe · Answer

Are you using WiFi or Ethernet (wired) connection to the router? Are your network drivers up-to-date?

If using WiFi, are you using 2.4 or 5 GHz? Have you tried switching to the "other" frequency, assuming your router is dual-band?

Have you looked in the Windows Event Viewer around the time of a "bzzt" to see if any errors got logged?

Have you read this Google info about fixing youtube streaming issues on a PC?

TjayX · Answer

i used both wif fi and ethernet, but the buffering/bzzt sound still occurs. Just found out about dells online diagnostic test, I tested the network card while playing some audio from soundcloud.com, and when I ran the test a triggered a hard buffer from the site, so now I'm thinking it's a network/network card problem. the killer wifi 6 control panel says I'm running an 802.11ac router connected and recommend I use 802.11ax router aka wi fi 6, but I have a laptop with wi-fi 6 and it runs fine without any buffer and wi-fi 6 should be compatible with wi fi 5, so now I'm thinking I got a faulty network card for my PC but I'm not 100% sure yet. my computer is fully up to date as well, (bios OS everything) i thought these updates would fix it but it didn't

TjayX · Answer

This computer is new, i got it 2 weeks ago, got good specs too 32 gb of ram, i7 12700k, and the boot drive is SSD, I haven't deleted any bloatware yet.

RoHe · Answer

How much RAM in this PC, which CPU, and is your boot drive an SSD or a HDD?

Click Start>Run>services.msc and click ok. Double-click every Killer and xTend service that's listed and change the Startup type to Disabled. Don't change anything else in services.msc. Just exit and reboot PC.

Test WiFi and/or Ethernet again...

EDIT: If the problem happens with both WiFi and Ethernet, it's not likely to be a network issue directly, because WiFi is a separate plug-in card while Ethernet is on the motherboard. So this sounds like either software or a resources issue. How much junk software is running in the background in addition to all that Killer/xTend stuff which you don't need.

TjayX · Answer

just tried your method, it didn't work

RoHe · Answer

Did you disable all Killer and xTend stuff including Killer Control Panel? Check in Task Manager to make sure no Killer or xTend processes are running after you boot. And then look on Startup tab in Task Manager to disable any that are still loading.

Try disabling all "Dell" services in services.msc (eg, Dell Command, Dell Update,, Dell Digital Delivery, SupportAssist, etc). Reboot when done.

If you're using McAfee (may have been pre-installed by Dell). Disable it and revert to Windows Security (aka: Windows Defender). If you want to uninstall McAfee, you should register an account at their website first, so you can download/install it again for free, if you decide you want to use McAfee. And you should use McAfee's own MCPR uninstaller tool to remove it, Method 2, here.

How hot is PC getting? Is CPU "throttling" down due to heating? "K" series CPUs can get very hot.

Which GPU do you have?

Roryjm · Answer

Any chance you are use the windows 11 preview or beta versions? There can be driver wirdness with some builds.

If you or seeing your external drive light up when the noise happens it might be in low power mode or comething, try unplugging anything you don't need, see if that solves it and add from there. I had a previous machine that liked to dismount external drives when not in use and then just randomly reactive them, it's would cause a real quick explorer pause. I think I had to adjust the power settings.

RoHe · Answer

@TjayX - You can also try changing some of the Power settings on this PC, if disabling the Dell services mentioned above don't solve the problem.

Reboot PC and open Device Manager. Expand list under USB. Double-click each USB entry and click its Power Management tab, if it has one. Uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off...". Repeat for all USB entries.

Now open the entries for your WiFi and Ethernet adapters and click their Power Management tab and uncheck that same box. Exit Device Manager when done.

Next, open the Windows Power & Sleep screen. Click Additional Power Settings. On next screen identify the active Power plan and click Change Plan Settings. On next screen, click Change Advanced Power Settings.

On that last screen, disable Hibernation, Hybrid Sleep, USB Selective Suspend, and PCI Express Link State Management, and change the Wireless Network Adapter setting on that screen to Max Performance. Save the changes to the Power plan and reboot. See if that helps.

@Roryjm - Dell only sells the XPS 8950 with Win 11, and they wouldn't have installed any "preview or beta versions" of the OS.

Roryjm · Answer

Oh I know it would be windows 11, but you can still opt in for beta updates of windows 11 before they become public via the insiders program. While generally this doesn't cause issues, I have found the occasional driver problem because, well beta.

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XPS 8950, SoundCloud streaming issue, slight buffer

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