4 Posts
13
69169
XPS 15-9570, Windows 10, high DPC latency, acpi.sys
Hello,
I have a dell XPS 15 9570, and I have big issues with on board and external audio.
HW Spec:
Dell XPS 15 9570, i7 8750H, 4K screen, 16g ram /512g ssd, qualcomm Killer wifi and then intel AC-9260, nVidia 1050 Ti with latest WHQL drivers, bios v1.2.2, all drivers to date as of 2018/15/07
Symptoms:
- audio cracks and pops with system audio when watching videos, listening to mp3/flac, playing games with built-in card,
- audio cracks and pops with external ASIO soundcard (focusrite scarlett 18i8 2nd gen) when running pro DAW software with 256 samples buffer @48Khz or 512 buffer @96Khz
This can damage external speakers and makes the machine unusable for live audio or even standard multimedia use.
What I did:
- applied all tweaks recommended by my external audio card's manufacturer https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-10
- ran LatencyMon and found that TCPIP.sys and ndis.sys were causing 4ms DPC latency spikes, followed by ACPI.sys 2ms and dxgkrnl.sys 1.7 ms
- swapped the qualcom card for an intel AC-9260 which eliminated totally the TCPIP.sys and ndis.sys spikes
- now ACPI.sys and dxgkrnl.sys are still causing 2ms DPC latency spikes
- audio glitches are still present
- disabled all peripherals except for keyboard, integrated graphics, trackpad, screen and storage (I disabled wifi, bluetooth, webcam, nvidia graphics, fingerprint reader, ACPI battery manager, cardreader, fall accelerometer, screen touch, etc.)
- disabled Speed-Step/ SpeedShift and Turbo-Boost, disabled virtualisation support in the BIOS to try to minimize randomness in the behaviour
- disabled fastboot
- ACPI.sys latency is still culminating at 1.7ms and causing audio dropouts with either built-in or external USB asio interface
- I've opened a support ticket over at dell with my premium support, the ticket was automatically closed a week later without anyone getting in touch with me.
I've run out of options and am looking for help.
Adrien852
5 Posts
0
December 19th, 2019 19:00
No actually, MacBook have had their issues as well, avoiding fixing them as well until enough pressure was built up... Neither windows nor MacOs platforms are real-time Sustemd and they are both based on the same hardware actually. ASIO (windows) is faster and better than Core Audio (Mac). It also all depends on DAWs, plugins etc.. There is no 1 size fits all. To have a good machine you need have it tailor made by a pro audio company that design laptops/desktops/workstations specifically for audio purposes. Obviously it’s potentially more expensive and maybe less versatile. But it will truly be optimised for audio tasks.
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?pid=148389#p148389
Adrien852
5 Posts
1
December 19th, 2019 19:00
Yes! You maybe have a top of the line sound card (mine is RME ufx+, cost me an arm and a leg, but this company has a stellar reputation when it comes to latency and drivers), and a so called top of the line XPS, if your system creates issues, soundcard will not help. The Laptop/soundcard combo will be limited by the laptop...
Adrien852
5 Posts
0
December 26th, 2019 17:00
Thank you for your reply and this tip ! I will try that as well.
How do you slow the cpu to 99% ? Is that a setting in the bios or do you use a special software ?
thank you !
florianjourde
2 Posts
0
December 30th, 2019 04:00
Those kind of stuff, Windows power alimentation, or something like that !
LuciousDK
8 Posts
0
January 2nd, 2020 05:00
I cant believe this but that just helped. Thanks man my xps 15 made me hate Dell. Problems since beginning.
pedro_estrela
25 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2020 17:00
Hi all,
did you notice SECONDS of delay caused by SMI interupts on recent bios?
details here: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/Dell-XPS-15-9560-BIOS-0-18-0-causes-SECONDS-of-SMI-latency-not/td-p/7477967
xpieman
2 Posts
0
February 19th, 2020 00:00
Hi, I have a great experience with firewire soundcards. They have a dedicated communication channel directly via system bus so they are not dependent on CPU that much. Unfortunately firewire has been basically discontinued as a interface. I've had no issues on Dell XPS with firewire M-Audio NRV 1010 (even via reduction kit to thunderbolt). Now I have a USB card (MOTU M4, excellent one, but so far useless on Dell XPS for). If you have any further tips/solutions for low latency DAW with USB soundcards on Dell XPS, please let me know. No matter how many people nowadays use their computer for live audio, Dell just does not care at all, even if we bought the most expensive notebook - we have to solve these problems ourselves.
xpieman
2 Posts
0
February 19th, 2020 01:00
No, it does not help - Focusrite, Motu, whatever USB soundcard you use...
Judge584
47 Posts
1
February 19th, 2020 02:00
High,
On my XPS 13-9360, I have found that lots of DPC latency issues are coming from Dell's version of Intel Graphic driver. Replacing Dell's with Intel's driver solved a lot of issues.
On my XPS 13-9360 :
For now with those settings it works pretty well.