Very curious if anyone is using their x14 for Audio. I did a lot of research and decided to purchase the Alienware x14. the moment I got it, I tested the latency and it was worse than my 3 year old ASUS. I then opened Abelton with 512 buffer and tried a simple, no plugin stereo track using my MOTU X4 and Antelope Zen Studio. Constant Drop outs.

I contacted tech support after running Latency Monitor and they didn't even know what latency was. I waited 2 weeks to hear back and still no solution. then, after more research, I found online so many others having the same issue, Poor Audio, Poor gaming and worse Video.

I then tried to contact Dell to return the computer and guess what? 3 days past 30 day return due to waiting 2 weeks for tech support! Nice. Then, I went to try to leave a review, seriously, go try, there are hundreds of reviews on this site but you cant leave one, something is not right about this. I've never had such a poor machine, particulars given the cost. it is not usable for Audio and thus, a paperweight for me.

Code of Conduct. DELL-Admin> I hope someone from Dell sees this and helps, but after my 3 interactions with Support, I doubt it.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/Dell-XPS-DPC-Latency-Fix/td-p/7367700

Hey, thanks for sending, but none of this worked. I actually bit the bullet and did a full fresh install of everything and still awful performance.Im so surprised how bad the Alienware X14 is for audio production and gaming. Its constant. these are results with a fresh windows install.

tech Support has been, lets say, not good. they pretend its not an issue. The refuse to even look at the latency monitor, they take over my computer and run the same diagnostics, the dell diagnostics and say nothing is wrong, well it is.

This is my first Dell / Alienware and I can't believe how poor the performance is and how poor the support is.

Thus far, i've tried the following

1) Complete windows 11 fresh install

2) Fresh install and Delete ALL Dell Products and any other extrasoftware

3) Maximizing all power settings in both bios and windows

4) Followed the windows maximization guide for ProTools and Abelton

5) Today, just updated to the new BIOS and did the same above. ,

Still, can;t do any real time audio on this computer, huge latency spikes.

@jbonaparte I'm have exactly the same issues you have described on my XPS 15 9510. I also Have XPS 17 and Dell Precision, all with exactly the sam issue, of high latency and audio cracks/glitches. 

I, like you, have spent months trying to fix it (reinstalls, os reinstall, driver reinstalls, hacks, tweaks, all kinds of changes), but I wasn't able to ultimately get rid of the cracks. I managed to get them shorter and rarer, but they still appear on occasions (once every day/every few days).

I am on call with Dell, and they only suggest full reinstalls (i did them, but it doesn't help), and they swap my mother board (they already swapped it twice, but with no help). Now, when I ask what to do with my audio problems, they suggest I should swap the motherboard 3rd time.

What I tried:

- Reinstalling every Intel Driver, Dell Driver, Microsoft Driver or Realtek driver to different versions

- Installing Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home, Windows 11

- Setting minimum/maximum processor state, to 100%/99%, 2%/8%, none of the configuration works

- Disabling C-States in Bios

- Disabling Intel Speed-Step in Bios

- Booting with AHCI instead of Raid

- Disabling audio enchancments

- Booting in safe mode

- Installing legacy driver issues (like from year 2006)

- Disabling Realtek Audio Service and Windows Audio Service

- Uninstalling every single Dell program, service 

- Increasing `audiodg.exe` process priority to "high" and "above high".

- Changing the affinity of the Audio Service to not run on Core#1 and Core#2

Nothing of this helped. I still get cracks and glitches. Best explanation I get currently, is that ACPI.sys Windows driver provides hooks for various manufactures, and Dell hooks are like the slowest possible.

@Danielowski​ did you ever find a solution for this? I am having major audio issues and have tried everything you have listed already. Alienware M18 R2

@tomosiris​ Sorry. It was bothering very much, I tried to fix it for something like 1.5 year. I noticed that the problem seams to appear less often with bluetooth headphones, but sometimes still happens. 

Dell for sound is very poor, I think :/