Popping / crackling sound at the start of some audio playback

[Fastfishy2]

I'm having an issue where certain sounds can have a very slight 'pop' effect right at the beginning of the sound being played.
I started noticing it in Red Dead Redemption 2, where one or two sounds (mostly to do with mission notifications) would have a slight 'pop' or cutting-in sound when they begin playback.
Most sounds in most games are unaffected, but it crops up here and there.

Trouble is, it's bothering me. The easiest way I could reproduce it was getting the Windows sound test slider on-screen and rapidly clicking at different points on the volume slider.
Each time it tries to play a new tone at a different volume in rapid succession, there's a clear 'pop' at the start of each playback when the new sound cuts in.

I ran LatencyMon at the suggestion of some threads I saw mentioning this issue and attributing it to buffer overrun (which is something I'd never even heard of before) and got the following result:

I already have it on high-performance mode, and it's a fresh Windows 11 Reinstall as of 2 weeks ago. I have the bare minimum of background programs running, certainly nothing that should be holding up a PC of this specs range.

Playing on a windows 11 PC, Audiotechnica M30x wired headset into my motherboard 3.5mm audio jack.
R7 5800X3D
32GB DDR4-3200 (16x2)
Asus ROG B550-A Motherboard
RX 7900XT 20GB
Corsair RM750X
OS running on Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1tb NVME

What do I even do about this?

 

[Ferather]

Windows 11 24H2? The HDA Bus should never be that high, more like 4 us not 274.00 us. If you have Win11 24H2 is probably a driver issue, 24H2 is full of rubbish.



Screenshot taken on Win 10, whilst playing music.

AMD R7 5800X (not 3D).

 

[Fastfishy2]

Windows 11 24H2? The HDA Bus should never be that high, more like 4 us not 274.00 us. If you have Win11 24H2 is probably a driver issue, 24H2 is full of rubbish.

View attachment 371532

Screenshot taken on Win 10, whilst playing music.

AMD R7 5800X (not 3D).

I'll have to check the windows version when I get back to my PC tomorrow, but if it is 24H2, how would I go about fixing this audio driver issue?

Windows 11 24H2? The HDA Bus should never be that high, more like 4 us not 274.00 us. If you have Win11 24H2 is probably a driver issue, 24H2 is full of rubbish.

View attachment 371532

Screenshot taken on Win 10, whilst playing music.

AMD R7 5800X (not 3D).

Just had a look. Version 23H2, build 22731.4317

 

[Ferather]

Well we have similar hardware, I have an AMD R7 5800X and RX 7900XT 20GB. If that screenshot is idle (or close) then there is something not right with the GPU driver (best guess).
The GPU can end up using the Microsoft HDA bus driver as well if there was no AMD bus driver installed. Dxgkrnl is very high, so is the HDA bus.

Try running this tool (right click run as admin), tick all devices that support MSI mode, even the basic MSI mode, reboot.

MSI Utility

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

 

[Ruru]

For pure curiousity, tested mine. 5800X, X470, RTX 3080, Win11 24H2. Tested with VLC playing media on other monitor.

 

[Ferather]

Here is the AMD display driver version I am using, I also uninstalled and removed noise suppression, as it can also cause issues (re-directs audio to GPU then back to device).
If its not the driver, it might be possible the monitor timings don't 100% agree with the GPU (which can happen). I am using an AMD X570.

 

[dont whant to set it"']

@Fastfishy2 Ram at defaults? I've encountered similar with out of spec settings, 10-20 MV extra for SoC did the trick.

 

[kapone32]

I have a 7900X3D/7900XT system and since 24H2 I also get that. I have a sub and to hear it thump is jarring to say the least but the pop from the speakers is crazy. It is like they want us to go to Linux.

 

[Fastfishy2]

Well we have similar hardware, I have an AMD R7 5800X and RX 7900XT 20GB. If that screenshot is idle (or close) then there is something not right with the GPU driver (best guess).
The GPU can end up using the Microsoft HDA bus driver as well if there was no AMD bus driver installed. Dxgkrnl is very high, so is the HDA bus.

Try running this tool (right click run as admin), tick all devices that support MSI mode, even the basic MSI mode, reboot.

MSI Utility

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

View attachment 371622

That screenshot is after a session of RDR2. I'll give that tool a try when I get home from work.

@Fastfishy2 Ram at defaults? I've encountered similar with out of spec settings, 10-20 MV extra for SoC did the trick.

Yup, ram all at defaults.

Here is the AMD display driver version I am using, I also uninstalled and removed noise suppression, as it can also cause issues (re-directs audio to GPU then back to device).
If its not the driver, it might be possible the monitor timings don't 100% agree with the GPU (which can happen). I am using an AMD X570.

View attachment 371627 View attachment 371628

For pure curiousity, tested mine. 5800X, X470, RTX 3080, Win11 24H2. Tested with VLC playing media on other monitor.

View attachment 371624

This is what I get from watching youtube shorts for 20 minutes, after running the .msi tool that was linked on this thread

 

[Ruru]

This is what I get from watching youtube shorts for 20 minutes, after running the .msi tool that was linked on this thread
View attachment 371668

Looks better now though not perfect. No audio issues during that test?

 

[Ferather]

Much better, you might need to look at the drivers list and sort by execution and then sort by dpc to see what's the worst.

 

[Fastfishy2]

Nope, YouTube still gets the odd faint pop and I sometimes get worse results than the one pictured. RDR2 still gets some with certain sound effects although looking around that seems to be a known issue with the game.

I'm working down the list of things to reduce my driver latencies but the main ones still seem to be quite high e.g kernel driver, DirectX runtime, and audio bus. I might need to do a full windows reinstall from USB tomorrow if none of the less invasive stuff fixes it.

Oddly enough, moving the 3.5mm jack to the back of my monitor (and therefore routing it through the 7900XT & AMD audio drivers) Removed the popping with the volume slider but did nothing to fix latency or other popping sounds.

 

[Ruru]

I might need to do a full windows reinstall from USB tomorrow if none of the less invasive stuff fixes it.

Hope you have a spare SSD for that in case it doesn't help so you don't lose your current working install. Been there, done that... in my case, it was just a defective motherboard.

 

[chrcoluk]

Try disabling adaptive TSC timers.

I have had them disabled for ages, but due to an experiment, I reverted it to default about a month ago and started noticing pops or crackles at start of sounds following any period of silence, took me a few weeks to figure out, but as soon as I set the timer config again, after the reboot issue was gone.

Command in elevated command prompt.

bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes

To revert to default.

bcdedit /delete disabledynamictick

Both cases require reboot to apply.

 

[Ferather]

I have some more tips, you will need to run through hardware and disable power saving, one of the easiest is the registry for some devices (audio and-or video).

Open Regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ then search for 'PerformanceIdleTime', edit the 3 values to 0.
You will need to search again, normally there are a few devices, in my case two. Reboot.

I have set my 5800X to run at 4.4Ghz constantly with a constant voltage (no power saving), and some other power features disabled.
Still outperforms a normal 5800X, even when the normal 5800X can hit 4.6Ghz or more, https://valid.x86.fr/f72bgh.

----

 

[Fastfishy2]

Hope you have a spare SSD for that in case it doesn't help so you don't lose your current working install. Been there, done that... in my case, it was just a defective motherboard.

eh I don't mind wiping my windows back down to barebones, I only game on this PC anyway.

I have some more tips, you will need to run through hardware and disable power saving, one of the easiest is the registry for some devices (audio and-or video).

Open Regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ then search for 'PerformanceIdleTime', edit the 3 values to 0.
You will need to search again, normally there are a few devices, in my case two. Reboot.

I have set my 5800X to run at 4.4Ghz constantly with a constant voltage (no power saving), and some other power features disabled.
Still outperforms a normal 5800X, even when the normal 5800X can hit 4.6Ghz or more, https://valid.x86.fr/f72bgh.

----

Did that as well. Still throws up complaints in LatencyMon as soon as I start gaming. Games themselves behave relatively fine, although RDR2 still has the odd audio pop, but other than that I can't seem to fix it.

This is what I have from a recent RDR2 run. It was all relatively fine when I watched youtube for 20 minutes. Then I launched RDR2 and it starts complaining again.

Try disabling adaptive TSC timers.

I have had them disabled for ages, but due to an experiment, I reverted it to default about a month ago and started noticing pops or crackles at start of sounds following any period of silence, took me a few weeks to figure out, but as soon as I set the timer config again, after the reboot issue was gone.

Command in elevated command prompt.

bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes

To revert to default.

bcdedit /delete disabledynamictick

Both cases require reboot to apply.

I've got that one done as well. Still no luck.

Ok, this is what I got after playing Hitman 3 for a few minutes. It's still telling me there's something wrong, but the numbers are much lower than they used to be for the most part. I did a bunch of changes in BIOS, like disabling fTPM, manually setting my PCIE to Gen4 mode, and disabling XMP / DOCP to manually set my RAM to its box speed of 3200mhz. That might've helped, I hope.

 

[Ferather]

Here I am playing a game, also playing music on the other desktop, discord and steam running also:



Windows 10 19045.5131, the drivers I listed (can share if needed).

BIOS: 5013 (Asus Prime X570-Pro)

 

[Fastfishy2]

Here I am playing a game, also playing music on the other desktop, discord and steam running also:

View attachment 371759

Windows 10 19045.5131, the drivers I listed (can share if needed).

BIOS: 5013 (Asus Prime X570-Pro)

This is what I get from just playing RDR2 with google and discord open (but not on call) in the background. Everything *seems* to be running relatively fine, although RDR2 still has its occasional audio pops, but nothing else seems to be affected. If I didn't know about LatencyMon I'd probably have chalked it up to RDR2 having an issue and moving on with things. And this is just after updating my motherboard BIOS to the newest version too.

 

[Ferather]

Can you change the BIOS back and test?

For some GPU tests (if needed), if you are using HDR mode, turn it off, also turn off any variable refresh rate and set the monitor to 120-144 Hz.
My monitor will also do 165 Hz, but its in overclock mode and not using the proper pixel clock and timings for standard 165 Hz.

A bit irrelevant, but also make sure your mouse polling rate is suitable for your monitors refresh rate, although higher means more CPU.

Also with LatencyMon, when you run a test, stop it and run it again, the app its self adds to some of the numbers you see.
Even drawing a tooltip and moving the mouse in the app will add to highest measurement.

 

[Fastfishy2]

Can you change the BIOS back and test?

For some GPU tests (if needed), if you are using HDR mode, turn it off, also turn off any variable refresh rate and set the monitor to 120-144 Hz.
My monitor will also do 165 Hz, but its in overclock mode and not using the proper pixel clock and timings for standard 165 Hz.

A bit irrelevant, but also make sure your mouse polling rate is suitable for your monitors refresh rate, although higher means more CPU.

Also with LatencyMon, when you run a test, stop it and run it again, the app its self adds to some of the numbers you see.
Even drawing a tooltip and moving the mouse in the app will add to highest measurement.


View attachment 371930

All good. I've been told in another thread that unless it causes really noticeable issues with games - which for the most part, it doesn't - then I don't need to concern myself too much.

 

[RetroPC]

In my PC the latency rises to very bad levels when I am using the network to the maximum, that is, the network adapter (Killer E2200) is the problem in my system

Despite this I have no audio cuts, I am using a dedicated sound card.

Saludos!