# Experiencing strange behavior (choppy audio + low fps) DPC Latency?



## R-Man (Jul 21, 2016)

Hello!


For the past couple of days I’ve been having some strange issues with my pc.
The first time I noticed that something was not right was when I was listening to a YouTube video. I left the video playing in the background and I pulled up the Steam window and I noticed the audio was getting choppy. I then reverted back to the video and it was all fine. I brought up the Steam window to see if it’s the culprit and the audio went bad again. (video)

Note: in the video I reproduced the problem using Steam's music player instead of YouTube

It appears that interaction with the window will cause this. I tried the same thing with Origin and I received the same result. I did not address the issue after the first encounter thinking that maybe some update will fix it.


The second time when it hit me, was after I just started a Dota 2 match to see that my fps was barely reaching 30 (usually it was around 60). Not only that but the audio was all choppy, the same way as the first time. What is even stranger is that if I bring up the menu, which is an overlay so the game still renders all, the fps and the audio get back to normal. (video) I have tested some other games and I figured only some are affected by this problem. For example GTA V gets affected (suffered a drop from 50-60 to 30-35) while Battlefield 4 doesn’t.

What I have tried: removed video drivers with DDU, installed most recent video driver, also tried the drivers that came on CD with the gpu, reinstalled steam, uninstalled audio drivers, messed with the settings in games and also with the Radeon Settings thingy, ran a scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, temps are ok.

Note: the audio in the videos I uploaded sounds less choppy than it actually is.

I don’t know how to investigate this any further so I request your help.

Specs:
Mobo: AsRock 980DE3/U3S3
CPU: AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5 GHz / 4.1GHz turbo
GPU: Sapphire 7770 GHz OC @ 1100 MHz clock / 1250 MHz memory
Windows 10

Thanks in advance!


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## okidna (Jul 21, 2016)

Based on the choppy audio issue, maybe some DPC latency problem?

Since you're using Windows10, try to use LatencyMon : http://www.resplendence.com/download/LatencyMon.exe
Run the installer, run the program, and use your PC to play game like usual, if you experienced the audio choppy/dropping look at LatencyMon windows and report back (screenshot) what are you seeing.

Also it would be nice if you could fill your PC spec here : https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/account/specs


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## R-Man (Jul 21, 2016)

Alright. I ran Dota 2 for about 3 minutes. Here's what I got from LatencyMon:

The Main tab





The Drivers tab




The CPUs tab




And the info from the Stats tab
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates. 
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:02:52  (h:mm:ss) on all processors.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name:                                        RAZVAN-PC
OS version:                                           Windows 8 , 6.2, build: 9200 (x64)
Hardware:                                             ASRock, 980DE3/U3S3
CPU:                                                  AuthenticAMD AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor 
Logical processors:                                   6
Processor groups:                                     1
RAM:                                                  8174 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed:                                   2643 MHz
Measured CPU speed:                                   22 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.

WARNING: the CPU speed that was measured is only a fraction of the CPU speed reported. Your CPUs may be throttled back due to variable speed settings and thermal issues. It is suggested that you run a utility which reports your actual CPU frequency and temperature. 



_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started execution. This includes the scheduling and execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait state in response to that event.

Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs):   26968.092313
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs):   14.804779

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs):       26961.247868
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs):       7.579695


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              33747.784336
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       USBPORT.SYS - USB 1.1 & 2.0 Port Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.420228
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   USBPORT.SYS - USB 1.1 & 2.0 Port Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.466985

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   83392
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs):                68
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              51
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              77
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished execution.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              36247.716988
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.728451
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          1.603429

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   799384
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs):                486
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              102
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              77
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count:                 rundll32.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults                       29401
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          16342
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs):          3499103623151.0
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%):              524728630.960052
Number of processes hit:                              14


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       35.107849
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs):                33348.480893
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s):                   2.065972
CPU 0 ISR count:                                      60202
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs):                36247.716988
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s):                   12.398527
CPU 0 DPC count:                                      687429
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       11.197214
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs):                33747.784336
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s):                   2.356847
CPU 1 ISR count:                                      18324
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs):                34265.813848
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s):                   3.126186
CPU 1 DPC count:                                      44639
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       3.927578
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs):                31532.259175
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.374669
CPU 2 ISR count:                                      5234
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs):                30518.333333
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.406607
CPU 2 DPC count:                                      20565
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.789741
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs):                16685.189936
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.024774
CPU 3 ISR count:                                      165
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs):                15603.047673
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.195355
CPU 3 DPC count:                                      15417
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.647372
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs):                18.922058
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000023
CPU 4 ISR count:                                      4
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs):                3706.421869
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.243215
CPU 4 DPC count:                                      19367
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.775233
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs):                17.303443
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000051
CPU 5 ISR count:                                      24
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs):                16704.063564
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.187982
CPU 5 DPC count:                                      13243
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Edit:

I've ran the test again but this time I started recording after the game finished loading to exclude hangs during that time. The conclusion changed but the drivers with the biggest latency remain the same.

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.


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## little cat (Jul 21, 2016)

Defrag the hdd . Use CCleaner to clean some garbage


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## okidna (Jul 21, 2016)

Wow, that numbers is just too high.

Try to update your USB port driver, use AMD chipset driver to update USB filter driver.
If it's still not helping, unplug all non necessary USB devices and try to disable your USB port from Device Manager.

Oh one last thing, try to disable Cool n Quiet if you have it enabled.


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## R-Man (Jul 21, 2016)

So... I'm a bit confused. Where should I get the chipset driver? AMD's site, AsRock's site or the cd that came with the motherboard?
Also, when I tried disabling the USB ports, some would not give me that option. Should I uninstall them?


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## okidna (Jul 21, 2016)

R-Man said:


> So... I'm a bit confused. Where should I get the chipset driver? AMD's site, AsRock's site or the cd that came with the motherboard?
> Also, when I tried disabling the USB ports, some would not give me that option. Should I uninstall them?



Chipset driver from AMD website : http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=legacy4&os=Windows 10 - 64

No need to disable the driver then, just unplug any non essential USB devices (printer, flashdrive, external harddrive, etc.), try to run with bare minimum USB devices connected, only mouse and keyboard.

If these steps still does not improve your latency then the problem might not be the latency, something else is causing it.


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## R-Man (Jul 21, 2016)

I have unplugged all the USB devices and disabled all the ports and plugged a PS/2 mouse and keyboard. I managed to get 40-45 fps in Dota (still 60 fps only with menu active). LatencyMon gave me this results:


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## Onderon (Jul 21, 2016)

I had that same problem several weeks ago, for me it was a dying hdd, i had 2 hdds and a ssd, the hdd that died was my media drive not my main drive, even so it was the problem, after it died and i got it out of my pc everything started running fine again.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

Alright, so I did some testing with my HDDs (defrag + bad sector scan) and they seem to be okay.
I've also installed the AMD chipset drivers, plugged my USB devices back and it looks like my performance has not changed (still 40-45 in Dota), which is some form of progress I guess.
I ran two tests on Dota with LatencyMon, one during normal play and the other with the menu overlay open and the latency is way lower when the menu is open.

First test, normal play









Second test, with menu open


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## natr0n (Jul 22, 2016)

http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/

use this should help, download free one. click maximum and dpc latency should drop

I use it myself


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

natr0n said:


> http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/
> 
> use this should help, download free one. click maximum and dpc latency should drop
> 
> I use it myself



Unfortunately it did nothing for me.


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## little cat (Jul 22, 2016)

Does it mean it is a Steam issue ? Might try an Origin game !


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## okidna (Jul 22, 2016)

R-Man said:


> Alright, so I did some testing with my HDDs (defrag + bad sector scan) and they seem to be okay.



Can you check the SMART data for each of your hard drive? 

I run LatencyMon on my system out of curiosity, strangely I also get a high number but no FPS drop, stuttering, or audio issues at all.


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## little cat (Jul 22, 2016)

My picture looks like his last , therefore it has to be a Steam issue


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## Mussels (Jul 22, 2016)

Just as a possible alternative, quit or minimise these programs and see what happens - right before i left AMD for my Nvidya 970 i saw oddness with blizzards battle.net launcher open in the background, as it had the possibility to play videos (much like steam) it was locking my GPU to low 3D clocks and causing FPS drops.

It's kind of a wild guess, but look into all thees running programs and see - it COULD be a video driver/video codec bug like i had.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

Here is the SMART data for each drive.












It seems that my old HDD has issues. Should I try unplugging it?


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## R-T-B (Jul 22, 2016)

R-Man said:


> It seems that my old HDD has issues. Should I try unplugging it?



Should not make a difference, though it does have 7 pending sectors, FWIW.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

I thought so. By the way I rarely use that drive. It just stores some files that I use from time to time.

Edit: 
I ran an extended test with Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and it passed. I don't think that old HDD is the issue.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

Okay, so it appears that the choppy audio is gone and now I am only confronting with low fps (about 15-20 lower than usual). I ran a test with LatencyMon while playing GTA V and these were the results.


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## Onderon (Jul 22, 2016)

you should try plugging out the old hdd (500GB one) it looks exactly like my failing hdd, its a quick test also, so i shouldn't be a problem, from the looks of it it is out of free sectors to relocate, and that is going to create reading error even when its idle, i'm just talking from my experience.


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## okidna (Jul 22, 2016)

I think you need to also try @Mussels, @little cat, and @Onderon  suggestions. Could be audio & video driver issue and also Steam issue.
-What Crimson driver version are you in? Have you tried rollback to older driver?
-Try to play game with disabled onboard audio.
-Try to unplug the old HDD and play games to really check the possibility whether it's the problem or not.

And I saw your video recording here, for me GPU & CPU clocks and temperatures seems normal, only GPU usage seems a little bit high.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

Scratch my last post. The audio choppiness is still there but it's less noticeable.
I will try those.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

So, I pulled out the old HDD and it did not help and neither did disabling the audio drivers.

I currently have the 16.7.3 Crimson drivers. I tried rolling back to 16.3.2 and also the drivers that came on the cd with the GPU, 13.1 i believe, but no success.

About closing the Steam window when playing, yes, I did that too. It doesn't seem to affect it in any way. If you were talking about ending the process, well, if I do that then I wouldn't be able to run Dota since in needs Steam. Sorry for bringing up Dota so much but it's one of the few games that I know what fps I had before the issue arised and it's one of the few ways of telling if the problem is still present, even more now that the audio choppiness is less noticeable.


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## R-Man (Jul 22, 2016)

okidna said:


> And I saw your video recording here, for me GPU & CPU clocks and temperatures seems normal, only GPU usage seems a little bit high.



Yes, I have also made a thread there so that maybe a dev could point out to what's causing the issue. However that forum doesn't seem very alive.


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## RejZoR (Jul 23, 2016)

Right click start, select Event Viewer. Wait for it to generate reports and inspect those under Error and Warning... Sometimes things listed here are the most obvious offenders that no one ever checks...


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
> _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.
> ...



Get more memory. You're using swap space and page faults are taking a long time, as expected. I would suggest upgrading to 16GB.

Have you people seriously missed the most obvious issue here? Low memory seems to be a glaring issue.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Right click start, select Event Viewer. Wait for it to generate reports and inspect those under Error and Warning... Sometimes things listed here are the most obvious offenders that no one ever checks...



After a fresh reboot, I started Dota and played for a bit, encountered bad audio and fps. Then I checked the Event Viewer but there were no errors/warnings that happened during playing.



Aquinus said:


> Get more memory. You're using swap space and page faults are taking a long time, as expected. I would suggest upgrading to 16GB.
> 
> Have you people seriously missed the most obvious issue here? Low memory seems to be a glaring issue.



I don't think memory is the issue. During playing there are almost 3GB of RAM free and about 2.5 on standby. Also the disk usage was pretty low after the game loaded.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> After a fresh reboot, I started Dota and played for a bit, encountered bad audio and fps. Then I checked the Event Viewer but there were no errors/warnings that happened during playing.


Hard faults aren't going to result in logged events because it's normal for the computer to do this but, it's also normal for the computer to have performance issues the more this happens which still won't result in any errors or warnings in the event log.


R-Man said:


> I don't think memory is the issue. During playing there are almost 3GB of RAM free and about 2.5 on standby. Also the disk usage was pretty low after the game loaded.


That's not really the problem. Windows will swap stuff out of memory to make room for other things if the total available memory gets below a certain point and will definitely start doing it once you start getting low. If you go into the task manage in Windows 10 and select the "Memory" section, you should see a "Committed" section. This represents all of your memory usage between both the page file and system memory. If this number is well over the size of physical memory, then you've been running out of memory and running into swap space. When I boot up Windows, it looks like this for me with my page file disabled. If I had a 16GB page file, the maximum size in the "Committed" section would be 32GB.





It's entirely possible to have 3GB of physical memory free but, still have a bunch of stuff offloaded to the page file. I'm also just pointing out what I see from what you provided because, despite most of the changes you've made, the number of hard faults is still pretty high.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

Here's a screenshot of Task Manager I took while Dota was opened and playing (this is when choppy audio and bad fps are happening)




And here is one I took after I opened the menu (no choppy audio and fps is normal).




Does this look okay?

Edit: 

I forgot to mention that I did not take these after a reboot, if that matters.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> Here's a screenshot of Task Manager I took while Dota was opened and playing (this is when choppy audio and bad fps are happening)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is DOTA installed on the F: drive?


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> Is DOTA installed on the F: drive?



Yes.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> Yes.


If your swap file is there too, the drive could be thrashing. If you have room on your SSD, I would try installing it there to see if the problem goes away. Also an application like process explorer should be able narrow down exactly what is causing the hard faults as it doesn't look like you're running out of memory. However, notice the size of cache versus the used size. Windows clearly thinks it's worth while to move 0.5GB worth of memory into the page file for the sake of file caching. Perhaps access latency on the drive is worse than it should be? If the WD blues are 5400 RPM drives, that could be an indicator. Hard faults are notorious for degrading performance if the swap file is on a spinning disk and if it's being accessed often.

Edit: Quick question. Does DOTA minimize quickly or does it take a little bit? If it's not almost instant, that could indicate that the page file being used too often is at fault as that could be the result of Windows swapping pages in.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

I placed the pagefile on the SSD and unfortunately it didn't make a difference.
The 1 TB drive is 7200 RPM. I am not sure about the 500 GB one

Dota minimizes and also maximizes almost instantly when using exclusive full screen and instantly when using borderless mode.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> I placed the pagefile on the SSD and unfortunately it didn't make a difference.


You restarted after doing that, right? Page file changes require a restart to take effect.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> You restarted after doing that, right? Page file changes require a restart to take effect.



Of course.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

Hmmmm. You can always try to move DOTA to the SSD but, I have a feeling that won't work either. I'm starting to wonder if the page fault issue is related to something like an audio driver or something.

You wouldn't happen to have upgraded to Windows 10 from and older version and haven't done a clean install, have you? I had a lot of driver issues when I merely upgraded, in particular with my GPU. You could download process explorer and add the page fault and page fault delta column to try and find what the offender is, assuming that first application you used was accurate.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

Windows 10 is clean. I will post the results I get with Process Explorer. I will also try moving Dota on the SSD to see if it changes anything.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

Hmmmm. I'm starting to run out of ideas. I still think that the audio drivers could be to blame and could be the reason why the page fault indicator went off. If you're running a higher than normal sampling rate, I would bring it down to 48Khz/24-bit just to rule it out. I would see if there is a newer audio driver and make sure that Windows 10 didn't update it on you behind the scenes. Another thought might be CPU and GPU temps. Do you experience this behavior in any other application or game?


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

I made a quick recording of Process Explorer while playing Dota. Here it is:









Edit:

The audio was already set to 48000 Hz 24 bit.

Yes, I have this problem in other games (it happens in GTA V but not in Battlefield 4) but it also happens when I move the Steam or the Origin windows (check the first video in the opening post)


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## RejZoR (Jul 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> Hard faults aren't going to result in logged events because it's normal for the computer to do this but, it's also normal for the computer to have performance issues the more this happens which still won't result in any errors or warnings in the event log.
> 
> That's not really the problem. Windows will swap stuff out of memory to make room for other things if the total available memory gets below a certain point and will definitely start doing it once you start getting low. If you go into the task manage in Windows 10 and select the "Memory" section, you should see a "Committed" section. This represents all of your memory usage between both the page file and system memory. If this number is well over the size of physical memory, then you've been running out of memory and running into swap space. When I boot up Windows, it looks like this for me with my page file disabled. If I had a 16GB page file, the maximum size in the "Committed" section would be 32GB.
> View attachment 77259
> ...



That's not true. It depends on scenario, but a driver, be it graphics or audio driver can churn out errors and you won't see anything on the outside because of it. I had such issues with NVIDIA driver that was shitting errors like mad in Event Viewer, but on desktop, there was nothing obvious apart from problems I'd never tie to NVIDIA if it wasn't for Event Viewer inspection. Rule No.1, whenever you have ANY kind of problems, first go to Event Viewer. Always.


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

I tried both uninstalling the audio driver and installing the latest one. Neither helped.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2016)

R-Man said:


> I made a quick recording of Process Explorer while playing Dota. Here it is:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is Puush making that many hard faults when you're not recording? It seems DOTA might be occasionally hard faulting from that video but, it's hard to say.


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## 95Viper (Jul 23, 2016)

Not trying to butt in on everyone trying to help...

OP, do you use push to take screenshots?
You might wanna remove it for testing.  In your video it had caused over 3 million page faults!
Just mentioning it.

Edit:  I was reading your mind Aquinus


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## R-Man (Jul 23, 2016)

Yes, I noticed that too. After seeing the video I stopped the puush process and tried playing again, but it made no difference.

Also, I just finished downloading Dota on the SSD and the only notable difference were loading times. The fps and audio were still bad.


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## okidna (Jul 24, 2016)

R-Man said:


> I made a quick recording of Process Explorer while playing Dota. Here it is:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What is obs64.exe? Open Broadcaster Software? Have you tried running DOta2 without OBS running in the background?


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## R-Man (Jul 24, 2016)

I used OBS to record, but I don't think it has any significant impact on the issue because it happens even if OBS is not running. I don't usually have OBS opened in the background.


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## little cat (Jul 24, 2016)

Why so much page faults ?


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## R-Man (Sep 14, 2016)

Today I replaced the 7770 with an RX 480 and the dpc latency issues seem to be gone. Just wanted to give a proper ending to the thread.

Thank you all once again for the support!


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## Onderon (Sep 14, 2016)

tnx for the reply, i was going to say that it sucks we couldn't find the cause, but it was probably a defective GPU?, anyway congrats , i had that same problem and it can make you stop gaming or even using the pc altogether.


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## Onderon (Sep 22, 2016)

I'm going to resurrect this post instead of creating a new one, so guys i was visiting my moms house with the kids and we stayed there for a week, that week my PC was off, and i usually also unplug the voltage regulator from the socket, i'm mild paranoic about protecting my pc, so here is the thing, when i powered on the PC yesterday, i started playing again and there it was, the ultra annoying artifacts in the audio, everything runs "fine" except for that choppy audio with distortion AND this is weird the mouse lags when its inside the steam UI.


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## Caring1 (Sep 22, 2016)

No idea, but I had the same symptoms the other day while updates were running in the background, with Skype open and a couple of browser tabs.
Audio was breaking up and the mouse barely moved, or jumped around. All good now with minimal load running.


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## Onderon (Sep 22, 2016)

I thought about that, windows, steam and nvidia drivers were updating but after everything updated the problem persisted, today i'm going to resit the ram modules and maybe try with some older drivers.


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