I have been experiencing very bad audio latency problems lately, and latencymon confirms that the situation is not good, but I have been unable to find a reason why I am having this issue now when I didn't have it before, given that my hardware hasn't changed. Could the fixes for Meltdown and Spectre have anything to do with this drop in performance? And is there a solution?
My system is still OK with whatever updates we have received recently. I also have updated BIOS and Intel Management Engine.
I keep close tabs on latency as I use my PC for my recording studio, but it is an i7 6700K desktop and not a laptop.
I'll echo fireberd's report. Even on systems where I've been able to update the firmware (Surface Pro 3, Dell Venue Pro 11 7130), my audio behavior (esp. latency characteristics) are unchanged (or appear that way, anyway) in the wake of Spectre/Meltdown updates. Might be something else...
--Ed--
Thanks for your reports. You may well be right. However I have one other piece of information, which is that I'm using an AMD processor (FX-8350). Could that possibly be making a difference here?
Possibly. Both of my fully-patched system are built around Intel CPUs (one Broadwell M, the other Haswell). Thus, I can shed no personal light on the AMD side of the street. Thanks for asking: this may turn out to make a difference. I can't say!
--Ed--
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