After 1803, AV system is microstuttering every few seconds

dalchina said:

Here's a page of links I created some time ago... ref. my suggestion of searching the forum.. They may or may not be relevant in the context of 1803 of course, as things move on, but something might prompt an idea. There will be some more recent ones on the forum.

Your .doc file included the possible solution of installing Intel Rapid Storage Technology. My system has a SSD so I found the Intel RST site, did some reading, and proceeded.

First, checked system requirements:
System Requirements for Intel® Rapid Storage Technology

Then followed the advice here to use Intel's Driver Support Assistant
Download Intel® Chipset Device Software (INF Update Utility)

Went to the Dell driver page for my model and found the IRST executable.

I created a Restore point on my system before installing just in case...

Upon installing (which required running the file as an Administrator), a warning came up that installation required .NET 3.0 or later which the warning suggested was not found on my system. However, I could install just the drivers by continuing. I elected to do that.

Re-booted and so far audio is smooth. I will come back and post again if I discover any significant issues. I was streaming RadioParadise for about 10 minutes when the audio stopped suddenly. I don't yet know if the issue was on the RP side or in my system. Perhaps something about the new drivers will cause me some WiFi issues...if so, I feel fairly confident I can remedy that. Meantime, listening happily for more than 30 minutes to music from the external drive connected to the laptop that serves as my music server, connected to my home audio system.

I hope my experience helps.

I'm starting to wonder if there really is just something physically wrong with my hard drive, or if my SATA controller is no longer properly supported by the Windows drivers, or something. Because I'm also getting this thing where whatever program I'm using will spike its hard drive usage to 100% and just stay that way for over a minute. That would seem to be consistent with storport.sys acting up.

What's the best way to diagnose every possible issue a hard drive might be having? I have another computer I could stick it into as a secondary and run the kind of diagnostics that wouldn't work on a drive that's in use, if that helps.

I get the issue with 2 different sound systems and one of these is a USB sound system. I also have the same issue with local media (mp3) and I do not believe this issue has anything to do with latency. I think something is consuming
large amounts of CPU or other resources about every 4-5 seconds.

This is my post on Microsoft forums.

have exactly the same problem after 1803 install. I spent over an hour with Microsoft telephone support. The tech kept insisting the sound issues was because the HP system on board sound system was not supported on Win10. I pointed out I was using a USB sound device but he would not listen and wanted to close the ticket.

I think something is pulling large amounts of CPU and that the issue was NOT the sound system at all but just a visible result of the root cause. I would not close the ticket and will try going back to previous build. I will call Microsoft again to see if they can help me solve the issue.

I FOUND AN IMPORTANT CLUE
I recently did a backup the disk for the 1803 version by using Paragon Disk Copy. I tested it by booting from the copy on an eSATA disk interface so I would not have to open the case and switch drives. It booted just fine AND the sound works just fine. I think it has to do with the disk interface because when I did open the case and booted from the regular SATA interface, it booted just fine BUT the sound was back to stuttering.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS WHAT IS CAUSING THIS?

dalchina said:

Sounds like the difference in a low level driver such as storport.sys.

How can I tell the version number of the driver?
Can I try to install the driver from my 1709 Win10 build?

Two important updates on this:

(1) I realized that I have a spare hard drive lying around not being used for anything important (actually, it was "lying around" inside another computer that I was using but can do without). So I popped it in as a secondary drive and installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 onto it from my DVD. And even after updating to 1803, it was working just fine. So that conclusively rules out any fundamental incompatibilities with my hardware. With my main drive recognized as drive E, I started the process of copying over some of my old files and trying to reinstall my programs. I figured, worst-case scenario, I can copy over everything that'll fit, back up the rest, wipe the old drive, ghost the new drive onto it, and then expand the partition.

(2) It did report that it found errors on my hard drive (which one, it didn't bother to say, because of course Windows 10 never bothers to be specific about anything) and needed to restart to fix them. So I let it restart, but forgot I needed to hit F12 during the BIOS screen to actually boot into that drive. But I guess Windows just marks the bad drive as needing repairs, because the boot process was nonetheless interrupted by a message saying it would spend some time checking the disk. I let it do its thing, and then it finished booting into my regular setup. I got some error messages saying it couldn't run some DLL files; I'm guessing these were stored where the errors on the disk were and got wiped. (Didn't bother to jot down what they were, but it'll probably give me the same errors next time I restart, so I'll do it then.) On a whim I decided to test the sound again... and now it's working fine. LatencyMon isn't spiking, I can watch YouTube videos just fine, the whole nine yards.

So that means there are three possibilities: (A) The problem was caused by the disk error this whole time, somehow. (B) The problem was fixed by an update that installed the last time I shut down. (C) The problem was caused by one of the drivers it can't load anymore because of the missing files, and I'm not experiencing it because Windows has reverted to a default driver for now, but attempting to re-install the driver will re-introduce the issue.

Most likely it's not C, since I already tried uninstalling the only non-default drivers I knew I had and that did nothing, and the other install is working fine. I'll keep you posted.

EDIT: Actually, I do have one question. Why was my new install able to detect the errors on the hard drive, but the old one wasn't? Is it because it can't examine its own boot drive?