Audio Stutter with new graphics driver - T61p w/ Quattro 570m

[adamcb]

I am having a problem with my sound stuttering or Crackling when I update my graphics driver.  I'm currently running 7.15.11.5685 which is fairly old compared to the 7.15.11.7597 which is currently offered.  If I update this driver then I can't play the audio cleanly.  If I reinstall the older driver then everything is fine.

Any suggestions?  Is this a faulty chip?

Thanks,

Adam

[natewkidd]

Adam,

Unfortunately I do not find a good solution.... But I have the same problem with the new graphics driver interfering with sound playback (causing stuttering and crackling). I am using a ThinkPad T61p with Windows XP Service Pack 2.

My display driver for the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570m (information from the Device Manager):

Date - 09/28/2008

Driver Version - 6.14.11.7471

My audio driver for the SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio:

Date - 02/08/2008

Driver Version - 5.10.1.5520

Both of these drivers were updated from older versions by the ThinkVantage System Update software. It took me a while to notice the audio problem. After reading your post,  I used the "Roll Back Driver" feature from the "Driver" tab in Device Manager to get back to the following driver:

NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M

Date - 09/28/2007

Driver Version - 6.14.11.5666

The stuttering/crackling ceased after doing so.

I appreciate your post (I would have never been able to figure this issue out) and I hope compatible display and audio drivers will be released soon.

Best Regards,

Nathan

[buhaw12]

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

I am experiencing something similar on a T61 running Vista SP1 with a Quadro NVS 140M (however its the same driver package). The video driver version is 7.15.11.7597 and the audio driver version is 6.10.1.5510. The problem can be best described as a shuddering/stuttering/skipping in audio, only from time to time but just enough to be annoying. It tends to occur more when the video card is busy (eg. if the system is idle audio plays fine). Reverting to an older video driver version definitely seems to improve the problem.

adamcb and natewkidd, is this similar to your problem or is yours more continuous?

Also, does anyone know how to access the older driver versions listed on the website? The page only lists the driver's numerical versions (not their file names) so you can't manually type in the URLs.

Message Edited by buhaw12 on 11-30-2008 07:11 AM

[tbessie]

I have the same sort of problem with a T400... it comes and goes, and seems to happen more often when I resume from standby.  I've posted about it here before... it seems a very rare problem.  I'm betting it's something to do with faulty hardware, tho' I'm not sure what yet.

- tim

[Agotthelf Community Moderator]

Hi,

if Itunes is installed, try uninstalling and check if the problem went away.

[natewkidd]

buhaw12:

My audio stutter problem was continuous. I had a "skip" every 2 seconds or so until I rolled back the video driver, even when the computer was idle.

You may find this other post useful if you haven't read it already...

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=T_Series_Thinkpads&message.id=19171#M19171

[buhaw12]

natewkidd:

I had previously glanced over that thread, but I'm glad you linked me back to it. I noticed an interesting post in there that got lost in all the mess regarding that guy's service call:

---

alunj wrote:

If you don't have old enough drivers on hand (I didn't), you can test with the ones at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista/156.85 - for me, installing those drivers, old though they may be, caused all my audio stuttering problems to go away. The post at http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=274049 may explain something as to why - the nVidia drivers are, apparently, taking too much processing power away from the DSP pipeline, leaving less than enough available for audio processing. There's a tool there that you can test to see if the DSP is being overused by general processing. I got red bars on mine - how about you?

---

The tool he's talking about is called DPC Latency Checker. The program's webpage (http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml) has all kinds of information regarding DPC latency and causes of high latencies, namley bad device drivers. I ran the program, and sure enough my system had red bars (indicating abnormally high latencies) whenever the audio stutters.  I've yet to fix the problem (mainly because I don't want to download old drivers from 3rd party sites), but it is reassuring to know the problem is likely a software issue rather than hardware.

To ask again -- anyone know how to access the old T61 video driver versions from the Lenovo driver site, this page http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67890 specifically?

tbessie:

I'd be willing to bet the problem is more common than the forum suggests. I suspect a lot of people (especially business customers) experience it, but either don't notice or care. It annoys me, though, that a brand new, basically top-of-the-line system won't play audio as well as my 5-year-old computer.

Message Edited by buhaw12 on 12-02-2008 11:12 AM

[alunj]

Bad news - I thought it was a software issue, but even with the older driver, the stuttering continued, just less frequently.

So, my T61p is back at the shop, "on hold until parts arrive".

I'll try to remember to come back here and post when the [much missed] laptop comes back. Wouldn't it be good if you could get a loaner replacement like you do with cars?

[buhaw12]

Wow thats no good. What parts are they replacing?

Also, how bad was your shuddering? I don't know if I could convince them to replace parts with my issue (just intermittent), but I'd hate to think I'd have to put up with it for the life of the computer.

Message Edited by buhaw12 on 12-02-2008 12:14 PM

[alunj]

My audio stutter was irritating - any time the volume got over a certain threshold, the audio would completely cut out until the audio got back to a quieter piece. It's as if the audio was being "clipped", but instead of clipping at a maximum volume, it was clipped down to zero.

The work order says that they replaced the system board - and the problem appears to be fixed. Now I'm going to update my video driver, and see if it remains fixed!