Question
Lenovo S20 (Xeon W3520 with memory upgrade to 6GB). I mainly use this workstation as a DAW for audio recording / editing. Instead of the preinstalled Windows XP (32bit)
and the Vista Business that comes with the DAW, I installed Windows 7. Everything went fine,
system is stable, ThinkVantage drivers are up to date. A NVIDIA GeForce 260 is used as graphic card.
I get audio drop outs/stutter even with the on board sound, if I play back a mp3 or wav file. I deactived unnessary devices / background programs, tested it with HT on/off, tested it without Speedstepping and without Turbo Mode. No difference. I get a regular DPC spike every 15 seconds. And the spikes are really high (16ms). No difference if I plug in an EMU 1820 PCI card instead of the on board sound. Disabling the on board LAN didn't make a difference either.
Take a look: DPC Latency Screenshot
The DPC Latency Tool can be found here:
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
Answer
This audio stutter / latency problem can be resolved by updating the BIOS to the following:
For S20, make sure you're at BIOS 32A or later. Link to version 38A
For D20, make sure you're at BIOS 38A or later. Link to version 38A for D20
