H55M-UD2H & i3 530 HDMI audio dropping out

[Squirrel44]

I've recently made a HTPC using a H55M-UD2H, Core i3 530 CPU and 4Gb RAM running Windows 7 Pro (32bit). It's using a 64Gb Kingston SSDNow V as the OS drive and then there's also a 500Gb Seagate HDD for storage.

I've connected it up to my HDTV via HDMI but every 10 to 15 minutes the audio will drop out for 1 or 2 seconds and will then return.

This happens no matter what you are watching - TV (via DVB-S with a Pinnacle 7010ix), streaming content (iPlayer, youtube, etc.) or video files. It is also not application specific, it does it in Media Centre, VLC and any other that I've tried.

I've got the latest drivers from the gigabyte site installed and all windows updates have been installed as well.

It's starting to really annoy me, especially as I'm now using my HTPC to watch all TV as I've cancelled my sky subscription.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Well it could be a problem with latency but from your description it sounds more like something interupting the processor. So I would look first at the processes and services running in Task Manager. It may be something like disk indexing that is checking every so often and disrupting the CPU cycles.

Failing that try running DPC Latency checker.

DPC Latency Checker    http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

[Squirrel44]

Finally got round to testing some things with my issues but my audio is still dropping out.

I've monitored all the processes with a combination of process explorer and process monitor (both from sysinternals) as I find them better than plain old task manager. Even with these I've not managed to track down what is causing my problem.

Randomly I did notice before I started doing all of this that the audio has been dropping out less often. It's more like every 30 mins now rather than 10 to 15.

First thing I did was disable windows indexing/search.

I've also stopped dropbox from starting at startup, I noticed it was accessing the network a lot (obviously!). I was only using it to sync files whilst I was at work anyway so it wasn't really being used. (I don't think this was my problem but I've done it anyway.)

I've also tested my system with DPC latency checker. Unfortunately it tells me that something in my system will cause drop-outs. After further investigation it looks as though it's my Pinnacle PCTV 7010ix that is causing the latency issue, if I disable it DPC says my system is OK.

Looking at the graph the latency occurs every 4 seconds or so and it's not huge, it's around 2000-2500μs, with an absolute maximum of 2650μs.

Could this be the issue that is causing the audio drop out? If so what do you suggest? The drivers that I am using for this card are installed by windows itself. Looking at the Pinnacle website there might be some beta drivers for windows 7 but it's slightly confusing so I'm going to have a look at them to see if they help.

Any other suggestions would be great.

Thanks.

[Dark Mantis]

Well it looks like you might have finally tracked down your problem. This is sometimes an issue in that there are no newer drivers/udates for the program and then you have to make a decision on what to do about it.

Sorry but I can't help further than that at the moment.

[Squirrel44]

I thought I'd use this old thread rather than start a new one as it is in regards to the same issue...

This week I've changed the TV tuner in my HTPC, the BBC switched their HD channels to DVB-S2 so I had to upgrade my card to still be able to receive them (I knew I was going to have to do it at some point, just wasn't expecting it so soon).

So I've currently disabled the Pinnacle 7010ix that I have in my HTPC and installed a new TBS 6981 (http://www.tbsdtv.com/english/product/6981.html). I installed the latest drivers off their website and now after testing with DPC latency checker the latency that I had before is now gone. (The graph is always under the green 500μs line).

Unfortunately the sound continues to drop out, I was really hoping that the new TV card would fix the problem - after 6 months of audio drop outs whilst watching TV my housemates have grown to hate my HTPC and windows media centre. I must say it is quite annoying, especially when it drops out on the punchline of a joke or similar, you obviously notice it even more when this happens. 

So again I've checked all my drivers are up to date, all windows updates are on and now I'm stuck - does anyone have an other suggestions to fix the audio drop outs?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

What are you using to produce the audio ? If it is not the on board chip make sure that you have disabled it.

Are you using the most up to date codecs ?

[Squirrel44]

I've already disabled the on board audio chip as the audio is going through HDMI.

As for codecs I'm almost certain that isn't the problem - the audio drops out no matter what you're doing. It does it in Media Center, XBMC, iplayer, when you play music (itunes and winamp), youtube etc. etc.

I think you were right when you said it is probably something interrupting the processor, is there a fool proof way to find out and/or testing this? I did try and use process explorer to try and figure this out but I couldn't see anything obvious.

[Dark Mantis]

The problem is easilly fixed but finding the culprit can be more troublesome. Latency is caused by bad programming generally. There are various rules for how a program should access the core and if it doesn't follow these rules it can result in the core not being released for the next operation and this causes a bottleneck that backs up. The biggest headache from our perspective is that we have to find the rogue program/driver.

The best way to tackle this is to go to Task Manager and then in the Processes section stop all the processes that are not required for Windows to run. If you do this one at a time until you find the one that is causing the trouble. Then depending on what it is as to how you tackle the repair.

If none of that works you would need to go to Device Manager and disable all the devices not needed to run the system. Then you can enable them one at a time and again see which one causes the problem.

Have fun!