B580 Bad audio, high DPC latency from dxgkrnl.sys

[Pepijn7]

Thanks in advance for anyone able to help.

I was advised by an advisor on the Microsoft forums to contact Intel here for my issue. I will leave a link here to that thread in case it helps to see what I tried with that person, below is also a pastebin with a list of everything I tried: 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/bad-audio-high-dpc-latency-from-dxgkrnlsys/e9b286a5-8251-4ba2-8c97-1aa9bc7a8e4e

I recently build a new PC, everything is working fine except the audio. It works mostly fine for video, streaming and music, but during certain games the audio will go bad very fast, mostly when a lot of different sounds or continues sound is being played. Stuttering, clicks, popping, tearing and delays. The game it is most notable in is Arma 3 and for some reason it gets worse when opening the map in this game. It is NOT exclusive to this game, the problem is present in other games and even just watching videos or streams. It might not give audio artifact but the underlying problem is present, just not to the extend as with this and some other games.

After running LatencyMon, I found very high ISR and DPC execution times, with Wdf01000.sys being the highest for ISR and dxgkrnl.sys for DPC.

I heavily suspect the Arc driver for my B580 are the cause of these problems for the following reason. I did a clean install of Windows, let windows update get all the updates except for the GPU driver and updated all motherboard drivers from the motherboard vendor Gigabyte. If I then try to replicate the audio/DPC latency issue, it is NOT present. If I then install the latest Arc driver and replicate the issue, it comes back immediately.

I tried this for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 and the issue is the exact same as far as I can tell.

Below are pastebin for LatencyMon logs, these are all on fresh Windows 11/10 installs up to date with all the newest windows updates and motherboard drivers. the only difference is the GPU driver is either installed or not.

LatencyMon log Windows 11 WITH NO Arc driver installed:

https://pastebin.com/86CEuu4m

LatencyMon log Windows 11 WITH Arc driver installed:

https://pastebin.com/fZsaqEsn

LatencyMon log Windows 10 WITH Arc driver installed:

https://pastebin.com/zFG9v4Vk

I've tried all the solutions I could find with google but none seem to be able to solve the DPC issue. I will leave a pastebin link with everything I have tried in the interest of post length.

https://pastebin.com/jyGTwLDz

The ISR issue did get fixed by using PowerSettingsExplorer to set idle demote/promote thresholds to 100%. But also after a fresh windows install, ISR latency seems much more reasonable even without this step but the DPC issues remain.

I could not download Intel System Support Utility, if I click the download button nothing happens except my browsers starts to lag and eventually very slowly the page reloads so below are my specs.

System info:

OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Education

Version: 10.0.26100 Build 26100

Motherboard: A620M GAMING X rev 1.1

Bios version: FB5

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600

GPU: ASRock Steel Legend Intel Arc B580

Arc driver version: 32.0.101.6881

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL36

Storage: Samsung 990 PRO M.2 1000 GB PCI Express 4.0 V-NAND MLC NVMe

How to reproduce:

1. Clean windows 10/11 install.

2. Let windows update get you up to date, do not let it install GPU driver, or use DDU to uninstall drivers later if you want to test without the audio/DPC problem present. Install latest motherboard drivers. Install latest Arc driver.

3. Install steam and Arma 3. The problem is NOT exclusive to this game, but it has been the fastest way for me to confirm the problem persist. You can also just open a stream or video to see a milder version of the DPC latency.

4. Install LatencyMon.

5. Start Arma 3 and start logging with LatencyMon.

6. Go to Single Player -> Showcases -> Helicopters. Run to the helicopter, enter the pilot seat with by scrolling down while standing next. Press shift to start the engine and the constant sound, optional to fly around a bit to get audio artifact faster. After a couple of minutes, audio will become more and more distorted, depending on extra sounds beside the helicopter itself. Open the map with M to increase audio distortions.

7. Check LatencyMon for DPC latency.

Thanks for any help,

Pepijn

[kreiger1234]

By any chance, have you set your AMD card on the top most slot of your motherboard and b580 on the lower ones? Topmost slot has direct PCI lanes connection with the CPU while bottom ones go via Chipset (in common non extra fancy motherboards).

In my case, the primary slot worked a lot better than the secondary slot, which I believe to be for this exact reason (I think some weird funkiness is on with the drivers, given that this doesn't happen for other cards as much, as it does for b580.)

I am not certain how much performance you'd lose, I guess you'd be fine if the slot was x8 rather than x4, but you can definitely give this a try, for the sake of testing at least even if you don't commit to this configuration. The issue should improve for you in my opinion.

Additionally, you can also try placing both your cards under load and then see if your issue improves. My issue was completely non-existent when cards were under decent consistent load. Consistent being the key, if load deviates, the issue arrived. Obviously not a solution, but it'd confirm that your case is same as mine.