Audio Latency Problems/Solutions With All Dell Studio & Studio XPS(And any other one) Discussions

[SteveJonesy]

People in other latency posts have run XP and Vista on the same machine and found XP to be better, also good reports about the latency results in Win7 so the OS does seem to have an effect.

It may be a BIOS problem but it's a problem machines from other manufacturers are experiencing too - I've seen many posts from users of many brands with similar results - so it's not just a Dell thing.

My guess is it's a combination of BIOS, OS and platform. PCI-E has already proved to be a step backward really from the old PCI bus - Audio performance was not really the driving force behind the need for PCI-E which was mainly for more bandwidth for graphics. PCI-E is great for moving huge swathes of data across the bus in one fell swoop but there's a fair amount of overhead to do it. Streaming multitrack audio doesn't work like that - it uses much smaller data packets but with the same overhead per click. It's the main reason why it's taken 2 years + for PCI-E soundcards to appear and some major manufacturers still don't have a PCI-E desktop or Expresscard laptop card. Least with a desktop you can usually whack a PCI card in there.

[justanothercrowd]

This issue already has a solution. The mechanics are already known....read up if you want to be informed....


This can happy to any machine that has a poorly programmed BIOS.

All the other esoteric side effects and situations are a combination of many variables.

IRQ conflicts ARE the CAUSE PEOPLE!


M-Audio has been nice enough to write this up for people.

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=...04295aec1f755b

Some of these things can't be done with certain OS's but the problem is the BIOS... the OS only widens or narrows our workaround options.

[Nition]

That's a good guide. Too bad none of their solutions (disabling devices, changing BIOS settings, removing cards) work here, so we're still stuck hoping Dell fixes the BIOS.

[hjorte]

I'm wondering if Dell will ever address this issue. Are they even aware of it? Don't we all have to register a problem at Dell to have them become aware? What's the best way to apply pressure and make Dell aware? What are the odds that they will listen? What are your experinces on this - do Dell listen and act?

How do we go about it? Speak up!

[billykuhl]

Greetings all, I have had a 1537 since the beginning of the year, like everyone else I'm experiencing the same issues: lantecy, Media Bar, etc. I can live with disconnecting the Media Bar, but I bought this laptop to use Ableton Live which I can't do! I tried the XP install and as I recall I couldn't get rid of the red bars in the dpc tool. Has their been any type of multiuser approach to contacting Dell? I can't believe they are not addressing this issue or are we too small of a minority?

[slidegt]

Hallooo guys... how are you today?

Sorry for the late reply, I went out the whole weekend so...

Dell agent called me this morning regarding the refund for my dell studio xps 16... and they will send somebody to pick it up...

huaaa....finally...

so...

I went to bestbuy yesterday...and looked around...finding a laptop that has the same spec...and I was looking at toshiba a350 -04t it is 16" screen and has 512mb ATI video card

have you guys ever heard about this laptop ? is it good?

So, I asked the staff there...and I told him that if I can check the laptop before I buy...
I said to him that I've bad experience with audio latency, so I would like to check the laptop using DPC Latency checker software.. and he said, yes..sure

hahaha... just wanna share my experience...

if this laptop (toshiba a350) is good and there's no problem with audio latency, I'll take it...
What do you guys think?

[Robboman]

Theres a recent thread going about this on Dell forums specific to the Studio XPS 13 and 16 laptops, a user confirmed it's a problem with ACPI on this system.

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/....aspx#19477741

Since you can't defeat ACPI in Vista/Win7, we're probably at the mercy of Dell and Microsoft to eventually come up with either a BIOS or an OS fix.

[trz303]

I'm the poster from the thread on Dell Forum.

I can confirm that suspending ACPI on windows XP SP3 instantly stop the spikes on DPC Latency checker.

I installed XP with multi-boot option on my XPS 16, and I still have no solution to fix the problem on Vista as far as Vista refuses to suspend ACPI using ProcessExplorer.

Using Ableton Live with RME MultiFace audio card with the proprietary PCI express card I was not able to have less than 48ms audio latency (2048 samples) under Vista without glitches.

Same machine, same card, same program, but under XP with ACPI suspended : 3ms with no glitches !


Same problem occurs on the whole Studio & Studio XPS serie.

[TimeWriter]

I installed XP with multi-boot option on my XPS 16, and I still have no solution to fix the problem on Vista as far as Vista refuses to suspend ACPI using ProcessExplorer.

I can't find anything about ACPI in Process Explorer. Where can I find it to see if I can suspend it?

Same problem occurs on the whole Studio & Studio XPS serie.

I am having the same problem with XPS M1730.

[trz303]

I can't find anything about ACPI in Process Explorer. Where can I find it to see if I can suspend it?

I am having the same problem with XPS M1730.

Under Vista you simply cant disable it.

Under XP, right-click on "SYSTEM" tree node, go "Properties" then "Threads" tabs, find the one starting with "acpi.sys" and click on "Suspend".