1 Topic by justaquestion (edited by justaquestion 2022-01-30 20:30:32)

  • Registered: 2022-01-30
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Topic: DPC Windows 10 20H2 (Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H 82JY0021MH) Cry for help

Hello,

forgive me if this is not the right place to ask, but I have stumbled many times upon this forum when searching for help. I am a RME UFX original series user and I have never encountered any problem with my interface. However, I purchased a new laptop last summer due to the fact that I can't be setting up a desktop machine at this time in my life.

I know Windows laptops are not optimal, but my old machine did not handle the amount of plugins I use and I really wanted to try out one of these new Ryzen 7 laptops... needless to say, the processing power upgrade was tremendous from my 7700HQ laptop...

...except for the fact that I can not for the life of me track down the DPC issue! My old laptop had issue with the wifi - just deactivated the driver while workin on real time audio and never though of it again. This new Lenovo machine however is extremely annoying because the dropouts caused by DPC are incinsistent. Sometimes, I can work on my DAW for whole day without a single dropout, the day after, it happens four times in one hour... just an annoying CPU spike that ruins the audio playback for a second. Since I use eurorack gear and send clocks out throug Expert Sleepers ADAT interface, the CPU stutter also messes up the clock on my eurorack, therefore I am always super nervous when I am recording. And I would never even consider bringinf this computer on a stage.

I am on Windows 10, latest Ableton built and I have followed literally every guide there is online regarding tweaking the machine for real time audio use. All the usual stuff with power plan, not allowing usb ports to sleep etc etc.. literally every guide I've been able to stumble upon online. This is not my first laptop, I've had a few and always managed to tweak them until they work, but now after months of Reddit threads, asking on random computer/gear forums etc, I decided to give RME forum a try....

Latencymon reports the video driver to be the culprit, and occasionally "wdf01000.sys". I have tried every nvidia driver I've found online for my card to no avail, so I wound up disabling it, deinstalling it and used the included Radeon AMD Ryzen 7 5800H GPU, but the issue is still there! I have checked for IRQ conflicts but nothing displays yellow mark with an explamation mark, I have updated the BIOS... I am just clueless. Thankfully I am able to make music on this computer in the studio, but the CPU spike is driving me nuts and it has already ruined couple of recordings which had to be done again. It also happens in other daws, so it is not Ableton related.

Please, anyone... is there anything I can do at this point?

https://www.coolblue.nl/product/880324/ … 021mh.html

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2022-01-30 18:57:28)

  • ramses
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Re: DPC Windows 10 20H2 (Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H 82JY0021MH) Cry for help

So this laptop has a dedicated nVidia on board ?
Maybe powermizer switch helps ?
See this cubase article: https://forums.steinberg.net/t/8-18-cor … tup/103725
and there is this powermized tool from a russian source.
For me on a desktop system it removed all remaining issues with latency spikes and audio drops at really random intervals.
Now audio is even stable when accessing internet and opening a Firefox Bookmark folder with 60+ URLs.

The only question is whether on a laptop it would produce too much heat.
Be careful and monitor the temperature of your GPU once enabling and using the GPU.
The tool can deactivate nVidia power saving for battery mode as well (decide wisely what you need).
Along with the tool there are 2-3 driver settings recommended as well.

Really careful not to toast your HW with it.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2022-01-30
  • Posts: 3

Re: DPC Windows 10 20H2 (Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H 82JY0021MH) Cry for help

Thank you for the fast reply, ramses. I must admit I am rather afraid of trying out a third party applicaiton if I am not even sure what it does - I was really hoping for something like "switch that excotic setting off" or "type that into cmd" kinda soltution, hah!

  • ramses
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Re: DPC Windows 10 20H2 (Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H 82JY0021MH) Cry for help

During my recherche I stumbled over old information about a nVidia tool, which does not exist anymore.
This tool seems to be the only solution.
Well I am using two tools now from russian devs, StartIsBack++ and this one.
But I think if somebody would write a trojan tool, then I assume they would do it for things of more general interest.
The low latency requirements for recording is still a very small segment.
You can also send it through a couple of virus scanner..

As we talk about internet security solution, Kaspersky and Norton create a lot of overhead when accessing the internet.
Since I removed them and am using Microsoft Defender also no issues in that regards.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

5 Reply by justaquestion (edited by justaquestion 2022-01-30 20:30:08)

  • Registered: 2022-01-30
  • Posts: 3

Re: DPC Windows 10 20H2 (Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H 82JY0021MH) Cry for help

Thanks for the reply again. My laptop is only for DAW use and only ever connects to the internet for updating audio programs. Therefore I have no antivirus/firewall activated. All unnecassary drivers deactivated. I am hoping for some setting I might be missing, more complex than the "basic" ones, which might help. I am using AMD Ryzen 7 5800H graphics and have wiped out everything Nvidia related with DDU.