Laptop - Sound stutters when gaming.

Ok. Start PowerShell (with administrator privilege) and execute:

Code:

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\5d76a2ca-e8c0-402f-a133-2158492d58ad' -Name 'Attributes' -Value 0

Then go to advanced Power plan settings dialog, expand "Processor power management" tree node and locate "Processor idle disable" setting node. Set it to "Disable idle". That should disable both P-states and C-states. Check with

Code:

pwrtest.exe /PPM > pwrtest_ppm.log

(don`t forget to launch heavy app during pwrtest run). Btw, since that setting does work on per power plan basis, you can set it individually for each plan.

 

That helped a little. The stutters are less frequent but still occur.

Whenever I try to run that last pwrtest command and then launch a game, pwrtest.exe stops working.

 

Not necessary the game. Any application with some load on CPU. Archiver. Antivirus. You can see yourself in pwrtest log whether C-states and P-states were used.

I forgot to mention that without C-states and P-states CPU in notebooks can overheat easily.

Next step for you - to minimize system services that run on background.

Edit: Have you tried MSI-mode for PCI devices?

 

just posting mine as a comparison...interesting software
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These are my devices. The (seemingly) most important ones are already in MSI mode. Seeing as how the majority of my devices are not in MSI mode, I'm a little bit hesitant to go around changing them... this is exacerbated by the fact that some of them may not even support it (from reading your thread).

I will do it if required though, but a couple questions first. Do I have to go through them all? maybe by looking at the list you can tell me which ones to do. Also, do I have to change one per session and reboot each time, or can I actually do several in one go without rebooting?

Thanks in advance.

 

I recommend one device per session with reboot.
As for devices, go for both "High definition Audio Controller" (IRQs 16 & 19), and "AMD SATA Controller". In my experience these devices switched to MSI mode without trouble. Also you can try "Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter" seeing it shares IRQ 17 with so many devices. Do not touch USB controllers because only USB3 ones demonstrated support for MSI so far.

 

Okay, little report on how things went:

High Definition audio Controller IRQ 16:
This device did not have the subkey MessageSignaledInterruptProperties nor the DWORD. After adding them device manager showed it as working okay, but its IRQ did NOT change to negative. I have not changed the value of the DWORD back to 0. Please let me know if I should.

High Definition audio Controller IRQ 19:
For some reason this one took two reboots for its IRQ to change to negative. It didn't have the subkey. Once I rebooted for the second time the IRQ changed to negative. Device manager showed it as working properly the whole time.

AMD Sata Controller:
This one already had the subkey and DWORD, but it was deactivated. I changed the DWORD value to 1 and upon the next reboot its IRQ changed to negative and no changes in device manager.

Broadcom Network Adapter:
This one gave me trouble. I rebooted the machine, as soon as W7 loaded and the login screen appeared, I got a BSOD. Took a picture of it but not sure if it's relevant. I was able to reboot the machine fine the next time, but my wireless wasn't working and device manager said it wasn't working correctly, so I changed the MSISupported DWORD back to 0 and it's working fine again. It didn't have the subkey or DWORD.

Does it make sense that only one of the High Definition Audio Controller were able to be changed to MSI?

I ran some tests. I started LatencyMon and started my games. I didn't save any logs, but it still says in red that my system is having trouble with audio. However, the audio interrupts aren't as bad now. Just for kicks, I enabled CPU idle and ran the tests again and the interrupts were worse.

In the end, with both CPU idle disabled and the recent MSI change, gaming performance is the best (graphics have always been smooth for the most part but the audio still cuts off from time to time) I've ever had with this computer. Audio stutters still occur, but not as often. Looking back at how it was when I first started this thread, things have improved considerably.

One thing's for sure, I'll never buy HP again. Any other pointers or is this the end of the line, mbk?

 

If all devices work properly you can stop with MSI mode tweaks. But be aware that every driver installation can switch device back to legacy line-based mode.

I did own notebook 3 or 4 years ago. And tried to play games, and I quit. Notebooks are not for games.
Now you can try to eliminate as much system services as possible. And other background applications too. The less processes in system the more performance.