Help making my 6 year old 3XS DAW perform as it used to

[ElGreco]

Hello!

I have a 3XS NZ370 silent DAW, which I bought 6 years ago. It performed great and it was a great buy! I have been using it both as a DAW and as a normal internet PC, with the same Windows 11 installation.

For some months, it has been having problems with clicks and pops, due to DPC latency spikes. The truth is that during all these years, I have changed various settings, I may even have updated the BIOS, so I can't tell, when exactly and why the problem started.

Here is LatencyMon confirming the problem: (click to enlarge)


The highest executing times are caused by these drivers: (click to enlarge)


In the BIOS I have these settings: (click to enlarge)


When I use it as a DAW, I use the "3XS Audio Power" power scheme.

How can I bring it back to its excellent performance? (without having to format and re-install)

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

[Wonks]

Looks like a graphics driver causing the delays. All you can do is use the latest drivers and try and just use the drivers, not any supporting graphics add-ons that often get packaged with the driver.

Try removing the old graphics driver first before loading the new driver.

[OneWorld]

I hope we're not leading you astray here with the point regarding graphics but I too had latency/crackling issues that all of a sudden appeared and sure enough it was an updated graphics driver.

I came across a simple free utility that scavenged the PC of all presence of the graphics card, stripped it bare. I then installed the latest driver and the improvement was instant.

I am sorry I cannot remember the name of the app. There was a separate app for different manufacturer. I search on the internet should track down the app, with the usual caveats, don't download any clap trap penny muck computer bric-a-brac.

I'm sure this (DDU) was it and that''s assuming your graphics is AMD/NVIDIA....

https://www.guru3d.com/download/display ... -download/

[Euthymia]

DDU followed by latest version of graphics driver is a good idea.

In the past I had a similar issue that I cured by rolling the network card driver back one notch from the Intel-supplied driver to the MB manufacturer-supplied driver (Dell).

I also see Acronis Snapshot running, good idea to have that insurance against system corruption, but you may want to find a way to pause it during sessions where you're doing audio work. Anything that gets between your DAW and disk access is best avoided. (see next suggestion)

Lastly, I've found it desirable to exclude various folders from Microsoft Defender's realtime scanning. These are my audio projects folder, VST and VST3 folders, and sample library folders. Defender Realtime Protection scans EVERY file read and write, regardless of file type, which adds processing overhead to a simple yet crucial process.

The folders I exclude are very unlikely to harbor malware. Also, even excluded folders get scanned when Defender does its period system scans, so this doesn't increase risk of malware problems by any meaningful amount.

[ElGreco]

Thank you very much for trying to help me!

My GPU is an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630.


I am already using the latest driver (20 Nov 24):


These are my latest installs/updates by the Intel Driver & Support Assistant:


What should I do now? Should I use the tool you suggested and just re-install the driver? Is it really the driver's fault? Or could it be something else causing it?

Thank you!

[ajay_m]

I would consider adding a low end Nvidia GPU card to the system and switching graphics to that, to be honest.
A lot of poorly written drivers play fast and loose with windows kernel synchronisation objects to try and optimise performance. Unfortunately on a system that requires good dpc latency this can cause real problems.
For example dell laptops are notorious for the acpi.sys driver, which coordinates power management, causing dpc latency issues.
I can say that the Lenovo laptop I use, which has an Nvidia RT 3060 GPU has exemplary dpc latency performance so I assume from this that Nvidia drivers are likely much better than intel.

[ajay_m]

Also ensure any CPU clocking malarkey like speedstep etc is disabled. In task manager you want to see the CPU clock speed constant at all times. Dynamic clocking can cause real issues with audio performance, as I found out years ago on a surface laptop. Disable c states and possibly core parking as well (Google for details) and ensure any usb devices have the option to turn off to save power disabled.

[ElGreco]

Thank you for trying to help! As you can see in the pictures from the original post, the settings for C-step, etc., are all correctly configured.

Since this is a dedicated DAW build that has performed flawlessly for years, I believe the issue is software-related—possibly a driver conflict or a setting that has changed. My goal is to restore its previous performance, and I’d really appreciate any insights on what might be causing this. I think I should not change any hardware.

[Wonks]

Thank you for trying to help! As you can see in the pictures from the original post, the settings for C-step, etc., are all correctly configured.

But you’ve got Intel Speed Shift Technology enabled, which allows the processor speed to change. Disable it. It might not make a difference in this case, but it’s not something you want enabled in a DAW.

[ElGreco]

I'll disable it and see if anything changes. (I think that it has been always enabled though, even during the period when the PC was performing well)

I followed the advice above, removed the graphics drivers with DDU and re-installed the latest Intel drivers. I did just a 5 minute test (not like the 1.5+ hour test I did before) and had these results:



I don't know if the graphics driver problem got fixed, as I ran the test for too little time, but it seems like there is now a new problem with another driver!?

[Wonks]

It's still green, so should be OK. I'd leave the test running for 20-30 minutes, though 5 minutes should be enough.

The bottom test result looks like it could be an SSD driver.

Have you checked the system temperatures after running it a while? Have you cleaned the inside of the computer for dust/dirt recently?

[ElGreco]

I run the test again (for 1h48m) and now everything seems to be ok!:



So, the advice given by OneWorld to complete remove all the graphics drivers and re-install the latest, seems to have fixed the issue.

In this latest check (1h48m) there was no problem caused by any driver, which is great! The question now is: why did it fail the test in my previous 5min run? What could have caused that spike from the SSD driver? And how can I be sure that it won't happen again?

[Wonks]

Were you using the PC during the test?

If you weren’t, then there’s very little disc activity going on. Obviously there's a lot more if you are using the DAW.

But do remember that the first instance it appeared on the test, it was still green.

[ElGreco]

No, I weren't. But I ran it in the first 10 minutes the PC had booted. So, perhaps it was the AV updating its databases, or Windows Update checking if there are updates, or something like that. I hope!