After an uptime of several hours my pc’s audio would become choppy and started crackling whenever I would load a webpage. Listening to music while surfing became very annoying. After running the LatencyMon app I found the main culprit to be the NDIS.SYS driver which is responsible for the on-board Realtek GBe PCIe NIC. The DPC latencies would spike each time network traffic was active.
While googling I found some people pointing to the BFE as a possible culprit. Disabling and re-enabling the base filtering engine service did cause the same stuttering as the network traffic did, but it did not (temporarily) solve the crackle like it did for some others. The only remedy was rebooting the pc.
Using a torrent client seemed to make the effect occur sooner. So I then wondered if Avast’s web shield could be the source of the issue (knowing BFE is used for filtering/safety features) and uninstalled Avast to test this. Lo and behold; No more sound crackle!
Long story short: uninstalling Avast solved my sound stutter/crackling with network traffic after a long system up-time.
Until this is fixed I’ll use Windows 8.1’s built in Defender as my virus scanner and Windows firewall as my firewall so that I’m able to enjoy my music.
Win 8.1 pro N x64
Avast internet security 2014.9.0.2008
Realtek RTL 8168 NIC (on gigabyte ga-p35c-ds3r)
p.s.: Before you ask. Yes all my drivers were up to date. I cleaned all drivers residues and tried the latest realtek drivers as well as window’s own drivers (device manager: remove hardware → then add new hardware driver download dialogue). Neither solved the issue.
EDIT: Removing the firewall from avast solved the issue for now. Consider this option if you are faced with the same issue and nothing else helps!
Still no crackling sound after 17 hours of uptime, several sleep/wake cycles, torrenting, browsing and http downloads etc, etc… I’m pretty sure uninstalling Avast IS 2014 is what finally solved the problem I could not fix by uninstalling->cleaning->reinstalling Avast and/or network+audio drivers.
To Users with audio issues: Beware, Avast could be the cause
To the Developers: Heads up, Windows 8.1 + Avast IS 2014 causes issues (High DPC routine execution time in NDIS.sys driver which causes sound stuttering/crackling and choppy video/games. Possibly related to Base filtering engine → firewall?)
*edit: to be more precise, I suspect the Firewall function. I’ve reinstalled Avast! IS without the firewall and so far no issues…
User tried to update all drivers on his PC but still no luck. Removing firewall will solve sound problem, we have already tried to use the latest beta but still no luck. And both users in Russian subforum with this issue have windows 8.1 installed. Users said that sound crackling appears only after 2-3 hours after turning PC on.
You can watch video with this issue here: http://youtu.be/1JkdnSrZqRI
Yes, I’ve installed (after removing old drivers and cleaning remnants with driver fusion) the latest drivers from their site. The newest drivers for win 8.1 are from 26 november, I’ve installed the latest drivers last Sunday. The reported driver version in device manager: 8.20.815.2013.
This did not solve anything. Only removing the firewall does.
I understand you need to trouble-shoot this and eliminate all possible causes, but I’m an ICT expert that normally fixes problems like these for clients… You can expect me to have updated every driver/program before even posting about the problem here. I’ve even tried disabling ipv6 in the adapter settings, disabling CPU-throttling and core parking*, disabling all power saving features*, using Microsoft update supplied default NIC drivers, etc, etc.
*: known to be possible causes of DPC spikes.
Problem confirmed on Windows 8 x64 in 2014.9.0.2008 and on Windows 8.1 x64 (it was a clean reinstall, not an upgrade) in 2014.9.0.2008 and 2014.9.0.2009. The network adapter is a Marvell Yukon 88E8056 with latest drivers installed, so it is not a Realtek-only issue.
Without using hibernation the problem occurs after 7-8 hours uptime, and after resuming from a hibernation audio glitches appear almost immediately and over time, more and more often occurs. On-board sound card behaves a bit better than a USB audio device.
Today morning I uninstalled the firewall part of Avast (Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Change > unchecked the feature > restart) and it seems everything is ok (or only for now?).
Not needed anyway, my router already has port attack detection (anti DDOS & portscan) features. I’ve been free of problems after >2 days uptime without the Avast firewall now. I’ll try your suggestion, install the firewall again and disable the port scanning. I’ll monitor my DPC latency and sound problems the next couple of days to see if the problems don’t return.
Thanks for sharing the info!
edit: too bad, installing the Avast firewall with port scan detection disabled still resulted in issues. See screenshots for the situation when I’m downloading via torrent + browsing in Chrome. Problems are in ndis.sys & aswNdisFlt.sys and to a lesser extent tcip.sys and NETIO.SYS. These problems don’t go away with the AOS browser extension disabled. I’m removing the Avast firewall again…
edit2: see third picture for same situation, all the same programs opened but without Avast firewall (Windows firewall is ON). All is okay again and DPC stays low.
it’s working only for one user which had similar problem (but he had sound crackling only after 2-3 hours after turning PC on, disabling port scan detection in firewall settings solved his sound problem), but it’s not working for other users. So, I don’t know any way how to fix this bug except it’ll be fixed by avast! team.
My trial period ends Tuesday so I remove Avast and end up hoping testing. I’m trying to replace a very buggy KIS on all family computers after that license expires in January, but ironically the competitors seem to be buggy on the same level (Avast is not the first entry on the failed list).
I can reproduce this issue almost immediately after rebooting by starting a Torrent client (qBittorrent) and browse the web (Chrome) at the same time. The new beta version 9.0.2010 did not chance this.
Just an update that version 9.0.2011 did not solve this issue. The Avast firewall is still b0rked and causes massive DPC spikes while the standard windows 8.1 pro firewall does not.
What kind of info would you need from me to be able to identify the problem within the AIS 2014 firewall? A processdump, logfiles, etc? I’d gladly provide info.
What Magnik is probably trying to say is that this issue is still present in the latest version (9.0.2013), and I concur.
This problem hasn’t been solved!
I have just installed Avast Internet Security today and I also encountered this issue. It doesnt matter with what I play audio, the crackling always appears while browsing web pages or mostly any other what nots like that.
Disabling the firewall or the port scan detection did not help.
This needs to be addressed, meanwhile I will have to revert to Avast Free Antivirus which I have been using for a long time without any issues.
It will probably be a while, which makes my license useless in the meantime.