Studio 1737 DPC Latency

Brief update for anyone else experiencing or researching this issue. I contacted Dell support, explaining my problem with DPC latency, and linking to various sources of information online. Here's an excerpt from Dell's response:

I have checked with my research team regarding the issue and expected date of release of the BIOS update is in August.
The BIOS update would be specifically released to fix the audio issues.
I assure you that we are working on the issue and fix would be released in August.

I replied asking support to confirm the August update specifically addresses DPC latency, and here's the response:

The system has some known audio issues due to DPC latency issues and our engineering team is working on it.
They would release a BIOS update to fix the known issues.
BIOS updates are released to resovle any known issues for the system. I would request you to wait till August. Once the BIOS update is released, please install it and it should resovle the issue.

I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm cautiously optimistic at this point.

btw this exchange took place before the A06 BIOS was posted, and the problem persists after applying that update.

I'm not sure why the post from Happy Dayz disappeared, but Happy wrote:

You mentioned that this took place before the A06 BIOS update, did you mean the A09 BIOS update, as that has recently been released and although it did reduce the DPC latency spikes, it has not resolved the problem and as far as I'm concerened my laptop is still completely useless.

Happy, to answer your question, the latest BIOS for the 1737 is A06, released 6/19. I'll continue to update this thread as I get more details about the August update.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried Windows XP or Windows 7? I have not but am curious whether the symptoms persist outside of Vista 64.

Cheers,

-Andy

I can't believe they deleted my post!  They said that I was using abusive language????

It does seem that the A09 BIOS update was for the 1537, I just assumed that the 1737 and 1537 would have the same BIOS but not so.  Also I checked when it was released and it was the 27th April, so it was a little while now and most likely not (and hopefully not) their best attempt at resolving the latency issue.

My laptop came with Vista 32bit Ultimate but I have also installed Windows XP 32bit, Windows 7 Ultimate and OS X 10.5.2 Leopard.

Windows 7 and XP display exactly the same problem; however, there is a work around with XP.  With XP you can install a free program called Process Explorer (by SysInternals), which if you open, select the 'System' process, view threads and suspend the 'ACPI' thread, the latency problem dissapears completely.  You do loose a lot of functionality of your laptop and you also have to re-enable it before logging off, else Windows will hang.  This is not an ideal solution for me though with a 32bit machine, as XP will only see 3 of my 4GB or RAM and Dell also won't support my laptop if it has XP on it.  I also tried the Mac OS X but it was turning out to be too much hassel to get things working properly and so I ambandond that idea.

Oh well, I guess we're just have to wait and see.  I hope they don't take too long though, else I'm gonna have to sell my kidney and buy a Macbook pro (I really wish I had gone Mac in the first place).

Regards,

Andy

Hello Happy Dayz,

That is what I would like to bring to you, it's a great laptop once you combat the issue. Please see my thread here, http://www.nativeinstruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82401

This cured all audio issues on the laptop, also this morning I found some info on how to run the core2duo cpu's at full speed all the time. You will find that info on the last page of this thread.

If you have any questions feel free to ask and point other uses having issues to this thread as well. I wish I had posted sooner.

NOTE: Run bios revision A05, because A06 introduces other problems I could not resolve so I had to roll back.

Cheers!

Hi DJ Quartz,

Many thanks for your help!

It was actually your posts on the other website I had read where I had found about the ACPI fix but unfortunately, as I mentioned in my post above, my laptop came with Vista 32 Ultimate and it doesn't allow you to disable the ACPI thread.  I tried a copy of XP on my laptop but it will only allow me to use 3 of my 4 GB of RAM and Dell will not support my laptop with it installed (bit of a bummer as I bought 4yrs cover).

I have found another forum post where someone said they were able to disable the ACPI in Vista using the Process Hacker application.  I tried this but could not work out how to find the ACPI thread (it displays it quite different to Process Explorer).  I wrote to the guy who had posted that up on the forum but he never replied to tell me how he did it :(

All is not lost however; I have found that my Dell laptop makes a nice dinner tray, for when I want to eat my dinner on the sofa while watching telly.

@DJ Quartz,

I just had a look at the more recent replies to your post on the NativeInstruments website and noticed that you've posted about disabling the ACPI.sys thread on Vista.

For anyone else wondering about this:

It turns out that there was a problem with one of the versions of Process Hacker, which stopped you from being able to identify which thread to suspend.  Apparently this version should allow you to do it (although I've not tested it yet):

http://www.ohloh.net/p/processhacker/download?package=Process+Hacker

woohoo!  I look forward to trying this when I get home.  I haven't been able to work on any music for ages!  Dell definitely need to sort the underlying issue but hopefully this will fill the gap.

If this doesn't get sorted soon I think we should all get together and take this issue to WatchDog, that'll put the pressure on 'em.

Happy dayz!

Here' s the thing...

Windows XP 32-bit can only access 3gb of Ram. So you have to be willing to sacrifice that for now. The key is running  XP3 with bios version A05. That is only way you will get this work from what I see now.

Running Vista is not going to work right now, I'm going to be uploading a winXP driver rar somewhere so people can download and get their systems setup. The problem is the rar file is 1gb in size.

However, someone has suggested an option, so I will be working on that today most likely so it's available.

Thanks Quartz! I'm really hoping I can stay on a 64-bit OS but if August comes around with no fix I'll likely follow your lead and downgrade to XP. Or get a Mac.

Hello,

I suffer from serious audio drop-outs when using Cubase SX3 and a TASCAM FW 1884 audio card/controller. (with ASIO drivers) Making music with my Dell Studio laptop is impossible. After running DPC Latency Checker there seems to be a problem with the DPC Latency. Yesterday I updated the BIOS. I got much less latency spikes but the problem still isn't solved completely. (less audio drop-outs but they are still there). I hope Dell will come up with a solution soon because my laptop is completely useless for making music.

Greets,

Hans

Hello Fons909,

If you want to use 1737 for audio you will need to follow my process on the Native Instruments forum. The new bios version does not fix the problems. You will need to roll back to A05 bios, install XP firstly.

There are two utilities I use, Process Explorer and RM Clock. Process Explorer will allow you to disable the acpi.sys thread to stop the DPC spikes and RM Clock will allow you to create a profile to run your cpu at full-speed all the time giving you the processing power you should have.

Hans, Let us know if you have any luck with DJ Quartz's fix, but I'd also recommend that you (and anyone else lurking on the thread) contact Dell support describing your problems with audio on the 1737. Dell is more likely to address this problem if they know it's affecting a large number of customers.

Cheers,

-Andy

Hello Andy,

I haven't tried DJ Quartz's fix yet, It looks like a lot of work and I have to find a copy of Windows XP first. Yesterday I have described the DPC latency problem at Dell Technical Support. I asked some friends to do the test with their laptop, it seems to be a problem with other brands too. My brothers Dell XPS hasn't got DPC latency problems though, not even yellow spikes.

Greets,

Hans

Thanks for the advice DJ Quartz but I can't find "acpi.sys" when running Process Explorer. Am I doing something wrong?

Greets,

Hans

If you are running Windows XP, it will be thread #152 in the process explorer. I believe it's the same for every 1737.