I have a Huananzhi X99 BD4 motherboard. Overall, I’m happy with it, but I ran into issues that only came to light after I bought an Audient iD4 USB audio interface (which is 100% functional/not defective).
The audio constantly crackles/pops due to DPC latency (I’m not entirely sure if that’s the cause, but the pops mostly occur right when LatencyMon registers a latency spike). LatencyMon points to an issue with Wdf01000.sys (Kernel Mode Driver Framework).
WPA (Windows Performance Analyzer) shows the following:
If "Route all pins to XHCI":
Line #, Module, Function, Count (Fragments), Duration (Fragmented) (ms), Duration (Fragmented) (ms), % Duration (Fragmented), Fragment Enter Time (s), Fragment Exit Time (s), Exclusive Duration (ms), Duration (Fragmented) (ms)
1, USBXHCI.SYS, , 42338, 0.376000, 0.029165, 0.52, 0.253311000, 12.216376000, 0.425900, 1,234.821800
2, dxgkrnl.sys, , 5268, 0.296700, 0.064386, 0.14, 0.257964800, 12.210026200, 0.296700, 339.188800
3, nvlddmkm.sys, ?, 3164, 0.298100, 0.021425, 0.03, 0.256648300, 12.210028400, 0.298100, 67.791500
If "Route all pins to EHCI": USBXHCI.sys is replaced by USBPORT.sys
Close
What I have already tried:
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Cleared/Reset BIOS (obviously).
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Changing USB configuration settings (XHCI Hand-off, delay, etc.) in BIOS changes nothing.
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Enabling Auto ACPI Configuration makes no difference either.
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Switching between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports yields no change.
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USB settings → USB selective suspend → Disabled.
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PCI Express → Link State Power Management → Off.
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Unchecked “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” for “USB Root Hub”, “Generic USB Hub”, “Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller…”, and “USB Root Hub”.
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Installed Intel Chipset Device Software (for C612/X99).
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Switched the USB controller to MSI mode (Message Signaled Interrupts), set priority to High, and ensured all devices have unique IRQs.
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Disabled all C-states and other power states.
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The issue occurs even on a clean, freshly installed Windows OS (ruling out system corruption).
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Uninstalling the official AudientUSB driver does not resolve the Windows boot freeze issues.
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The BIOS is updated to the latest recommended version.
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Disconnected all other USB devices.
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Installed a dedicated PCI-E USB expansion card (VIA VL805 chip) into both the PCIe x16 slot (connected to the CPU) and the PCIe slot (connected to the chipset).
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Ran timer optimization commands:
DOS
bcdedit /set useplatformtick no bcdedit /set useplatformclock no bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes bcdedit /set tscsyncpolicy Enhanced -
Reinstalled Windows 11 both with an active internet connection and completely offline.
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Disabled VT-d — didn’t help.
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Isolated CPU cores and disabled core parking (using Maximum Performance mode).
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Tested different Windows versions: Windows 11 (22H2), Windows 10 (22H2).
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Disabled Processor Idle State.
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Swapped/rearranged RAM sticks.
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Disabled Intel(R) services.
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Disabled all playback/recording devices in the Sound Control Panel.
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Tested different power plans: Bitsum Highest Performance, Muren_Idle_Enabled, etc.
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Installed AMDGPIO_PciBus.
System Configuration:
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Motherboard: Huananzhi X99 BD4 (B85 Lynx Point chipset, exact revision unknown)
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CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (no Turbo Boost Unlock, no undervolting)
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RAM: Atermiter 2x16 GB ECC (running in dual-channel mode)
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GPU: RTX 2060 SUPER
THE MOST IMPORTANT CLUES:
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On the exact same hardware, everything works flawlessly under Linux Mint or Ubuntu (the audio is perfect, even without using the dedicated PCI-E USB card).
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When using ParkControl with the Bitsum Highest Performance power plan, the crackling drops significantly. Conversely, enabling power-saving modes makes the crackling much more frequent.
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Changing the Buffer Size or Sample Rate does not fix the issue, even at extreme settings like 4096 samples and 44.1 kHz.
P.S. English is not my native language, so I used a translator to write this post. I hope everything is clear!
Edit by Fernando: Thread moved into the “Off-Topic” Category and title shortened