Hi, I have a dell studio with a combination of probs here. There is a constant ding with something getting connected/disconnected, and the sound is jittery for videos and music like a process running in the background, I ran multiple offline scans, updated audio drivers, found a few things and malwarebytes anti rootkit, combofix, even did a repair upgrade, both problems continue only now the dvd drive has disappeared. I can disable one of the high speed usb devices in device manager and that helps mostly with the dings but the sound is still jittery. Everything is fine in linux so I know its not hardware, any other advice? I used process explorer but don't know very well how to read it.
Sound jittery and constant usb connect/disconnect
- Thread starter ell
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Pants
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If everything is fine in Linux, it sounds like you've got a massively corrupted OS. You've done all this stuff to it and you're still having problems. Maybe it's just time to reinstall the OS on the system. It sounds like one of those systems that has done unmaintained for too long. Might be better than spending hours and hours jacking with it. I'm sure you could find fixes for all those things without reinstalling but is it really worth it?
Maybe try updating all the other drivers too. ie Chipset, video...
Oh, you might try disabling uneeded start up apps and some non-microsoft services to see where that gets you.
Maybe try updating all the other drivers too. ie Chipset, video...
Oh, you might try disabling uneeded start up apps and some non-microsoft services to see where that gets you.
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NYJimbo
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Check the event logs to see if those ding times show any recorded event.
Also bring up device manager and leave it up and see if dings show any changes in the devices.
Even though you are ok with a Linux disk you might not be looking at all devices with it and therefore not seeing any hardware faults or changes.
Also bring up device manager and leave it up and see if dings show any changes in the devices.
Even though you are ok with a Linux disk you might not be looking at all devices with it and therefore not seeing any hardware faults or changes.
Pants
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Did Linux not load a driver for the sensor ?
apparently not, I was using newer version too, but then I'm a linux rookie, I mostly use it for sound/video checking. I need to figure out how to check all devices with it.
Pants
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It could be that the driver for the finger printer sensor in Windows just needs up to be updated. Check Dell for an updated driver. Or maybe roll back to an older driver.
Thats how I discovered it was the finger print sensor, when I was installing the drivers from dell after the clean install, would have saved me a ton of time if the stupid thing had just a "!" in device manager.
Pants
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But instead of keeping it disabled, maybe dell has an older version of the driver you can use, that doesn't make noises. 
I know you solved this already but as regards procexp, all I have ever been to use it for with suspected hardware driver issues to see whether Interrupts is using a lot of CPU cycles. But unfortunately, while each process in procexp can be double clicked on to get more details, for hardware Interrupts the thread tab is blank.
Other driver issues can show up in a svchost (service host). My understanding is that while Interrupts shows the time the CPU spends at at that certain OS ring handling actual hardware driver interrupts, other parts of the driver may be running as a service (sound mixers etc.) and those would be at a different OS ring. While svchost can still be hard to trace (since each svchost process may be running lots of services) at least it gives details of threads.
But anyway if I suspect hardware drivers I generally first disable as many devices as possible in the BIOS, reboot to see if the problem is gone. And so on. If that doesn't solve it I then the same thing in Device Manager.
All rather time consuming and tedious.
The last time I came across an issue (on one of my own laptops actually) I used Latency Monitor from these guys:
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
That was somewhat helpful but I can't help thinking that there must a way to get a similar result with one of the System Internals programs (or even some hidden tool built into Windows).
Maybe not in this thread, but if anyone has any less time consuming methods for tracing (suspected) bad hardware drivers could they share it?
This wasn't a bad driver, the fingertip sensor itself was damaged on the top of the unit, even though it appeared fine. Making a constant ding of a usb device being plugged in and out, in device manager it caused it to constantly refresh, not showing a clue as to who was the culprit. The driver for the touch sensor showed no error, working fine thats why it was such a headache. Linux didn't load the device so everything worked fine from there. I'm also assuming it was causing the sound jitters too because of the constant reloading of the bad device.
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