High DPC & ISR latency audio pops cracks

[PashaDartan]

Hi guys,

Sorry for bothering you, but I don't know where else to turn. I'm completely tired of this problem and can't deal with it anymore.

I used to have great results with Atlas OS before—everything was fine. My DPC/ISR latency would stay under 200–300 µs maximum no matter what I was doing: downloading, gaming, anything. But one day my system downloaded something somewhere, and my Alt+Tab started working poorly. I tried everything to find a solution (and I mean everything), but nothing worked. So I decided to reinstall Windows, and now I'm right back to a problem I've faced before: really high DPC latency while downloading, and even when not downloading.

Here's a screenshot of the issue:

What I've tried so far:

Reinstalled Windows cleanly up to 20 times in different ways: clean Atlas OS, clean stock Windows, clean Revi OS, with and without internet, with and without updates.

Tried different drivers: Windows default drivers, manually installed drivers from my motherboard manufacturer, older driver versions, and even IOBit Driver Booster. Tried disabling Windows Update before connecting to the internet and installing drivers myself.

Changed power plans and GPU power settings. Tried different presets, custom settings, and custom power plans.

Changed settings on my Wi-Fi adapter. (I don't have the option to use an Ethernet cable, but as I said, I previously had DPC latency under 300 µs without changing drivers or Wi-Fi adapter settings, so I know it's possible.)

Tried many times with the Interrupt Affinity Tool from different sources, as well as using my own AutoGpuAffinity results.

Disabled and enabled various devices in Device Manager.

Toggled HPET on and off.

Always used NVCleanstall to install NVIDIA drivers after running DDU from Safe Mode.

Toggled CPU Idle on and off.

I don't install any bloatware. I always restart and test after every single step or change I make.

I'm 100% sure this isn't a BIOS issue because I didn't change anything in BIOS before the first time I encountered this problem, and after I somehow resolved it back then, everything was perfectly fine with latency under 200 µs in any situation. So it has to be a software problem somewhere.

P.S. sore for bad england me from uganda

P.S.S it was inb4

[kyube]

1.) LatencyMon is useless.
2.) Not even providing entire (detailed) hardware list / software used is insultingly low information to work from.

[Hyote]

1.) LatencyMon is useless.
2.) Not even providing entire (detailed) hardware list / software used is insultingly low information to work from.

Take some time off or reframe your thinking because you are either offending someone or getting offended by people with less knowledge. Even if there are ironically many people that come up waving their LatMon results, that's just that.

[kyube]

Take some time off or reframe your thinking because you are either offending someone or getting offended by people with less knowledge. Even if there are ironically many people that come up waving their LatMon results, that's just that.

I'm not sure where anyone has asked for your opinion?
The absolutely basic thing one can do is provide information of the hardware/software where the supposed issue is occurring.
He hasn't provided that. It's insultingly low information for anyone to give him concrete troubleshooting steps..

[dermodemon]

Did you tried global resolutin request + 1ms timer?

[PashaDartan]

Take some time off or reframe your thinking because you are either offending someone or getting offended by people with less knowledge. Even if there are ironically many people that come up waving their LatMon results, that's just that.

I'm not sure where anyone has asked for your opinion?
The absolutely basic thing one can do is provide information of the hardware/software where the supposed issue is occurring.
He hasn't provided that. It's insultingly low information for anyone to give him concrete troubleshooting steps..

CPU Type 6C+8c Intel Core i5-14600K
Motherboard Name MSI Pro Z790-P WiFi (MS-7E06) (1 PCI-E x1, 3 PCI-E x16, 4 M.2, 4 DDR5 DIMM, Audio, Video, 2.5GbE LAN, WiFi)
DIMMA2: G Skill F5-6400J3239G16G 16 GB DDR5-6400 DDR5 SDRAM (32-39-39-102 @ 3200 MHz) (30-37-37-96 @ 3000 MHz) (28-35-35-89 @ 2800 MHz) (26-32-32-83 @ 2600 MHz) (22-27-27-70 @ 2200 MHz)
Video Adapter MSI RTX 5070 Gaming Trio OC (MS-V532)
Disk Drive ADATA LEGEND 960 (PCI-E 4.0 x4)
Network Adapter Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz (192.168.0.114)
OS Version 10.0.26200.8117 (Win11 25H2 2025 Update) Atlas

[PashaDartan]

Did you tried global resolutin request + 1ms timer?

Nope, i use ISLC with this settings

[kyube]

I'll redo my reply, since you've recently posted a insert of what devices you're using

I used to have great results with Atlas OS before—everything was fine. My DPC/ISR latency would stay under 200–300 µs maximum no matter what I was doing: downloading, gaming, anything. But one day my system downloaded something somewhere, and my Alt+Tab started working poorly. I tried everything to find a solution (and I mean everything), but nothing worked. So I decided to reinstall Windows, and now I'm right back to a problem I've faced before: really high DPC latency while downloading, and even when not downloading.

1. LatencyMon is not the correct way to evaluate DPC/ISR performance of drivers on Windows. Any values you see in it are irrelevant
2. You seemingly don't have an actual 'issue' at all, it seems? If your only 'issue' is the random value which LatencyMon uses and claims that your system is running terrible, that's a issue on it's end.
There's no mention of "audio cracking" anywhere but in your title?... So what symptoms are you experiencing, other than the arbitrary value that LatencyMon uses?
3. ndis.sys is related to the networking driver stack, take a look at the WIFI chip and/or onboard NIC drivers which you're using on your system (the latter is out of the question, since you're on WiFi)

- Tried different drivers: Windows default drivers, manually installed drivers from my motherboard manufacturer, older driver versions, and even IOBit Driver Booster. Tried disabling Windows Update before connecting to the internet and installing drivers myself.
- Changed power plans and GPU power settings. Tried different presets, custom settings, and custom power plans.
- Changed settings on my Wi-Fi adapter. (I don't have the option to use an Ethernet cable, but as I said, I previously had DPC latency under 300 µs without changing drivers or Wi-Fi adapter settings, so I know it's possible.)
- I'm 100% sure this isn't a BIOS issue because I didn't change anything in BIOS before the first time I encountered this problem, and after I somehow resolved it back then, everything was perfectly fine with latency under 200 µs in any situation. So it has to be a software problem somewhere.

Why not just run a 'Reset to Defaults' in the UEFI menu to clear up any doubts? (save profile you've set-up previously)

CPU Type 6C+8c Intel Core i5-14600K
Motherboard Name MSI Pro Z790-P WiFi (MS-7E06) (1 PCI-E x1, 3 PCI-E x16, 4 M.2, 4 DDR5 DIMM, Audio, Video, 2.5GbE LAN, WiFi)
DIMMA2: G Skill F5-6400J3239G16G 16 GB DDR5-6400 DDR5 SDRAM (32-39-39-102 @ 3200 MHz) (30-37-37-96 @ 3000 MHz) (28-35-35-89 @ 2800 MHz) (26-32-32-83 @ 2600 MHz) (22-27-27-70 @ 2200 MHz)
Video Adapter MSI RTX 5070 Gaming Trio OC (MS-V532)
Disk Drive ADATA LEGEND 960 (PCI-E 4.0 x4)
Network Adapter Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz (192.168.0.114)
OS Version 10.0.26200.8117 (Win11 25H2 2025 Update) Atlas

Why have you chosen 25H2 as your Windows version?
There's a high chance that the Intel AX211 drivers simply perform worse on newer Windows versions.
This part makes my theory plausible:

I used to have great results with Atlas OS before—everything was fine

Try W11 23H2, W10 22H2 or W10 21H2 LTSC.

Nope, i use ISLC with this settings

ISLC is useless for the vast majority of use-cases today, it doesn't provide a benefit.

IOBit Driver Booster

This is borderline malware, avoid using it.

[milojr21]

make sure you don't have

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile]
"NetworkThrottlingIndex"=dword:ffffffff

and that it's set to the default value

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile]
"NetworkThrottlingIndex"=dword:0000000a

that usually causes issues with latencymon if it's off (ffffffff)

[PashaDartan]

1. LatencyMon is not the correct way to evaluate DPC/ISR performance of drivers on Windows. Any values you see in it are irrelevant

Any suggestion how can i test in another\better way?

2. You seemingly don't have an actual 'issue' at all, it seems? If your only 'issue' is the random value which LatencyMon uses and claims that your system is running terrible, that's a issue on it's end.
There's no mention of "audio cracking" anywhere but in your title?... So what symptoms are you experiencing, other than the arbitrary value that LatencyMon uses?

Yeah, mb, i tried to show the problem with latency ndis but didn't described it. So, the problem I'm encountering is audio lag, pops, or cracks. This happens when downloading something, or even when I'm watching a stream, video, or listening to music. Without the internet, the sound is fine. The problem is definitely not with the audio itself, as there's a direct correlation between elevated latency values ​​and the appearance of these pops and crackling sounds. Disabling exclusive audio mode for the audio playback device partially solves the problem, but when I didn't have lag on my previous Windows, it didn't matter whether I had the exclusive device control checkbox checked or not, this didn't happen.
At the same time, my system is acting strangely. I can't show it in screenshots or anything, but it manifests itself this way: for example, in kovaak, when i watching Twitch stream simultaneously, I'm playing a map, and my mouse doesn't move directly from point A to point B, but somewhere in the middle it stops and moves on, like microlag or microstuttering, and it doesn't affect my FPS. This manifests itself not only in kovaak but throughout the system as a whole, but it's just more noticeable in kovak. It happens more ofthen if something downloading somewhere.

3. ndis.sys is related to the networking driver stack, take a look at the WIFI chip and/or onboard NIC drivers which you're using on your system (the latter is out of the question, since you're on WiFi)

I use integrated wifi into my MB. Wifi 6e ax211 160mhz.

Why not just run a 'Reset to Defaults' in the UEFI menu to clear up any doubts? (save profile you've set-up previously)

I tried. Same issue. But on default settings i've higher temperatures due to intel\msi things.

Why have you chosen 25H2 as your Windows version?
There's a high chance that the Intel AX211 drivers simply perform worse on newer Windows versions.
This part makes my theory plausible:

I tried multiply times different versions. 22,23,24,25
I choosed 25 since it's lates version that Atlas support. Right now i'm on atlas as well. And it has better performance in term of fps in games compared to my results.

ISLC is useless for the vast majority of use-cases today, it doesn't provide a benefit.

How can i set wanted timer resolution another way? Since link there with timer resolution dead in guide i use to.
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/ ... asic?pli=1

This is borderline malware, avoid using it.

ik, i'm trying like everything to see the difference before windows reinstall again and again.