Audio latency issues on a G3-710

For a few months now, my Predator G3-710 has been experiencing latency spikes. Audio dropouts are exceedingly common, and I can't seem to properly diagnose what is causing this problem.

This all started when I installed a new HDD, a WD Blue. Of note is that it spun at 5400rpm, which I initially deduced to be the source of my problem. I have since replaced the WD Blue with a WD Black that spins at 7200rpm, yet the problem persists.
This problem is very inconsistent. Normally, my computer's latency is fine when I boot it up in the morning. The longer it stays on, the worse the spikes get. Sometimes, restarting the system provides a temporary fix.

Here are things that I've already tried:

Defragmenting my HDD with Defraggler.
Installing and routinely using CCleaner.
Lowering the number of startup programs.
Updating all my drivers.
Updating my BIOS (currently American Megatrends Inc. R01-A4, 5/19/2016, from this page: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/6373?b=1&pn=DG.B14AA.008&sn=DGB14AA008634073613000).
Installing exhaust fans in my tower. These definitely do their job when it comes to cooling the system.
Disabling CPU throttling for all programs.
Moving the system pagefile to my SSD boot drive, as opposed to my HDD data drive. I also tried disabling it entirely.
Disabling the motherboard's onboard audio via the BIOS menu, and uninstalling the Realtek HD Audio driver with Display Driver Uninstaller to be thorough.
Disabling ALL audio drivers. I technically have four: a speaker system connected to my motherboard's onboard audio (as mentioned above, this is now disabled), an external sound system connected via USB, my monitor's internal speaker, with a driver handled by my GPU (since it has an HDMI connection; this one is also disabled), and my wireless headphones that connect via a USB adapter.
Disabling my network drivers (both my WiFi card and my Ethernet port).
Running Windows Memory Diagnostic.
Resetting my PC via wiping my boot drive and reinstalling Windows.

Here is a LatencyMon report:

and in text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WvgF3pWvXAUwVcdG8Hng-2d1LLxepfPT/view?usp=sharing
Here's a summary of my desktop via Speccy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hj3aQVuB_SC4k-8rT5waenGOmvh2HvNe/view?usp=sharing

As I mentioned, this has been a problem for a while, and I've tried so many things that didn't work that I eventually resorted to resetting my PC. That fixed the problem for a while, but it's back now. Hopefully I can get it fixed for good this time.Let me know if you need any more information from me.

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billsey

Are you booting from the 240GB SSD or one of the other drives? Where is your pagefile.sys located?

Terrace210

billsey said:

Are you booting from the 240GB SSD or one of the other drives? Where is your pagefile.sys located?

As you say, I am booting from the 240GB SSD. My pagefile is also on the SSD. I have tried removing the other two drives to see if they are the cause of the problem, but the spikes continue even when they are unplugged. It is possible, then, that the SSD is the problem, but no tests I've done seem to indicate that.

billsey

I think it much more likely that one of your drivers is capturing the bus for too long during it's normal updates. Either there is a hardware issue that makes the capture last too long or a poorly written driver that just isn't being nice to everyone else. Of the things you've tried the only one I'd have issue with is the Defraggler, but as long as you kept it only on the HDD and not on any SSD you're fine. Try this: boot into safe mode with all third party services disabled and run for a day or so checking to see if the issue will appear. If not then the problem is likely with either hardware or software that's not included in the standard Windows 10 load. Re-enable about half of them and test again, trying to pin it down to a single item by either adding half back in or removing half each time. The fact that it takes a while to show up and gradually gets worse after it shows points more toward software than hardware. Hardware with those symptoms is almost always heat related and you could force extra cooling to test that. Software, on the other hand, could be a memory leak (you could see that by looking in Resource Manager at individual tasks to see one that gains a lot of memory over time. Some of the browsers do that often and it's pretty easy to see. It could also be corrupted data saved by the software, then reused later causing errors. Those really ought to show up in Event Viewer though.

Terrace210

Final update:

I solved the issue in a rather frustratingly simple way. Turns out it was nothing more than one of my background programs. I never suspected it was a problem because nothing suspicious was showing up in Task Manager. But when I shut the program down, the problem seems to go away. Thanks for all the help, anyway!