Thorough testing is a good idea and I applaud your efforts to share your experiences and provide a guideline. It just seemed a little too much like an authorative line "you must turn off network and firewall to get reliable low latency". That hasn't been my experience in any of my systems, though I know wifi especially is a common cause for dropouts and popping.

Sanderxpander
Thorough testing is a good idea and I applaud your efforts to share your experiences and provide a guideline. It just seemed a little too much like an authorative line "you must turn off network and firewall to get reliable low latency". That hasn't been my experience in any of my systems, though I know wifi especially is a common cause for dropouts and popping.

Thanks and I am aware that I am forum illiterate and trying very hard to change, sometimes i express my thoughts in a "you must manner "forgetting that I am talking to strangers and just trying to help like a friend.

In this case though I clearly state that while doing a LatencyMon test if you go over 1000us then try a optimisation to see if it solves the problem, disable your network was one of the suggestions and taking notes of that tweak so you can eliminate tweaks that don't fix it was the point.
I really don't have anything more to discuss if that is how you are interpreting what I have written.
Thanks for your feedback I will try harder next time to sound less authorative.

It's no problem at all, I just misinterpreted your tone and wanted to make it a more balanced message. Please keep doing what you're doing.

I will randomly have issues if I leave my network card enabled so it's always disabled and only used briefly for updates. But I also have a laptop that does not seem bothered at all by even the wireless network so I think it is all system dependent. But that said yes, the easiest and first thing you disable if your having dropouts is the internet. 
 
 

I have to agree with Johnny, I believe it is system dependent (on the kind of network card).
I've had some set ups where it made no difference at all, yet others that have reeked havoc with pops, clicks and drop outs.
 

Sanderxpander
Thorough testing is a good idea and I applaud your efforts to share your experiences and provide a guideline. It just seemed a little too much like an authorative line "you must turn off network and firewall to get reliable low latency". That hasn't been my experience in any of my systems, though I know wifi especially is a common cause for dropouts and popping.

You are a lucky guy if you do not experience this in any system or you know so much about the subject that you already have taken the necessary precautions and measures. Point is that lots of people have only marginal knowledge about a computer and its hard - and software behaviour.
One can have a good running system for years and than suddenly it starts....stuttering complete drop outs, etc.
Of course it is good to make a difference between standard latency issues in a normally working system and these type of audio dropouts. The latter is not only a DAW problem as it can be heard and noticed in any audio and video program.
Play a You Tube video if it stutters then you have it. Play an audio file in Windows Media Player or any other player if it stutters you have DPC Latency problems.
 
This is a huge problem not only for audio lovers but also for gamers. Do a search on internet and you will find tons of problems.
Once you have a system with this effect, the suggestions made in this thread are only for a start.
 
Jan

Shouldn't the realtek HD audio driver issue be mentioned here? I seem to remember an issue it had in NVidia systems, or was it AMD? See an example here.

fret_man
Shouldn't the realtek HD audio driver issue be mentioned here? I seem to remember an issue it had in NVidia systems, or was it AMD? See an example here.

Yes, this was one of the most helpful tips by Craig Anderton, to disable the HD audio drivers that are on by default.  It's not just RealTek.

fret_man
Shouldn't the realtek HD audio driver issue be mentioned here? I seem to remember an issue it had in NVidia systems, or was it AMD? See an example here.

Nice !
I use 2 nvidia cards which also come with HD audio drivers in exactly the same location as Anderton pointed out in his thread. I have them disabled in device manger and then double check PC Sound Properties to confirm they actually are.
I also do this for any microphones at the Sound Properties Window also, so basically everything but my Audio Interface and it's inputs and outputs gets disabled.

Disabling inputs and outputs in your bios that you don't use is also advisable. I have system Audio disabled in my bios along with sas, ieee. Internal USB, UN used sata ports etc etc all disabled.
Keep in mind though that you will still need to disable the HD Audio driver even with system audio disabled in bios, or at least with z800.


Great advice thank you for adding it in !