How to Completely Solve PC External Sound Card Stuttering and Popping Issues
This article will detail how I spent 3 days carefully researching and troubleshooting to solve the occasional stuttering and popping issues when using an external sound card on a Windows PC.
Here is the story: recently I bought monitor speakers, so I took out the UR24C I bought several years ago to use as a permanent device. (Normally, I only use it for recording, and sometimes the driver drops out in the software.)
After connecting the monitor speakers, that little issue appeared again—whether I was listening to music or operating in a DAW. Although the audio only stutters for about 0.5 seconds before reconnecting, it sometimes really ruins the mood. Moreover, there is no pattern to it, and I never know under what circumstances it will stutter. (Of course, most of these audio issues occur on PCs; I believe this wouldn't be an issue on a Mac.)
I uninstalled the sound card driver and went to the official website to reinstall it.
Increasing the Buffer Size didn't work. The sound stuttering and popping still occurred.
So I searched online, and wow, many people have the same problem as me. Many of these cases have emerged in recent years, especially on new computers and new operating systems. The messy reasons that could lead to this problem are incredibly numerous. Let me list a few at random:
On WIN11, you need to downgrade to WIN10.
The connection cable needs to be plugged into a USB 2.0 port. If the computer no longer has USB 2.0, you need to buy an adapter to try.
You need to configure the computer's BIOS.
You need to disable the graphics card's audio device.
Then I checked the official website and saw even more ridiculous explanations.
Even having your phone too close counts as a reason for stuttering and popping. Of course, you shouldn't fully trust the reasons provided on the official website or those found online.
Here, I will list the things you truly must pay attention to:
Update the sound card driver to the latest version.
Update to the latest BIOS by downloading it from your motherboard/laptop manufacturer's official website.
Disable C-state and Speedstep in the BIOS.
Update the graphics card driver (like Nvidia cards) to the latest version.
Supply external power to the sound card with a 5V DC power adapter, especially if the computer's own USB power delivery is insufficient (particularly for laptops).
It is best to use a USB-C to USB-C cable to connect the computer and the sound card.
If your computer's USB port does not support USB 3.0, you need to select USB 2.0 mode in the sound card driver settings.
Adjust the computer's power plan to High Performance.
In Device Manager, under "Universal Serial Bus controllers," go to the "Power Management" tab for all devices and turn off the power-saving option ("Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power").
However, after doing all of the above, the problem was still not solved, and the audio would still stutter from time to time. At this point, I searched online and found a software called "LatencyMon". This software is the "ultimate testing standard" to check if a computer is experiencing latency and stuttering issues.
https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
As shown in the image, the software's conclusion was that the system appeared to be having trouble handling real-time audio tasks, meaning the sound might stutter. It pointed out that a process called ACPI.sys was causing this problem.
ACPI.sys
For this specific issue, I finally found a solution on YouTube. However, this solution is not a once-and-for-all fix for PCs; you need to repeat these steps every time you restart your computer.
In Device Manager, disable or uninstall the following items. Don't worry, these drivers will be automatically reinstalled after you restart the computer:
Batteries — Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
System devices — ACPI Processor Aggregator
System devices — Intel(R) Innovation Platform Framework Generic Participant
System devices — Intel(R) Innovation Platform Framework Manager
System devices — Intel(R) Innovation Platform Framework Processor Participant
System devices — Intel(R) Management Engine Interface #1
System devices — Microsoft Windows Management Interface for ACPI
Running LatencyMon again at this point showed that the ACPI.sys issue was finally resolved. However, new problems appeared, such as wdf01000.sys, which was also one of the culprits causing high latency.
Final Operation
Thanks again to a YouTube expert, I finally completely solved the stuttering and popping issues with my PC external sound card. This problem that had troubled me for 3 days was finally conquered!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFH8u_283mM
To briefly summarize this 1-minute video:
Download PowerSettingsExplorer: https://www.mediafire.com/file/wt37sbsejk7iepm/PowerSettingsExplorer.zip
In the software, find and disable "Processor idle demote threshold" and "Processor idle promote threshold".
Open "Control Panel" -> "Power Options", and ensure the "High Performance" mode is selected.
Click on "Change advanced power settings".
Configure the settings for "Hard disk", "Sleep", and "Processor power management" according to the Youtube video.
Download UnparkCPU: https://coderbag.com/programming-c/disable-cpu-core-parking-utility
Drag the core parking index to 100%.
Running LatencyMon again after doing all this, I finally completely solved the problem and can happily listen to music now.
This is also why, if you want peace of mind and zero hassle, you should just get a Mac. Moreover, with future Windows system updates, more bugs and problems will inevitably appear.
And a reminder again: If it is an ACPI.sys issue, you need to perform the Device Manager operation every day.
