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[David Sydney]

Anyone else notice audio stuttering this week. I mean playing FLAC File 16 or 24 bit and audio stops for half second every 1.5 or 2 min. Sometimes plays ok for a few songs, then it comes back again.

I have been scouring Jim's Weird Problems post. [Just happened again]. My CPU is running b.w 2-4% max while not opening anything else, memory at 33%. I have been steadily stopping background programs/services to try to find it. There was a MS Edge update that came through this week to 88.0.705.74...

Is it just me? Probably

[wer]

Make sure Memory playback: load decoded file into memory is turned on.

[DJLegba]

Make sure Memory playback: load decoded file into memory is turned on.

Why? Memory playback is just a checkbox feature for people who believe it will make things sound better.

[wer]

No, it's also a feature that pre-buffers the entire file so that there is no need for disk I/O during playback.  Disk I/O that might be delayed and cause a stutter.  That's why.

[DJLegba]

But as implemented it can cause significant delays between tracks. If disk/network speed is a problem it should be handled with a proper solution.

[JimH]

You shouldn't need to turn on memory playback.

Are the files stored locally and played locally?

[dtc]

Using memory playback in this case is a diagnostic tool. It helps determine if disk access is the cause of the stuttering.

[wer]

But as implemented it can cause significant delays between tracks. If disk/network speed is a problem it should be handled with a proper solution.

I guess you didn't understand that it's an easy diagnostic. Since the stutters are shorter than the length of a track, if the stutters moved to a delay between tracks when this was turned on, it would indicate the stutter was I/O driven.

Perhaps I should just leave this to you, since your expertise leads you to disapprove of what I'm suggesting.  Go ahead with your solution.

Edit: I see that dtc, who knows what he's doing, posted while I was typing with his understanding of my intention. It's very straightforward.

[DJLegba]

I guess you didn't understand that it's an easy diagnostic. Since the stutters are shorter than the length of a track, if the stutters moved to a delay between tracks when this was turned on, it would indicate the stutter was I/O driven.

Perhaps I should just leave this to you, since your expertise leads you to disapprove of what I'm suggesting.  Go ahead with your solution.

Edit: I see that dtc, who knows what he's doing, posted while I was typing with his understanding of my intention. It's very straightforward.

I always enjoy your accept no BS replies to people, and I will often read something I'm not otherwise interested in just to see how you've handled it. I respect your expertise, and readily admit I would tell anyone to follow your advice before mine. I don't like the way memory playback works as implemented, because it causes gaps when there should not be gaps. But you're right, it may be a good diagnostic tool.

[wer]

Well just because it's a good diagnostic trick doesn't mean it will actually amount to anything in this case.  If it doesn't provoke a change we'll have to consider other options.

We'll have to see when the OP tries it.

[David Sydney]

Goodness - PC specs are below. Currently the setting is "loaded full file (not decoded) into memory" I don't ever remember changing that setting before. Files are local drive, on WD Blue 4x2TB RAID5 drive. I know RAID 5 is not as fast as other configurations but I have used RAID5 for 10+ years and it has saved me from failed drives at least 3 times.

Happened about 2 or 3 years ago but the stutter was constant. The cause of that I eventually found out was a degraded drive on the array and it was constantly trying to rebuild but falling over as the drive was only half dead. This time I have just spent the last hour or so (not looking at the forum obviously) trying to download Intel SetupRST for the front end app to examine the state of the drive (a journey in itself it seems). The drive is fine and with the setting above it seems it's a software cpu thing. Just for the sake of it I will try a couple of other variations this setting and stopping some background stuff to see if I can find it.

Thanks for the insight from all.

[tij]

I use CrystalDisk tool to monitor HDD health (doesnt work on SAS drives) ... it monitors SMART stats

One of my drive fail ... after months of warnings from CrystalDisk :/

[wer]

With the setting the way you have it, it's probably not a disk read problem.

Is your RAID hardware based, on the controller, or software based?  If it's hardware based, it will still work if you boot into safe mode, so that you have access to the data.

I would be inclined to boot into safe mode, and try playback then.  If the problem does not occur there, I would suspect some service or other background process.

[David Sydney]

Thanks Wer,
The RAID drive is hardware UEFI based which is why I did not have a monitoring app loaded. The whole system is only 6 months old. I will give your suggestion a whirl. I will update if I find something specific.

[David Sydney]

Hi folks - Did not really find out what this was. I ran Win update this week and it loaded 20H2, and the problem seemed to have disappeared this week.