Solved Windows 10 April 2018 Feature Update audio glitches and stuttering on old x58 system

Anonymous
2018-05-01T09:12:36+00:00

This is a bit of a self answering post to save other people the troubleshooting that I've had to do.

I'm on an old system from Dell, where the motherboard and CPU are from an old Studio XPS 435MT.  It's an old (but still managing) Core i7 940 CPU, but the bigger challenge is the ICH10R SATA ACHI / RAID controller.  

To cut a long story short, after upgrading from 1709 to 1803 (via Windows Update), I got horrible audio stuttering on both the built in Realtek system, and an external Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (2nd gen).  The fact that I had problems on both made me think that the issue was more fundamental than an audio driver issue, and so it proved to be.

It turned out that I had horrific DPC latency issues on what Windows had defaulted to as a storage driver (storport.sys).

After digging a bit, I installed the latest Intel RST driver.  No joy. It was just as bad.

Then I realised that Intel probably dumped support for ICH10R donkey's years ago, and so they did. In fact, they seem to have dropped it back in 2012.

So I uninstalled that, and downloaded Intel RST version 11.7.0.1013 from the Intel download site (thankfully it is still there).  This is the last version of the driver with support for ICH10R as far as I can see.

After installing this version, the audio problems are gone, or as good as gone. The latency on storport.sys is nominal again.

I just hope saves someone else the troubleshooting nightmare. Intel have left us poor people that are milking the last life out of the first gen Core CPUs high and dry with regards to Meltdown and Spectre patches, and the performance has been badly impacted by few patches that have released... but at least this might let us keep the old ICH10R chugging along a bit longer!

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Install and upgrade

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-06-16T02:19:07+00:00

    Hi Stakman1,

    I have no knowledge whatsoever about Microsoft plans for the future, but given that Intel has consciously decided to abandon the 920, 940 and 960 CPUs (Bloomfield) from a Spectre/Meltdown perspective, I can imagine that Microsoft probably feel largely excused to do the same.

    With that in mind, I would say that it is time to put your old underwear at risk of a little soiling, create a backup or at least a restore point, then give this a go.  Given how badly our systems are impacted, I consider them effectively useless without the latency problem resolved... So give it a go... you have little to lose, other than perhaps some underwear from the mid naughties. 

    Good luck! :-)

    You can't see me right now, but if you could you would see me dancing in my chair.  Dancing to undistorted music coming from my computer!  You may also be happy to know that I'm wearing pants.  Anyway,  I knew in my mind that I needed to take the chance and that I didn't really have anything to lose at this point.  I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else.  As an added bonus, I now have a redundant backup of my backup because I'm cautious.  Anyway, thanks! 

    For others who are considering this fix, installation for me was simple. After downloading the installer from Intels website, I ran it without uninstalling the current version and the installer asks if you want the older version.  A reboot later and I was in business again.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-15T10:44:39+00:00

    Hi Stakman1,

    I have no knowledge whatsoever about Microsoft plans for the future, but given that Intel has consciously decided to abandon the 920, 940 and 960 CPUs (Bloomfield) from a Spectre/Meltdown perspective, I can imagine that Microsoft probably feel largely excused to do the same.

    With that in mind, I would say that it is time to put your old underwear at risk of a little soiling, create a backup or at least a restore point, then give this a go.  Given how badly our systems are impacted, I consider them effectively useless without the latency problem resolved... So give it a go... you have little to lose, other than perhaps some underwear from the mid naughties. 

    Good luck! :-)

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-06-15T03:50:18+00:00

    This sure sounds like my issue on a 7 year old Studio XPS 9100 core i7 960 CPU with a RAID array as well, but the technical nature of the fix is slightly beyond my comfort level.   What do you think the odds are that a fix would be rolled out in future updates? 

    While I'm nervous about it I still might give it a try as a last resort as I'd hate to have to retire this old rig.  I have underwear older than this computer for crying out loud!  Anyway I digress, but thanks for this.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-06-13T17:43:44+00:00

    I'm so glad it helped Perry.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-06-13T16:04:47+00:00

    I can't thank you enough for firstly figuring this issue out and then being kind enough to post it for others to also benefit from. My aging Dell Studio XPS 435MT was updated late last week to the latest release of Windows 10 and the dreaded audio, video and mouse stuttering started. I've been struggling ever since trying to figure it out. Did a clean Windows three times and tried countless things with nothing working until I found your solution. Just tried it and bingo, works perfect. I can now keep the old 435 running a while longer. Thank you very much!!!

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