PC audio stutter every 15 minutes - FIXED

[SeattleChris]

Hello - My brand-new Dell PC audio stutters every 15 minutes exactly, repeating a beat/sound maybe 3 times in one second. This happens regardless of source (CD, Amazon Music streaming, MP3's on the Itunes player, even live Teams meetings) and regardless of out output (USB headset, USB DAC to stereo). This is very jarring and makes me jump when listening at moderate volumes.

The new PC is a good one ($2K) and has Windows 11. Dell tech support has had me delete/reinstall drivers, even reinstall Windows 11 and nothing has helped. Looking at the Event Viewer I found there is a Windows security event 4624 type 5 that happens at these same intervals on the minute. Tech support even had me disable Windows Security but the event (and stutter) still happened. Is it safe to assume this is a Windows 11 problem? Thanks!

 

[DCarmi]

On my slightly older XPS 8930 sound drivers were a pain in the posterior. I found the latest Realtek driver produced a grossly distorted sound. I switched to an old driver 6.0.1.8248 (05/09/2017) and things were fine.

Every now and again Windows insisted on updating to the latest driver causing the problem to re-occur. I kept switching back to the old one. Since "upgrading" to Windows 11 I have kept the old driver and it seems to be happy not to change it and my sound is fine.

 

[SeattleChris]

Hi DCarmi - Thanks for the info. While the Realtek driver didn't turn out to be the problem you inspired me to do one more web search on "PC audio stutter every 15 minutes". On the 3rd or 4th page of links I finally found one specific to the "15 minutes".

You won't believe (yes, you will) what the problem was: Dell's own SupportAssist software. I uninstalled that app and have now listened to 3 hours of music without a stutter. I spent hours trying fixes Dell support suggested but they never suspected their own software. There is no telling how much pain this would have caused me had I not happened upon that forum post!

 

[DCarmi]

I am glad you fixed it.

I am still using Support Assist. Dell recently updated the software but neglected to push out the version of the .Net framework they used to compile the software. This caused problems for loads of users and took me a while to figure out.

Given it is Dell software running on Dell hardware, you'd kind of expect the to do a little testing!

 

[MrMercury]

Hi DCarmi - Thanks for the info. While the Realtek driver didn't turn out to be the problem you inspired me to do one more web search on "PC audio stutter every 15 minutes". On the 3rd or 4th page of links I finally found one specific to the "15 minutes".

You won't believe (yes, you will) what the problem was: Dell's own SupportAssist software. I uninstalled that app and have now listened to 3 hours of music without a stutter. I spent hours trying fixes Dell support suggested but they never suspected their own software. There is no telling how much pain this would have caused me had I not happened upon that forum post!

My friend, you have made me so happy I had to register to this forum just to tell how grateful I am for this.

I bought an Alienware 4 months ago and have been having the exact same stuttering issues. It had been driving me bonkers trying to fix. That was until I stumbled upon this and removed support assist and now my pc is running like a dream. Thank you so so much.

 

[SeattleChris]

Hi MrMercury - Glad to hear it worked for you! SupportAssist was indeed my problem as my PC audio hasn't stuttered for the last three months. Otherwise the Dell XPS seems to be a decent PC.

 

[endandretrun]

late 2023, time for me to say thank you....£1500 pioneer decks cutting out every 15 mins, dell 7590 laptop, yep, support assist was the culprit and without this post I would have NEVER worked this out