Clicks and stutters in playback

I don’t know if this has been since Windows 10 or newer versions of Audacity, however I am experiencing very annoying clicks and stutters in playback on my HP Z640 with on board sound as well as other audio devices. It starts off okay, but quickly starts clicking and stuttering after shortly opening the program… They are not recorded in the file as they play randomly throughout. If I start and stop playback they will happen in other areas.

When it gets really annoying I go to “Tools / Reset Configuration” which helps for a few minutes, but then the clicks and stutters are back again. Anyone else having these issues? I have tried a Behringer UMC404HD and a couple of USB headsets as well as onboard audio. Here are the specs of the onboard audio driver.

Audio Driver Version 6.0.1.8544
DirectX Version Directx 12
Audio Controller HD Audio
Audio Codec ALC221

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.1110]

Thanks

Anyone else having these issues?

Everybody has these issues.

Audacity isn’t a very good data warrior. It’s not good at battling its way past a million other computer services all competing for machine resources.

Here are the specs of the onboard audio driver.

You are warned against microscopically inspecting the sound services. What else is the machine doing? All jobs. Skype, Games, Zoom, YouTube, Firefox? I had a licensing conflict a while back where FireFox was using 80% of my machine.

Do you have and use external or cloud drives?

One extreme case is disconnect the machine from the network and suspend the virus software. Some virus packages have been known to slow things down because they insist on minutely inspecting everything single thing that Audacity does. That does not make for snappy editing.

Make sure you turn everything back on before you go back on-line.

And please let us know if you find something that affects the problem—either way. What usually happens is a forum poster notifies us of a problem and then, if they get it all working, we never hear from them again. Only one person knows what fixed it.

Koz