PC Audio Stuttering

Hi there,

Built my PC a year ago, absolutely no problems. Rock solid!

Then I decided to install a ThermalRight CPU Contact Frame for LGA1700 to try and improve my CPU temps for cheap. After installation I did some Cinebench R23 and maybe 5 seconds in the display turns off and the PC restarts. I was monitoring the temps using HWiNFO64 and the temps seemed more or less the same. Below 90 C if it matters.

Tried it again and it was fine. But I was getting random restarts a couple more times. Once I was watching YouTube and the display turned off but the audio was still running. Had to hard reset the PC. Decided the Contact frame must be installed incorrectly.

Remounted the contact frame and CPU cooler. No more crashes, slightly better temps but now the audio is stuttering every few seconds for like 0.1 second.

LatencyMon saying "Conclusion: Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."

**·Highest reported ISR routine execution time (µs): 18.735174 (Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation)**

**·Highest reported DPC routine execution time (µs): 24520.697207 (portcls.sys - Port Class (Class Driver for Port/Miniport Devices), Microsoft Corporation)**

**Highest executions are portcls.sys (25ms, yes ms not micro-seconds) followed by nvlddmkm.sys (4ms) followed by dxgkrnl.sys (3ms)**

But after checking latencymon regularly sometimes it's the nvlddmkm that causes the stutters, sometimes it's the wdf01000.sys.

Cinebench, games, everything is stable now, temps are slightly lower. But audio glitches are new.

I did mess around with some BIOS settings such as disabling and setting back to auto "Asus Multicore enhancement" for a few days trying to figure out before the contact frame remount. I also disabled some E-cores a couple weeks before all of this to try and gain maximum single core performance and less heat. I have done no overclocking or messed around with voltages.

Specs: Intel 12900K Asus Z790 G.Skill DDR5

Using audio on my headphones via the 3.5mm jack if it matters. I have not tried any other audio output method.

Everything (BIOS settings also) was/is stock except for the 2 things I mentioned above.

Let me know if you need any more info.

I did read up on a few threads and some people suggest to turn off unused SATA ports and other suggest to change audio format (Not possible in my case).

I feel like I brought this upon myself but I did follow GamersNexus video exactly to install the CPU contact frame. I can go back to the stock Intel ILM but I don't want to unless necessary.

Thank you!