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Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

Dear community,


after having installed OSX Mountain Lion my sound startet stuttering whenever there is rapid movement on my screen.

This includes e.g. window movement, scrolling through image loaded websites or video playback (flash player, quicktime).

A restart didn't help. I'm using stereo output, not digital.


I have connected a second monitor but the problem persists after disconnecting it. Movement on the second monitor also causes the sound to stutter.

My GPU Diode temperature is at 85°C (there is some bug that keeps the GPU under load while a second monitor is connected AFAIK), but I guess it was the same under Snow Leopard.


In Snow Leopard the sound output was always perfect even under heavy load or heavy HDD I/O.


Any ideas?

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 5:48 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 3:22 PM

I am also having this issue as well.


I opened Activity Monitor and noticed that during the stuttering, coreaudiod jumps in CPU usage, often past 5%. I have also noticed graphics lag when this occurs if I'm doing something like watching full-screen video or gaming.


I'm currently experiencing this on mid 2011 iMac 27" as well as a 24" iMac 2009 model I use at work.

1,223 replies

Mar 15, 2013 8:00 AM in response to Otrax

Best thing you can do is request apple take it back or sell it off and go buy a PC. They don't care as evidenced by the amount of time this fix took and the amount of screaming to get them to even do anything like betas. If you can, list it on criagslist and buy a new PC that actually gets support.


Unsubscribing from the thread as this doesn't pertain to me anymore. But lesson learned, I'm taking my business elsewhere. Apple also has a class action suit against them for the Retina displays having image retention too, which is another area they knowingly have abused their posiiton. Not to mention their drones who scour the threads to censor this stuff from innocent and unsuspecting eyes. 9to5, appleinsider, and mac rumors don't censor there which is a great source and google frequently pulls them in searches for problems. You might try researching their discussion boards for a more unbiased reporting than the apple sided posts here. Good luck!

Mar 15, 2013 8:09 AM in response to Otrax

My sound since installing 10.8.3 is stuttering all the time now. I had not noticed the problem prior to installation.


I had noticed a terrible stuttering problem with typed characters appearing on the screen and with video downloads stalling for seconds, but not audio ... until now.


By the way ... the stuttering key to display problem still exists as does the video download problem. 10.8.x was not Apple's finest moment.


I have been working with multiprocessor, multi tasking operating systems since the early 1980s and this problem existed then... its always traced to the manager routines getting lost.

Mar 15, 2013 8:26 AM in response to tttxx

I did the upgrade last night and so far the audio is fine, the real test will come tonight when I try to watch a full movie after my iMac has been running for more than an hour! (maybe and hour of Starcraft II as well)

Fingers crossed that this actually fixes this problem.

I am also amazed that they mention the Audio Stutter problem on the list of fixes for 10.8.3

Also I am wary of buying whatever new OS they come out with this summer and will be skimming these boards for problems that might make my 1 1/2 year old iMac run like something from 2005!

Mar 15, 2013 2:26 PM in response to dokt

iMac i7 27" late 2009 and still stutterin with 10.8.3. I waited 6 Months for this update like an idiot and tried everything, I've reformated my whole System a dozen times and now this. I'm actually thinking about throwing this piece of **** out of the window. The moment I've read that the audio fix is for the newer iMac's i knew it. Apple, i give you one last chance .... fix it!!!!

Mar 15, 2013 3:06 PM in response to Chris Vice

Actually it's worse now:


Fri Mar 15 23:04:48 0:02:54

SCHEDULER INTERRUPTS

---------------------------------------------

total_samples 103585 141322



delays < 10 usecs 89959 132643

delays < 20 usecs 11377 5756

delays < 30 usecs 516 1725

delays < 40 usecs 235 392

delays < 50 usecs 170 214

delays < 60 usecs 99 143

delays < 70 usecs 958 79

delays < 80 usecs 185 130

delays < 90 usecs 47 175

delays < 100 usecs 17 35

total < 100 usecs 103563 141292



delays < 200 usecs 22 30

delays < 300 usecs 0 0

delays < 400 usecs 0 0

delays < 500 usecs 0 0

delays < 600 usecs 0 0

delays < 700 usecs 0 0

delays < 800 usecs 0 0

delays < 900 usecs 0 0

delays < 1 msec 0 0

total < 1 msec 22 30



delays < 2 msecs 0 0

delays < 3 msecs 0 0

delays < 4 msecs 0 0

delays < 5 msecs 0 0

delays < 6 msecs 0 0

delays < 7 msecs 0 0

delays < 8 msecs 0 0

delays < 9 msecs 0 0

delays < 10 msecs 0 0

total < 10 msecs 0 0



delays < 20 msecs 0 0

delays < 30 msecs 0 0

delays < 40 msecs 0 0

delays < 50 msecs 0 0

total < 50 msecs 0 0



delays > 50 msecs 0 0



minimum latency(usecs) 1 0

maximum latency(usecs) 145 144

average latency(usecs) 5 5

exceeded threshold 0 0

Mar 16, 2013 7:12 AM in response to kallisti

Terminal:

sudo latency -p 97 -st 2000 -it 2000 \

-l ~/Desktop/latency_YYYYMMDDTHHMM.log



ctrl + c to stop it (facing terminal)


I will go back to Lion now, I hope they resolved the WIFI dropping with the last update for Lion, that I had in the past (that already drived me crazy). I always recommended Apple Hardware and I'm starting to regret this. My last chance I give them is 10.9.

Mar 16, 2013 12:52 PM in response to Chris Vice

Chris Vice wrote:


Terminal:

sudo latency -p 97 -st 2000 -it 2000 \

-l ~/Desktop/latency_YYYYMMDDTHHMM.log



ctrl + c to stop it (facing terminal)


I will go back to Lion now, I hope they resolved the WIFI dropping with the last update for Lion, that I had in the past (that already drived me crazy). I always recommended Apple Hardware and I'm starting to regret this. My last chance I give them is 10.9.

Sweet!


Thanks dude


I always love cool new terminal lessons

Mar 18, 2013 11:00 AM in response to Chris Vice

Consider playing around energy management selections as having an impact of stuttering.


I'm using a MacBook Pro 17inch with 16 gigs of RAM.


Stuttering changes when I change Computer Sleep and Hard drive sleep.


My testing is just beginning... more tests by others will speed up the evaluation.


Turning off any sleep directives, while battery powered or adapter powered, seems to decrease the frequency of stuttering. There are other penalities when sleep is turned off. Right now finding the source of stuttering in prioritized.


What is your experience?

Mar 18, 2013 12:15 PM in response to jimoase

I've been on this thread since page 45 and discovered the thing that fixed my mid 2009 13" MBP (running 10.8.2) was turning off "show icon preview" in 'finder > view > show view options >'. I'm reposting this as I would never bother with re-installing the OS when so many people have with no luck. This thing is a weird moving target and I'm actually going to wait to update to 10.8.3 for fear of breaking what is working beautifully right now.


I guess one major detail is I'm not running a DAW on this machine yet (that's on my SnowLeo MBP which I will never upgrade), but iTunes was being hosed consistently until I turned off the icon preview. I hope this helps...

Mar 19, 2013 2:07 AM in response to tttxx

I have horrific stuttering as well when playing vevo in Chrome. I primarily use an older Mac Pro at home, though I have several other Mac laptops. I had waited to go to ML until they finally fixed the Notes problem with IMAP server prefix. Now I discover there's still an even worse audio stutter problem.


Anytime I do something in another window, the audio starts to stutter. It gets worse the more acitvity I do. Sometimes I still get stutter when it seems I'm not doing anything.


I only had very occasional stutter in Lion. But in ML it's pretty much constant as long as I am doing anything else. Very unimpressed with ML and it's been out for quite some time. Has way more bugs than it's worth.

Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

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