iCUE causes audio stuttering

[palexdev]

So today I updated iCUE on my laptop and after the update the audio started stuttering. (it was still v3)

I uninstalled the software with IOBit to perform a clean installation. Downloaded v4 and installed, the issue was there again.

 

I did the tests with my Corsair VOID Elite Wireless headset, a pair of Xiaomi earphones and without any headset, the stuttering was always present.

 

To people that may have the same issue the fix is:

1. Open the iCUE installation folder and locate "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe"
   
2. Kill the Corsair CpuIdRemote process with the task manager or any process manager
   
3. Quickly change that file extension to anything you want, for example "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe.dumb", this will prevent the service from restarting
   
4. Enjoy
   

 

Waiting Corsair to fix this...

[DannyNeutron]

I am also having this exact same issue! I signed up on this forum just to report about this problem but I'm glad you already posted about this! I have an Area 51m R2 and my speakers began to pop after installing the application. I first tried reinstalling my audio drivers and it didn't work. Once I removed iCue my audio problem was solved.

 

I hope they release a fix soon.

 

Thank you!

[bynot]

So today I updated iCUE on my laptop and after the update the audio started stuttering. (it was still v3)

I uninstalled the software with IOBit to perform a clean installation. Downloaded v4 and installed, the issue was there again.

 

I did the tests with my Corsair VOID Elite Wireless headset, a pair of Xiaomi earphones and without any headset, the stuttering was always present.

 

To people that may have the same issue the fix is:

1. Open the iCUE installation folder and locate "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe"
   
2. Kill the Corsair CpuIdRemote process with the task manager or any process manager
   
3. Quickly change that file extension to anything you want, for example "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe.dumb", this will prevent the service from restarting
   
4. Enjoy
   

 

Waiting Corsair to fix this...

 

This fix has saved me going mad, thanks.

 

For days I've been trying to figure out why my audio playback has been giving me some weird sound playback on my laptop. In the end I did a clean reinstall of windows 10 to see if that would fix the problem it was only when I reinstalled the icue software that the problem started again. It was not something I even considered when I don't have any headphones made by corsair.

 

I hope they fix this problem soon.

[Corsair James]

We do have an audio driver installed with iCUE but we haven't seen this issue internally. Does this issue happen with Windows Sonic enabled? This allows you to bypass our audio driver completely (and will confirm if our driver is the source of the issue).

[bynot]

We do have an audio driver installed with iCUE but we haven't seen this issue internally. Does this issue happen with Windows Sonic enabled? This allows you to bypass our audio driver completely (and will confirm if our driver is the source of the issue).

 

For me the issue happens with or without Windows Sonic enabled, though the audio issue does not not happen when playing back video using a Bluetooth device (IE: Headphones or soundbar)

 

It only started happening once I updated the icue software, sorry to say I can't remember the version I had installed before. The fix that palexdev posted does seem to do the trick and like I said I even did a fresh install of Windows and it wasn't an issue until I installed icue. Also if I uninstall icue the issue goes away.

[Corsair James]

For me the issue happens with or without Windows Sonic enabled, though the audio issue does not not happen when playing back video using a Bluetooth device (IE: Headphones or soundbar)

 

It only started happening once I updated the icue software, sorry to say I can't remember the version I had installed before. The fix that palexdev posted does seem to do the trick and like I said I even did a fresh install of Windows and it wasn't an issue until I installed icue. Also if I uninstall icue the issue goes away.

 

I will report this to the devs - its odd CPURemote would cause this. This stuttering may be unrelated to our audio driver then.

[21EduX]

So today I updated iCUE on my laptop and after the update the audio started stuttering. (it was still v3)

I uninstalled the software with IOBit to perform a clean installation. Downloaded v4 and installed, the issue was there again.

 

I did the tests with my Corsair VOID Elite Wireless headset, a pair of Xiaomi earphones and without any headset, the stuttering was always present.

 

To people that may have the same issue the fix is:

Open the iCUE installation folder and locate "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe"

Kill the Corsair CpuIdRemote process with the task manager or any process manager

Quickly change that file extension to anything you want, for example "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe.dumb", this will prevent the service from restarting

Enjoy

 

Waiting Corsair to fix this...

 

Hi, today arrived my corsair k 95 xt platinum, and once installed icue software it began the same issue you describe with the audio.

Fortunely i looked the task administrator and turn off the Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe" and problem solved. But later it start again.

So a deleted the .exe no more problem.

 

i hope this will be fixed soon.

[JamesFearn]

Hi all. Just want to chime in here and echo the issue, feedback and workaround mentioned above.

 

I have recently (within the last week) purchased a new HP Envy laptop with Corsair Virtuoso RGB wireless headset. With the base Microsoft drivers the headset functions flawlessly, albeit delivering 2 channel audio. As soon as iCUE versions 3.38.61 or 4.11.274 are installed UBS audio begins exhibiting problematic symptoms - in my case noticeable skipping/stuttering every second or two.

 

This doesn't just impact the Corsair headset but all USB delivered audio to speakers, monitors or other headsets etc. 3.5mm, Bluetooth and local speaker audio is NOT affected when iCUE is installed.

 

Not knowing at the time if the issue was part of the base build I performed a clean install of my OS which immediately cured my problem. I began streaming music and installed my apps one at a time until installing iCUE when the issue reoccurred. Several installs/uninstalls later and I am 100% convinced iCUE is the culprit regardless of the version used. A quick forum search led me to information to DELETE Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe from C:\Program Files\Corsair\CORSAIR iCUE 4 Software\ and this resolved the audio skipping issue immediately - you need to stop the CpuIdRemote64 service first.

 

Have the devs made any progress with this as iCUE, at least for me, doesn't work without the Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe file in place?

[lian_theyolo]

So today I updated iCUE on my laptop and after the update the audio started stuttering. (it was still v3)

I uninstalled the software with IOBit to perform a clean installation. Downloaded v4 and installed, the issue was there again.

 

I did the tests with my Corsair VOID Elite Wireless headset, a pair of Xiaomi earphones and without any headset, the stuttering was always present.

 

To people that may have the same issue the fix is:

1. Open the iCUE installation folder and locate "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe"
   
2. Kill the Corsair CpuIdRemote process with the task manager or any process manager
   
3. Quickly change that file extension to anything you want, for example "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe.dumb", this will prevent the service from restarting
   
4. Enjoy
   

 

Waiting Corsair to fix this...

 

 

Thanks for the help! For months I've done trial & errors finally found the root cause of my HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop audio buzzing.

 

From March till today, i had surrounded with this issue & done reformat my laptop for couple times, Corsair Dev you guys really had to do something to solve this issue

[Chalky1]

I am also having this exact same issue! I signed up on this forum just to report about this problem but I'm glad you already posted about this! I have an Area 51m R2 and my speakers began to pop after installing the application. I first tried reinstalling my audio drivers and it didn't work. Once I removed iCue my audio problem was solved.

 

I hope they release a fix soon.

 

Thank you!

 

Same here i just signed up, I to have the same issue with my HP Omen laptop

was driving me nuts out of the blue speakers started crackling i even sent the laptop back to HP for repair as i said the speakers are faulty they change speakers did a factory reset said all was ok, i got it back so just started to reinstall all my stuff and was getting the same crackle i have been on the phone with HP and sent them video of the problem they are going to look at it, so i thought let me do a reset myself after just doing that today all was good no crackle so i thought i would install 1 by 1my software and updates as soon as i installed iCUE there it was the bloody crackle and the fix on here does not work for me i still get audio issues Uninstall iCUE and all is fine no crackle or any issues so now i can't use my Corsair Dark Core RGB PRO SE, Wireless/Wired Gaming Mouse to say i am upset well, and to think i had sent my laptop back and accuse HP of a faulty £1600 laptop i feel so stupid

Edited July 1, 2021 by Chalky1

[Chalky1]

Just a thought if iCUE has audio software then there could be a conflict, maybe An IRQ (Interrupt Request) number is assigned to the onboard Realtek audio and causing static

[pyden3.14]

I haven't tried to disable this particular service yet. But I've been trouble shooting whole system stuttering, particularly when in a demanding situations like gaming. I thought it was my new 3080TI. After a whole new windows install the problem only came back after installing icue. Uninstalling icue and the stuttering goes away.

 

I'll try to disable this service only when I get home.

[jmh0021]

I stumbled upon this post today and registered just to give a response. I too have had issues with micro-stuttering due to the ICUE4 software, which I previously used for my Corsair headphones. I was experiencing a micro-stutter about every 1 second. I actually ended up sending the PC (OMEN 15 Laptop) to HP Support to see if they could fix it; they could not identify the stutter after wiping the system.

 

Upon receiving the PC back in the post, I began reinstalling software and realised that the problem immediately began to occur upon installing iCUE4. I then uninstalled iCUE4 and the problem went away.

 

I hope they fix this soon.

[stallion9i]

I've signed up to Corsair just to report this issue. I'm also experiencing audio stuttering/ cracking sound after installing ICUE 4.13.226, this happened on 4.12.214. I have a brand new Thinkpad, when I started experiencing this problem I thought it was laptop top issue. And suddenly it hit me that the issue could be due to iCUE, after uninstalling problem solved ! ! ! I tried everthing, reparining the software, uninstalled & removed all foot prints from registery and reinstalled the software but as soon as I install iCUE, sound issue started therefore had to just unistall iCUE..

Hope Corsair fix this soon ! ! 

 

[Flip86]

Hi, I had exactly the same issue on my HP Pavilion Laptop and reinstalled the whole system. Just recognized it that the bug came again after I have installed icue. Doesn't matter if v3 or v4. This workaround helped for me. Thank you very much!!!

 

Very poor that this bug has been reported for months and nothing happened.

[Moskiman]

Same issue here - this drove me up the wall when I suddenly started getting stuttering audio and fps drops in game, did a clean reinstall of Windows 10 and the problem vanished, but immediately reoccurred when I reinstalled iCUE 4. The OPs fixed cured the issue

[Cannon-dale]

Have had this problem for, idk like last 1-2 months it seems. Tried soo many things. Was going to buy a new computer,  it was driving me crazy. Thought I solved it, then it would come back.  New windows install, several new installs of BF V, and repairing game. Playing with audio settings for windows and BF V, new asus drivers for my mobo, new headset, on and on...

  Earlier today I decided to do a clean boot and add services one at a time and test everything. No audio problem at first 🙂 Then I started adding things one by one and finally the five Corsair services were added and the problem came back.  Right now I have Corsair Link off,  Corsair gaming audio configuration service off, Corsair LLA service and MSI plug in service are off. Finally Corsair Service is off.  No audio stuttering!!  I tried it with just the audio service off and nope. 

  And now I just found this thread, lol.  I will keep messing around, and trying to change that exe file and see what happens. Right now I cant use the RGB profile I want. 😞  lol    Computer is set on rainbow, and keyboard and mouse pad are off.  

 Thanks for your post and all the info. Glad Im not alone. 🙂

 

  

Edited September 30, 2021 by Cannon-dale

[Cannon-dale]

Yep I deleted Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe and everything is fine. Played a round of BF V. No problems. And my RGB profiles are working fine too.  Its funny to because there was a new iCue update, to 4.15.153.  So i updated and turned on all the services and rebooted and nope, still audio stuttering, right away in BF V.   

   This is the first problem Ive had with iCue, i love Corsair so hopefully they get this fixed.  But everything is good now. I just dont see my cpu info on the Dashboard in iCue, not that I really used it.  Thanks again op!!! 🙂

[ChaoticReality]

Same issue occurring for me on my Lenovo Thinkpad P15, was getting extremely annoying, ended up having the speakers replaced, then the motherboard, reinstalled windows and monitored everything during the install process of each piece of software. When i installed iCue the issue re-appeared and then I found this post.  This has cost me hours of work and time. Corsair you really need to get this fixed! 

Did the suggested fix and removed the service for the sensor monitoring and it fixed the issue while allowing me to still run the software to control my devices. 

[ChaoticReality]

On 3/23/2021 at 6:58 AM, Corsair James said:

 

I will report this to the devs - its odd CPURemote would cause this. This stuttering may be unrelated to our audio driver then.

see above post, when is this going to be corrected. issue has been identified for 6+ months now. 

[Cannon-dale]

  Its strange that I have been using iCue since it came out and have only recently been having this problem, last month or so.  Even the older Corsair RGB software was never a problem.  And I did update iCue to the newest version. Maybe an older version might be ok, I haven't tried that.  

  It could be some conflict with a windows update or nvidia update. idk   Its weird that I have no sound problems when I watch Youtube or listen to music. Only when I was gaming,  and it affected Origin and Steam games.   

[Cannon-dale]

Its kinda weird. I have a second computer. Its 1080p, win 10 pro, i7 3770k, gtx 970.  I have iCue running and I havent had any audio trouble, in fact this is the computer I played BF V on when I was having the audio trouble with my main system.  

   I just checked it today and the iCue version is 3.38.61. and it says its the latest version. It doesn't find an update.  but the newest version is 4.15.153. Not sure why the program isn't updating. I could probably do it manually. But I do have the CpuIdRemote64.exe file and it is actively monitoring the cpu in the dashboard.   and Just played a few minutes and no audio stuttering.   Hmmm....  about all I can say.

[jwalktech]

I just got a new K57 Keyboard & Harpoon mouse bundle for my HP Omen laptop and started having this issue. Previously, I had iCue 3.something installed with my Dark Core mouse and didn't have this problem. Removed the 3.something verision and installed iCue 4.16.194 for the new hardware and it started. I updated firmware for both the keyboard, mouse, checked for system updates, and windows updates to no avail.

Thank you so much for the fix! I renamed the .exe file to .dumb after killing the service in Task Manager and no more audio stuttering!

[daftshadow]

On 3/17/2021 at 2:21 AM, palexdev said:

So today I updated iCUE on my laptop and after the update the audio started stuttering. (it was still v3)

I uninstalled the software with IOBit to perform a clean installation. Downloaded v4 and installed, the issue was there again.

 

I did the tests with my Corsair VOID Elite Wireless headset, a pair of Xiaomi earphones and without any headset, the stuttering was always present.

 

To people that may have the same issue the fix is:

 

1. Open the iCUE installation folder and locate "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe"
2. Kill the Corsair CpuIdRemote process with the task manager or any process manager
3. Quickly change that file extension to anything you want, for example "Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe.dumb", this will prevent the service from restarting
4. Enjoy

 

 

Waiting Corsair to fix this...

Thanks dude! This fixed my issue I was having with the audio making crackling noises whenever the audio is playing.

I recently bought the Ironclaw mouse and installed iCUE. This is when I started to hear the crackling noise from the audio. It never happened prior to installing ICUE.

Any idea why Corsair.Service.CpuIdRemote64.exe causes this issue? The Ironclaw is the only Corsair product that I have. So it's the only Corsair product connected to ICUE. Don't see how this is related in any way to the audio.

Edited November 4, 2021 by daftshadow

[Slowboat]

So I have a little help for the Devs here, please share this with them. In the nvidia update from around april 2021 the hdmi HD Audio driver was updated to use the endpoints in a differnt way. If your a dev I am sure you can google what changed in the hd audio driver from nvidia starting AFTER nvidia Game ready driver 466.27.

Anywho, if you use this driver(Nvidia Game Ready 466.27) your corsair driver will not cause an issue. If you use any version after, you will have issues with ICUE. Maybe have the devs take a close look at that and reproduce the issue to resolve it. I tried using just the HD Audio driver from the older 466.27 GR driver but I get no audio with current driver and older hdmi audio driver. Maybe the many corsair devices makes the problem worse but it seems to work fine with the older nvidia drivers.

 

So, we can disable that ICUE service OR use older drivers(466.27) as a work around until this is fixed, but, neither are ideal.

 

Is there a third workaround?

 

Now that the issue is identifyed with a common root cause, when might we expect a fix or at least a word from the deveopers on this issue?

I hope this helps.

 

Asus Strix 3090 RTX with resizable bar Firmware update

Auros Xtreme x570 (5950X) (32GB)

Denon s960h Connected with Denon adaptor at 4k120 10 bit color

3 Corsair Commanders in series and two fan rgb hubs abd one more rgb hub from the light strips

Fresh install of win 10 only using the windows base drivers, amd platform and raid drivers, nvidia latest GR DCH drivers.

 

Nvidia audio change detailed in their forms links below

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5197

 

Thank you