Corsair Link SW issue with DPC latency

Corsair Link SW issue with DPC latency

 

Hello,

 

I am a happy user of a Corsair H80i along with Corsair Link 2.3.4816 software.

Corsair H80i has the latest 1.05 firmware.

 

What I have observed during prolonged runs of CL2 sw is the fact that CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe is affecting the latency timers on my computer. I measured that latency with DPC Latency Checker http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

 

What made me analyze this issue was the fact that after 2 or more days of computer uptime with CL2 sw running in background (minimized to systray) I have pops/cracks during movie watching and music listening which is a good indication that there is some issue with real time clock/PM clock/HPET.

 

After taking out of the equation the HPET issue (disabled in both bios & windows) I figured that must be something else that would affect my computer.

 

By going through a trial and error process of closing and starting and running different processes I've noted that even if I quit CL2 sw application the CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe would still run in background.

 

After closing the above mentioned process everything turned back to normal.

 

Corsair please take into consideration analyzing this problem and fix it in the next release of the software.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

 

As you can see, immediately after killing the CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe process everything goes back to normal. Please note that exiting the CL2 will not stop the CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe backround running process.

I can confirm this. I was a bit distressed to hear pops and clicks in music being played from the HD, either in iTunes or Winamp, on a system that should easily handle it > I7-3770K on an ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt with Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 6GB/s drives. Thought I was going to have to go back through my whole library and re-import. Not the case.

 

Just ran my own test and the DPC latency was above 4000 then dropped to 0 after killing CorsairLINK2 and its monitor. This, combined with the constant hitting my SSD with writes to tempmap.dat every second is seriously unacceptable. Never had the issue previously, even on 12+ year-old hardware. Why? Because I wasn't running CoolIT Systems less than ready for prime time software.

 

Fix it, even if you have to make the CoolIT programmers start over; which would probably be preferable. Their screwups are tarnishing Corsair's name.

 

Edit: For an unknown reason that I will find out, I can't reproduce the findings. After killing the processes, I manually restarted CorsairLINK2 and the latency stayed low. OK, must be that it only does this when it is started with Windows. Did that and no out of spec latency shows in the monitor. Perhaps it shows up after CL2 has run a while.

 

Edit II: After letting CL2 run for a couple of hours, with nothing else running, the DPC latency had risen almost to previously tested levels. Killing CL2, the latency immediately dropped to within a few microseconds of zero again. The system had been running with CL2 monitoring for 7+ hours at the time of the first latency test.

 

This is on Win8 32-bit. On the Win8 64-bit OS, where CL2 32-bit runs on WoW64, there is no latency issue present; on a system that has been running for 10+ hours. On this system, there were no dropouts when playing music. It was when the library was transferred to the 32-bit system that the dropouts manifested.

I was testing with Win7 64 bit SP1 and the problems always manifest itself (CL2 running @ win startup or not - started by hand) after more than 2 hours of permanent running and becomes worse with time (that's why my pictures have the date/time).

 

The image is so wide, those were off the screen to the right. OK, good to know that there is a time factor involved, as I surmised. After running the music while pulling another all-nighter and into today, not one drop-out with CL2.3 not running. Good to know I don't have to re-do a lot of music files and then learn that nothing changed.

Speed, If you want to temporarily fix the issue of the software writing to your SSD you can do what I've done and symlink the entire c:\Users\%USERNAME%\Appdata\Roaming\Corsair directory to a different drive. Just shutdown both Corsair processes then copy the folder to your new location and from and admin command prompt use 'mklink /D' to create a Directory symlink. The software will follow it and start writing to the new drive, you must do the whole directory though, just file linking tempmap.dat will cause the software to delete the link and create a new file.

Speed, If you want to temporarily fix the issue of the software writing to your SSD you can do what I've done and symlink the entire c:\Users\%USERNAME%\Appdata\Roaming\Corsair directory to a different drive. Just shutdown both Corsair processes then copy the folder to your new location and from and admin command prompt use 'mklink /D' to create a Directory symlink. The software will follow it and start writing to the new drive, you must do the whole directory though, just file linking tempmap.dat will cause the software to delete the link and create a new file.

 

Tried that and a Junction. Didn't get definitive results that the SSD wasn't being hit anyway. Showed nearly the same activity pattern in Task Manager while linking through to the target. The Junction is still in place and running. Figured that less is better than all, so just left it to observe.

If you look in resource monitor you should see 'system' having the file open at the link target's drive letter and path.

Yep, it's pointed at the Junction target. Still getting used to Win8 and where everything is. I checked the Junction target previously in the Properties dialog and it was pointed where I set it.

 

Question is, I see other processes hitting the SSD, some with more apparent activity than CL, but when I end the CorsairLINK_Hardware monitor process the access graph in Task Manager and Performance Monitor ceases the sharp 1-second write pattern on the SSD. That's why I was unsure if I actually got positive physical results.

Look at the bright side :) after you set up the Hxxi you can always close the CL2 sw. :) Of course unless you are into 24/7 logging business. I was not using it very often anyway ...

I do that from time to time; especially when I'm preparing to work on something critical. Just a few minutes ago, I was checking on the AX1200i fan, changed from Default Mode to % and went to raise the value from 40 to anything higher, as the fan did not spin up when I chose that mode. Crashed the whole machine cold dead. :mad:

I have also the same problem , but as TheSmoker said , i kill all the Corsair processes but it would be nice if everything works as it should.....

Hey RamGuy/Corsair! Any confirmation on this issue and if it's going to be fixed in the next release?

Thanks!

Also for anyone who is interested in disabling the process from starting with windows, which it will do even if you don't have CL2 launch at start up, you can go into 'Task Scheduler' and set it to disabled. You will need to re-enable and run it if you want to launch CL2, otherwise it will crash at launch time.

http://i.imgur.com/xvcBb4p.png

I believe, instead of re-enabling the task--and then having to disable it again, you can run CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe manually prior to running Corsairlink2.exe.

Any news on this matter?

Once audio starts crackling for me I have to kill the hardware monitor process as well. Hopefully Corsair gets a fix for it soon.

Up until now, nobody from Corsair bothered to answer. :) The short answer: the problem is not fixed and we don't know when that will happed. Hopefully with the next software release.

Still no official answer? :)

Hey guys I just signed up to say that I also noticed a high DPC latency that is building up overtime from the Corsair hardware monitor. I have h100i and it makes USBPORT.SYS to have high execution time after some time. Killing CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe immediately fixes the DPC.

 

Anyway, I was wondering if fans profiles are still applied even if you don't run this .exe? I don't really care if it is not running while I don't need pump stats and stuff like that. I just want to make sure that fans are still reacting to the curves I've set. Thanks.

Hey guys I just signed up to say that I also noticed a high DPC latency that is building up overtime from the Corsair hardware monitor. I have h100i and it makes USBPORT.SYS to have high execution time after some time. Killing CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe immediately fixes the DPC.

 

Anyway, I was wondering if fans profiles are still applied even if you don't run this .exe? I don't really care if it is not running while I don't need pump stats and stuff like that. I just want to make sure that fans are still reacting to the curves I've set. Thanks.

 

Yes. Even if you quit the monitoring software Link2 the curves will work as defined. That's because the microcontroller on the pump itself has a memory and will know what to do.

The downside will be that you will not be able to see any monitoring info ...

I too seem to be having this problem. A fix soon would be nice rather than needing to reset my computer every day. If there's a new release of the software newer than 2.3.4816 can someone point me to it?

A New version should fix this. We will a new SW version to release that will address this issue. It'll be available in a day or two.

 

That's great Ram Guy! Cant wait to get the new version...

A New version should fix this. We will a new SW version to release that will address this issue. It'll be available in a day or two.

 

Is there a changelog to see whats being worked on or fixed?

Is there a changelog to see whats being worked on or fixed?

 

nope,no hints or nuttin cause i done asked ;):