I recently had a problem when playing movies through iTunes on a laptop. At various parts of the movie, the entire laptop would become extremely slow, causing the movie to sputter. This happened at infrequent intervals. The laptop has a dual core 1.6Ghz and 2GB of RAM, so I new it was more than capable of playing a movie.
To look into the problem, I had the performance monitor running while I played a movie. Once the movie began to slow and sputter, I viewed the performance monitor to see which process was causing the problem. When I viewed the performance monitor I noticed that a process called audiodg.exe was consuming 35-40% of the CPU. I then investigated the problem and found a probable fix to the issue.
What is Audiodg.exe?
The audiodg.exe file made its appearance in Microsoft Vista, which explains why I haven’t seen this file before. When I viewed the properties of the file, the description stated Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation, which doesn’t help explain what it does.
After doing a little research I found out that the audiodg.exe file hosts the audio engine for Vista, and from what I hear Windows 7 as well. All the DSP and audio processing is performed within this file. Vendors are able to install their own DSP and audio effects into the audio pipeline, which will then be processed by audiodg.exe.
Unfortunately, this can also lead to some problems, as I experienced. Some audio effects can consume CPU and memory if not properly coded. How do we fix the problem? Lets take a look.
Disabling Audio Effects
In order to fix the high CPU usage, I disabled the audio enhancements processed by the audiodg.exe file. To disable the audio enhancements, use the following steps:
- Right-click the speaker icon in the lower right corner.
- Select Playback Devices from the menu. A list of devices should appear on the screen.
- Double-click the device that has a green checkmark. The properties windows for that device should open.
- Click the Enhancements tab at the top.
- From the list of enhancements, uncheck all of them, or click the Disable all enhancements checkbox.
- Click the OK button to save your changes and close the window.
- Click OK to close the Playback Devices window.
Once I disabled the enhancements, the movie played without any issues. I also didn’t notice any difference in sound with the enhancements disabled. If I do want to use sound enhancements, I’ll stick to the the options provided in the application.
You can certainly argue that Windows’ or Linux’s approach is better (I use both Windows and OSX, and favor Windows in some aspects) but I actually worry that somebody with such an incorrect understanding of the second most popular consumer operating system in the world is writing a blog on technology.
Stating that you can only use hardware that Apple wants you to use is technically and factually incorrect.
While Apple certainly locks you down as far as which systems can run OSX, they do not lock down what you can do with them once you own one, hardware-wise.
USB audio device? I wasn’t talking about USB devices. Even my Wii supports some USB devices. I was talking about internal hardware, such as graphics cards, motherboards, sound cards and the like.
When something like that fails in a Mac, can you go into any computer store and have your choice of dozens of hardware options to replace one part?
I’m not against Mac as it is a great system, but I’m not a fan of the Mac fanboys.
thanks workt perfektly att windows /
Thanks man. Despite lowering consuption of processing power, disabling these audio effects made audio quality better than before. Beer for ya’ mate.
Ah that’s sorted the problem no end!! Cheers mate:)
This works for me too. Thanks dude
I’ve got a problem HP can’t solve, maybe audiodg.exe is related. The mute button is stuck in the on (mute) position on my newly-purchased HP dv4t 1400. It’s what they call a QuickLaunch Button, meaning it’s a touch-sensitive setting above the keypad. After several email exchanges, removing and replacing the quicklaunch driver, the audio driver, flashing the BIOS, doing a hard reboot, and everything short of tossing chicken bones into a fire– HP has suggested I try reverting back to Vista and see if that helps. Upgrading from Vista to Win 7 took me hours– this is not happening. Besides, the problem only began about one week ago.
I’ve been trolling a wide range of forums like this searching for a solution. The problem seemed to begin concurrent with my fixing of a previous problem– browser hangups. I seem to have traded bug for another. This stuck mute button, which I insist is a software bug, not a hardware issue, was started by something I did while trying to fix browser hang problem. I had deleted the audio .dll called Staco64.dll, which I believe was the culprit, because I don’t have the problem any more. HP of course did not go down this road with me.
I’m NOT a tech guy. I’m Google-trained. Can you help?
Those DLL files were probably required to control the mute by the touch front pad buttons. Re-install win7 or replace those dll files. Upgrading from one os to another can sometimes cause issues anyway.
Men, spread this page! If you google it up, you’ll see how many people have the only complicated prob with such
a silly solution! By the way, it works great for me, THX man!
Works for me too. Thanks.
David
Thankyou for the advice. This has helped to reduce the CPU usage of this feature from over 50 % to virtually nothing. My whole computer is running considerably quicker as a result.
Thanks.
same problem using skype…cpu usage would go through the roof with audiodg.exe using 30-60%…sound quality would become unusable…thanks for the fix!