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I have an MSI GS40 6QE (BIOS E14A1IMS.10A) with the latest drivers for both Nahimic and the ELAN touchpad. When I'm using the touchpad, especially when scrolling with 2 fingers, the sound occasionally hitches, as shown in this video:

https://youtu.be/w2_JWYvY-84

When using it with an external mouse, I have no issues.

Maybe it's important to note that very few times (when the sound lag is very prolonged) the UI for selecting the type of audio device plugged in: audio device detected

Any ideas? How do I even describe this issue?

UPDATE: I've found out that it may be a DPC latency issue, according to this page. I've downloaded the tool, and it showed a latency spike with the wireless driver ndis.sys at 221 ms. This has happened even with VLC while not downloading anything, so I'm not sure it's the cause. I'll look into it more.

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So first, thanks for your fix, it really set me on the correct track. Using LatencyMon I realized that DPC numbers were up the roof...

I know I'm replying to this reaally late but this could still be interesting for people like me that still experience the issue you mentionned!

My test case to reproduce the issue is the following: open Firefox with a lot of tabs, some unloaded. Start a music player (MusicBee in my case), play a song, and scroll using the touchpad in some webpages in Firefox. On LatencyMon, numbers should get quickly in the red. Using power plan to save energy also reproduces the issue.

Here is how I fixed it:

  1. Uninstall Killer Network drivers fully:
    • In Device Manager
    • But also in programs. I had trouble uninstalling it because of the loading going backwards and the uninstallation then failing. This Killer FAQ helped fix it
  2. Reboot, check that Windows did pick up a driver for your wireless card. In my case, it's a driver published by Microsoft, version 4.0.2.262 from 27/10/2016
  3. Uninstall your ELAN TouchPad drivers from the device manager, and reboot.
  4. Your touchpad should work for just one finger, we'll fix that. Download this ELAN driver from MSI website, and install it. You may have to reboot.
  5. And done! I hope this will end your search of a fix :) In my case, LatencyMon still shows some mid-high number, but this does not lead to any audio hitch or BSOD when on power saving power plans, so that's fine by me.
  6. (Recommended) Block Windows from installing newer drivers for your touchpad by following this tutorial.
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    I'm not 100% sure, but you might be able to install Windows Precision drivers instead of ELAN, which are far superior. Check out this video youtube.com/watch?v=f2rfwR-IV-c
    – RaidenF
    Oct 10, 2018 at 13:06
  • Haha I spent the last hours attempting to get those actually, but from what I read and tested this 'hack' stopped working after some Windows update... I'll give it a go later though, we may never know!
    – n0xew
    Oct 10, 2018 at 13:12
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    ...you Sir deserve a thousand upvotes: it worked! Thanks again you made my day!
    – n0xew
    Oct 10, 2018 at 13:51
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After a long time of searching I have concluded the following:

It's an issue with DPC latency, I think, due to the Killer wireless driver. It takes too long to finish the subroutine of the interrupt, and the OS waits for it, still playing the same sound.

I have thought of a solution but I have not tried it:

Reinstall manually the OS (without windows's self reinstall that keeps original drivers).

When installing drivers, ignore the Killer driver (for ethernet and wifi). With some luck, windows update will install a Microsoft driver automatically and everything will work.

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