Vista bug puts a snag in network traffic when music is playing

It looks like Vista users that have noticed a slowdown in network traffic while they were playing music weren't imagining things, as Windows expert Mark Russinovich has reportedly confirmed that such a bug does indeed exist. According to PC World, the problem is confined to systems with multiple network interfaces (like both wired and wireless connections), and is only noticeable on a high-speed local network, not when you're on the Internet. Apparently, the bug lies in Vista's NDIS throttling code, which magnifies throttling in cases of multiple NICs, resulting in a slowdown in network traffic. In real word tests, Russinovich says he found that resulted in a 6 percent throughput on a 1Gb network with Windows Media Player playing, as opposed to a 20 percent throughput without it running. No word on a fix just yet but, as PC World points out, you may want to halt the tunes if you're planning on doing a lot of copying.

[waiownsyou @ Aug 28th 2007 2:40PM]

This has to be the dumbest bug ever. And what with the 5 updates for Windows Vista x64 systems I just installed this morning?

[Karl Viklund @ Aug 28th 2007 3:45PM]

What if it's a feature?

[ssuk @ Aug 28th 2007 3:53PM]

Those updates were probably the updates which both XP and Vista got about 2 weeks ago. As I've had no Vista live updates since those... They were just general updates addressing some minor issues. This bug is just weird and will be easily fixed within the week, I should think.

[Josh Warner @ Aug 28th 2007 4:09PM]

Actually, Slashdot had a story on this earlier today. It IS a 'feature;' they decided that, rather than implementing a better (read: open, not obfuscated and encrypted) music playback subsystem than the Protected Audio Path, they would just implement a hard-coded, unchangeable throttle to the network subsystem. There is no registry setting to change this, it is completely hardcoded.

Furthermore, in that report apparently playing a mp3 resulted in up to 41% CPU usage! This is insane on a modern processor; a Core2Duo should be decoding HD video at that amount of usage.

Your post was in jest, Karl, but ironically it was completely correct.

[sr1329 @ Aug 28th 2007 2:48PM]

I thought he was on their payroll these days. Nice of him to let us know. I wonder what other "surprises" we'll hear about Vista.

Anyhow, the veteran computer user knows not to jump into a new OS (esp. one from Microsoft) before letting the beta testers (early adopters) help Microsoft getting that OS working right.

I will eventually get Vista, but not until they at least get a service pack out and even then I would wait to see if things come up.

Why bother when XP does everything I need it to? Maybe when Crysis comes out I'll have an actual need to update to Vista. (I didn't say "upgrade" since I wasn't referring to DRM and Eye Candy which is where it seems most of the "improvement" comes from).

[EvolutionRS @ Aug 28th 2007 3:00PM]

Actually, this is by design and happens only on computers with one CPU using gigabit ethernet connections:

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx

[sr1329 @ Aug 28th 2007 3:03PM]

Oh okay. Let me guess. To save CPU? Anyway I'll read the article.

[Tacticus @ Aug 28th 2007 3:10PM]

umm it affects all types of network connections and as stated in the post you referred to it gets worse if you have more than 1 network connection

10,000 packets per second if you have 1 NIC (now what happens if the packets are not full 1500 bytes? oh thats right it starts affecting 100MB/s)
8000 for 2 and 6000 for 3

so that firewire card you have and the bluetooth adaptor

[jeffstubb @ Aug 28th 2007 3:32PM]

Hmm. I bet this explains why "Full HD" video streamed from Vista Media Center to my 360 is choppy, but the same video, on the same PC works fine when I boot to XP and stream.

[Billy Fiul @ Aug 28th 2007 5:25PM]

I like it when people start their comments with "umm" or "Hmm" like they're talking. Silly geese.

[sr1329 @ Aug 28th 2007 3:19PM]

You have got to be kidding me. Seriously. I didn't get glitches on a PII-400MHz playing MP3 files even with a 155Mbps ATM card in my system (courtesy my school and their fiber optic ATM network). How are they going to tell me that they need to slow down your network to keep a fucking song playing? It has to be that fucking DRM. I read an article that stated that Vista runs a check something like 30 times a second on media playback to make sure no DRM standard is violated. There are extra processes that this OS seems to introduce on simple music playback just to implement DRM.

There is something we are not being told and the evidence is clear. If a 10 year old computer plays MP3s without glitching, even the cheapest modern computer with an A64 2800+ should do it without needing to slow down the network.

[Loonie @ Aug 28th 2007 4:22PM]

Microsoft®
Helping you do less with more.

[Karl Viklund @ Aug 28th 2007 3:44PM]

Not a serious bug so they will probably take their time to fix it. My question is. Is there any slowdown if you play music in lets say Winamp or iTunes? I mean, who the hell plays music in WMP? ^^

[sr1329 @ Aug 28th 2007 3:57PM]

Yes. That stupid background process gets involved when any music is played through any application. You can't tell me its purpose is just to make sure your music plays without glitches. That happened just fine on 98, XP, NT and even ME.

[pauly @ Aug 28th 2007 3:48PM]

Worship at the altar of Jobs and all your problems will be solved.

[Ryhan @ Aug 28th 2007 10:49PM]

Shut up iTroll.

I personally prefer WMP over iTunes because:
1.) I can sync with something other than an iPod. (Cowon D2, clix2, etc..)
2.) It automatically adds new files
3.) It dosen't want to convert all my media to AAC
4.) It syncs with my media-center (playlists, ratings, etc...)
5.) I can buy stuff of off URGE (iBelive switching to Rhapsody)

I am no Microsoft fan,(I personally prefer Ubuntu with Beryl), but don't try to start a fanboy "war". I've had enough of it over the last week already...

[davencheez @ Aug 28th 2007 4:17PM]

temporary fix found:

http://courtneymalone.com/2007/08/28/a-note-on-vista-network-speed/

[Neil @ Aug 28th 2007 4:19PM]

I have a problem with Vista where Windows Media Player 11 can't play any media (both video and music) from my Router's NAS USB external HDD. Every other media program I have will play the files back from the it, including iTunes, VNC and Winamp. The router is a Linksys WRTSL54GS Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router.

[kjb434 @ Aug 28th 2007 5:10PM]

Could you just use Winamp or other independent players instead? Or does Vista performs the DRM checks whenever the file is accessed by any software?

I don't really like Media Player because it is a little over bloated with stuff i don't want in a player.

[sr1329 @ Aug 28th 2007 5:46PM]

As I understand it. Microsoft sat down with a bunch of content providers and asked them what they need in terms of DRM. They asked for certain things to help them implement their DRM. So now the OS code has certain checks and "hooks" that any application can call up to aid in the implementation of DRM. There is a great article out there talking about how Vista checks all media 30 times a second to see if any DRM is being broken. So this thing is in the OS and it runs checks on the stream. I'll bet the results of those checks is what developers of DRM use to make sure their DRM works and that it stays secure. So these crooks asked Microsoft to add all this extra crap to the OS so they can make better more secure DRM. It seems that the extra garbage runs all the time whether or not there is DRM involved.

Bottom line: Your OS is being slowed down because these bastard content owners wanted it that way. It wouldn't surprise me if this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The world is moving to DRM-free tracks now and this stupid OS slows down your work based on a paradigm that's on its way out.

[kjb434 @ Aug 28th 2007 5:52PM]

Outside of not being a first adopter, that's another cautious reason i didn't get vista yet.

I was just curious to how it handle the DRM. Thanks for the info!

I'll stick with XP until a DRM free version of Vista or the next generation after Vista.

Maybe (in grand hope) there'll be a fix in a year or so to remove this feature somehow. I can only hope.

[JCD @ Aug 28th 2007 6:42PM]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is related to DRM and Vista's "protected environment" for playback of video/audio media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path

Basically, instead of just, you know, playing your media files, vista performs all decoding in a protected hardware thread while constantly checking all running processes that might try and crack their DRM scheme. And since this is implemented in the kernal, I suspect it doesn't matter what media player you use.

Go get Vista! Its crippled with DRM schemes designed to protect everyone's rights but yours! After all, why wouldn't you spend money to help movie studios protect their data?!

[mike @ Aug 28th 2007 8:43PM]

if I had to use vista for some reason (like my company requires it) and all this drm crap affected all my media, i'd do the following:
1. install free vmware on vista
2. install ubuntu in vmware
3. save all my media files directly to ubuntu filesystem (not from an underlying vista fs mount)
4. play all my music from ubuntu

[Deluxe @ Aug 28th 2007 9:37PM]

Wow, waste of time much?

[Cyrack @ Aug 29th 2007 9:51AM]

"4. play all my music from ubuntu"

And ubuntu, in this case, uses the audio subsystem of? Oh, thats right, Vista!
So basicly you just added another CPU-intensive layer to performe the same task.

[Dave @ Aug 29th 2007 12:39AM]

junk

[EEDesigner @ Aug 29th 2007 10:47PM]

What?? A bug in a Microsoft product? Evidence of total incompetancy with hackers from high school?? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!

[mhmdkhamis @ Feb 4th 2008 9:04PM]

As I understand it. Microsoft sat down with a bunch of content providers and asked them what they need in terms of DRM. They asked for certain things to help them implement their DRM. So now the OS code has certain checks and "hooks" that any application can call up to aid in the implementation of DRM. There is a great article out there talking about how Vista checks all media 30 times a second to see if any DRM is being broken. So this thing is in the OS and it runs checks on the stream. I'll bet the results of those checks is what developers of DRM use to make sure their DRM works and that it stays secure. So these crooks asked Microsoft to add all this extra crap to the OS so they can make better more secure DRM. It seems that the extra garbage runs all the time whether or not there is DRM involved.
http://game.paramegsoft.com/
http://www.paramegsoft.com/forum/

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