△ Performance
Windows stuttering & micro-freezes — How to fix
Sub-second freezes on Windows — typing pauses, audio cracks, mouse jumps — almost always come from DPC latency in a kernel driver. The right tool finds the driver in under a minute.
- Time
- 20 min
- Difficulty
- medium
- Applies to
- Windows 11, Windows 10
- Updated
- May 25, 2026
Symptoms
- ▸Brief (0.1-1 s) freezes every few seconds
- ▸Audio crackling or stuttering during normal use
- ▸Cursor jumps in straight lines
- ▸Games drop into single-digit FPS for a second, then recover
Likely causes
- ▸Network or Wi-Fi driver with bad DPC latency
- ▸Audio driver bug
- ▸Storage controller driver issue
- ▸USB controller driver stuck in a loop
How to fix it — step by step
- 01
Measure with LatencyMon
Download LatencyMon, run it for 5 minutes during normal use. The 'Drivers' tab names the driver with the highest DPC latency.
- 02
Update or roll back the offending driver
Network, audio and chipset drivers are the top three. Get the latest from the vendor, or roll back if a recent update broke it.
- 03
Disable network adapter power management
Device Manager → Network adapter → Properties → Power Management → untick 'Allow the computer to turn off this device'. - 04
Disable Bluetooth if unused
Bluetooth radio polling causes audio glitches on certain Realtek + Intel combos. Disable in Device Manager if you don't use it.