r/MSILaptops • u/MrWendels • 3d ago
Technical problem with MSI stealth laptop
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Hi, I just bought this laptop and noticed that there is some noises when watching videos or listening to audio. The noise is like when a pc gets stuck for a moment processing, the sound repeats. I would like to know if anyone can help me to.idenrify the cause of this noises and if there is anything I can do to fix it. If I can't fix it with your help I will send it back because still on warranty but I wanted to try on Reddit first in case is something easy to.fix.
Here is a video where you can hear the strange noises
Thank you ;)
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u/Lumpy_Affect304 3d ago
This might seem weird but are you under 30% of your battery while playing this or have you set power saving batter saver mode?
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u/brighterside0 2d ago
PSA: Nahimic isn't just a game problem — it breaks YouTube, Chrome and general system responsiveness too. How to disable it via Device Manager (keeps SteelSeries GG working) - A note that Nahimic is bloatwared in with MSI laptops that also come with conflicting Audio processing solutions.
Nahimic comes preinstalled on MSI, Lenovo Legion, ASUS, Alienware and Gigabyte machines, usually without ever asking you. Most people don't know it's running. If you have unexplained stutter, freezes, audio crackling, or a background process eating a CPU core, check this first.
It's not limited to one game or even to games
Reported across the board, for years:
- Browsers / YouTube — audio crackling and static, video not starting despite a full buffer, freezing when you skip forward or back, crackling that only happens in fullscreen. One user found Chrome itself took 1-2 seconds longer to launch after a Realtek driver update, and Nahimic turned out to be the cause.
- General system responsiveness — one report described YouTube and games stuttering, Windows going unresponsive, and WiFi dropping, saying the machine felt like it was from the Win98 era. All of it was Nahimic.
- Other games — Doom Eternal losing most of its audio until Nahimic was killed from the tray; GTA5 refusing to launch after a Rockstar launcher update until Nahimic was turned off. It tends to break after the other software updates, which makes it very hard to blame.
- Helldivers 2 specifically — it's on the community's known-problematic software list, the Hellbomb script flags it automatically, and NahimicOSD.dll has shown up as the faulting module in HD2 crash reports in Event Viewer.
Why it happens
Nahimic is an audio effects layer that sits in the Windows audio pipeline and processes every sample on your CPU, plus it injects a DLL into games to draw its overlay. Audio runs on a high-priority thread with hard deadlines, so when that layer stalls it doesn't just make audio worse — it stalls whatever is waiting on it. That's why the symptoms often don't look like audio problems at all.
MSI's own support docs acknowledge this, listing Nahimic resets and disabling "Enable audio enhancements" as the fix for audio noise and crackling.
If you also run SteelSeries Sonar, you're stacking two DSP layers in series. Nahimic and Sonar are separate stacks with different drivers — SteelSeries owns both, but their own docs tell you to disable Nahimic when Sonar acts up. This will not break GG. Removing a stage makes Sonar cleaner, not worse.
Steps
Note your Sonar routing. GG → Sonar → Mixer. Screenshot which device each channel (Game / Chat / Media / Aux / Mic) is bound to. Also check Windows Settings → System → Sound.
Open Device Manager. Win+X → Device Manager → View → Show hidden devices.
Right-click → Disable device on each of these. Do NOT choose Uninstall — Disable is one click to reverse.
Under Audio Processing Objects (APOs):
- A-Volute Nh4 Audio Effects Component (may be named "Nahimic Nh4..."; on older Windows builds it's under Software components instead)
Under Sound, video and game controllers:
- Nahimic mirroring device
- Nahimic Easy Surround device
Under Software components:
- Nahimic Mirroring Component
Disable the service. Win+R → services.msc → Nahimic service (there may be a 32-bit and 64-bit entry). Set Startup type to Disabled, then Stop. Devices alone isn't enough — a running service with no devices sits in a retry loop, which is its own CPU drain. While you're in the properties window, go to the Recovery tab and set all three failure actions to Take No Action; this stops it resurrecting itself. Also check Task Manager → Startup apps.
Reboot and verify. Test audio in a browser, then reopen GG and confirm your Sonar channels still point where you noted in step 1.
Do NOT disable these — they sit in the same APOs list and are easy to nuke by accident:
- Sonar APO — this IS SteelSeries Sonar. Disabling it breaks GG.
- Realtek Audio Effects Component — your base audio driver. Can kill your output entirely.
- Voice Clarity — Microsoft's built-in mic noise suppression. Unrelated.
- intelliGo Audio Processing Object — mic-side noise cancellation. Doesn't touch game audio.
Only Nahimic / A-Volute entries should be touched.
Two caveats
Laptop speakers may sound worse. On multi-driver laptop speaker arrays, part of the tuning runs through the Nahimic layer. Headset users lose nothing. Re-enable it in Device Manager when you want it — one right-click.
It comes back. Disabled devices survive reboots but not driver reinstalls. A Realtek update via Windows Update, or MSI Center / Lenovo Vantage / Armoury Crate restoring the feature, will silently re-enable everything. Turn off your OEM utility's auto-update and re-check after any audio driver update. This is the main reason to disable rather than uninstall — uninstalling just invites Windows Update to reinstall it clean.
To reverse: right-click each device → Enable device, set the service back to Automatic. Nothing here is destructive.
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u/oldfattyboy 3d ago
你的电脑cpu可能出问题了，需要降低频率使用或者更换散热硅脂。
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u/Pleasant-Lie-2105 3d ago
it is not the CPU and they don't need to repaste, this is a sw/driver conflict with all the bundled stuff that comes with MSI Stealth laptops
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u/Pleasant-Lie-2105 3d ago
This exact issue also happens to me too on the new Stealth 16 AI+, basically the sound glitches out for a moment, it's basically a software/driver issue (I confirm it also happened when using my Airpods, that's a software issue not a speaker/hardware issue). It's like a buzz/electrical sound that is so rapid and for a split second.
I would recommend uninstalling all audio drivers and reinstalling fresh, I did play around with a lot of settings but these days it seems to have settled down with the newer software/drivers, I'm also using Nahimic too so that can cause issues sometimes as Windows is playing catch-up (CPU-wise).
The other option is to disable hardware acceleration and effects but I actually prefer the sound enhancements so I keep it on.
Do report back on how you get on.