YouTube audio plays ahead of video and becomes desynced at 360p in Edge and Chrome on Dell Latitude E7470 with Intel HD Graphics 520
Issue:
When watching YouTube videos, the audio starts playing slightly ahead of the video. Over time, the desync becomes noticeable: the audio continues normally, but the video appears delayed behind it.
This happens in both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. It occurs even when I select 360p quality. Regular YouTube videos are affected, while music videos do not seem to show the issue as often.
Hardware acceleration is currently disabled in the browser.
Laptop specifications:
- Laptop make/model: Dell Latitude E7470
- OS: Windows 10 Pro
- CPU: Intel Core i7-6600U @ 2.60 GHz
- GPU: Intel HD Graphics 520
- GPU memory usage in Task Manager: approximately 0.2/3.8 GB
- Microsoft Edge version: 155.0.4283.45 (Official build, 64-bit)
- Google Chrome version: 154.0.8037.98 (Official build, 64-bit)
What I have already checked:
- The issue occurs in two Chromium-based browsers, Edge and Chrome.
- It occurs even at 360p, so it does not appear to be caused only by high-resolution playback.
- Hardware acceleration is disabled.
- GPU memory usage appears low in Task Manager.
What I have not tested yet:
- Hardware acceleration enabled
- Firefox or another non-Chromium browser
- Incognito/private mode with all extensions disabled
- Updating or reinstalling the Intel graphics driver
- Changing the Windows audio sample rate/format
- Testing the same videos on another device or network
Questions:
Could this be caused by the Intel HD Graphics 520 driver or hardware video decoding?
Could a Windows audio setting, browser extension, or YouTube codec issue cause audio to run ahead of video?
What is the best order of troubleshooting steps to identify the cause?