Click_Pops only with MIDI

An area for people to discuss Scope related problems, issues, etc.

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alsound2
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 4:00 pm

Post by alsound2 »

Hi all
This is a real actual problem for me and my studio...
First of all here you are my PC setup:
P4 3Ghz
MB ASUS P4P800 Edeluxe (chipset intel)
2 Gb RAM DDR400 Corsair dual channel
2 HD 80 GB 7200 rpm
Graphic Card Matrox (I don't remember the model, but it has no 3d acceleration etc..)
Windows XP
2 Pulsar II cards
Cubase SX 2

I'm having serious trouble with midi, there are many clicks and pops when I play with any kind of midi device (STS samplers, Pulsar synths or external hardware midi devices such as synths, expanders etc..). The situation is gettin worse day by day.. I've tried many controller keyboards and I've checked my hds via ScanDisk and Defrag. Is there any bios setting to do to avoid these problems? If I use only audio stuff, then there are no problems at all! Cubase is not guilty, it happens also if I use only Scope. I heard someone talk about IRQs sharing. Would you explain better this issue?
Please Help!
Thank you very much
Stefano
alsound2
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 4:00 pm

Post by alsound2 »

No reply? Any idea about what could be done to get any solution? Does it happen only to me????
It seems so strange....mah! :sad:
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garyb
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Location: ghetto by the sea

Post by garyb »

irq sharing is about this:
the cpu can only do one job at a time. to get the cpu's attention to do a job you need to get in line and have a number, an interrupt request, irq-get it?... interrupt because the cpu never finishes a job before it has to start another when the cpu can't get back to an audio job in time, we call it a dropout.

the scope card needs ALL it's interrupts in order to do real-time audio. it can't share with anything since it always is trying to talk. when two components try to speak at the same time, the cpu freaks out.

or something like that.....

there are times that shared irqs cause no real problem, especially when it's certain motherboard resources on a really well designed motherboard. video and usb(and network and firewire when they're being used) require the same constant use of the interrupt, so a fatal conflict is assured when shared with the scope card.

what shared irqs are there on your computer?
(start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information/hardware resources/conflicts-sharing )
alsound2
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 4:00 pm

Post by alsound2 »

Hi garyb
I was very busy in my studio during this time..so I never checked your answer here in the forum..Unfortunately I never solved the problem and I'm still working in a crazy way with midi (freezing every midi event to audio stuff each time I record something and praying for a good result without clicks and pops...). Since I think Scope is a great product, it is really frustrating to find that I have still such a problem in my studio..and I say to myself "Shit!My old atari st was better in midi stuff!!". So I want to solve the problem for sure. Tomorrow I will check for IRQs sharing as you suggested and I'll let you know. Please stay in touch don't leave me alone with the...BEAST!:)
Thank you so much
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ARCADIOS
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Post by ARCADIOS »

i had this mobo in the past with the prescott 3.0.
the solution for me was standard pc.
manually setting the irqs.
also try not to set ully very low, because this cpu is good but it is not that good for very low latencys.
you are going to be fine and stable on standard pc.
otherwise if you defenatly need acpi, just make sure you disable the unused onboard device and place the scopes in pci slots that do not share with anything else.
don't remember now which ones are free. i think there are two pcis that are completely free from irq sharing.
it is better to desable unused onboard devices from bios. if not then disable from device manager.
also if you use steinbergs sequenser then set it to highest priority(there is a setting in the program).
and be sure that you make a clean and optimized for audio instalation, because i see that since it becomes worse day by day as you said, i asume that you have a lot installed that should not have been installed. or at least let them installed but run windows with as less applications running in background as possible.
my best configurations are made when pc just runs max 15 applications when idle.(check it on task manager cntrl+alt+del)
alsound2
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 4:00 pm

Post by alsound2 »

Thanks Arcadios and garyb for your suggestions.
Today I've checked IRQs sharing.This is what appears on IRQs sharing/conflicts window:

Porta I/O 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Bus PCI
Porta I/O 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Controller di accesso diretto alla memoria (DMA)

Porta I/O 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Intel(R) 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P Processor to AGP Controller - 2571
Porta I/O 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Matrox Millennium G550 - Italiano

IRQ 23 Controller host standard avanzato da PCI a USB
IRQ 23 WinXP Promise SATA378 (tm) IDE Controller

IRQ 16 Matrox Millennium G550 - Italiano
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE

IRQ 18 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
IRQ 18 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers

Indirizzo memoria 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Bus PCI
Indirizzo memoria 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Intel(R) 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P Processor to AGP

Controller - 2571
Indirizzo memoria 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Matrox Millennium G550 - Italiano

Porta I/O 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Intel(R) 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P Processor to AGP

Controller - 2571

Porta I/O 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Matrox Millennium G550 - Italiano



This is what appears on IRQs page:

IRQ 0 Timer di sistema OK

IRQ 1 Tastiera standard 101/102 tasti o Tastiera Microsoft Natural PS/2 OK

IRQ 3 Porta di comunicazione (COM2) OK

IRQ 4 Porta di comunicazione (COM1) OK

IRQ 6 Controller disco floppy standardOK

IRQ 8 Orologio di sistema CMOS a tempo reale OK

IRQ 9 Sistema compatibile ACPI MicrosoftOK

IRQ 11 Intel(R) 82801EB SMBus Controller - 24D3 OK

IRQ 13 Coprocessore matematico OK

IRQ 14 Canale primario IDE OK

IRQ 15 Canale secondario IDE OK

IRQ 16 Matrox Millennium G550 - Italiano OK

IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2 OK

IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE OK

IRQ 18 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7 OK

IRQ 18 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers OK

IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4 OK

IRQ 20 Host controller VIA OHCI compatibile IEEE 1394 OK

IRQ 21 Creamware Pulsar2 OK

IRQ 22 Creamware Pulsar2 OK

IRQ 23 Controller host standard avanzato da PCI a USB OK

IRQ 23 WinXP Promise SATA378 (tm) IDE Controller OK


Sorry but I don't know how to post these info here in a better way...
What do you say about these settings?
Thank you again
Waitin for your reply
Stefano
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