Noise and Effects

Mr Even · Post by **Mr Even** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 1:21 pm

A strange thing just happened while using Luna 3.1: firstly it decided that I couldn't carry on unless I gave it my activation keys again, to which I complied, then it started producing a lot of noise.

The noise is produced by Masterverb and the Delays, but not filters, flangers, phasers, gates etc. Once a signal has passed to the effect, the noise level goes very high and the effect itself can be heard in a feedback loop underneath. It is not possible to stop the effect or the noise, even by removing the device and starting it up again.

My thinking (probably in the wrong ball park) is that there may be a problem with one of the DSP chips - are these effects run by a specific chip? I think it's unlikely to be software or driver related as I've reinstalled them but the problem continues. I've even accessed the card from the two O/S's on my machine (98 and 2000) and the same problem exists in both.

For what it's worth, I'm running a 800MHz PIII on a Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X mainboard, with a NVIDIA G-Force2 display card.
Software being used at the time was Sonar 1.

It is strange that this comes after the sudden request for the activation keys. Should have taken this a warning that 'she's gonna blow!'

Any thoughts would be gratefully accepted as I don't fancy being without my sanity-saving pastime while the card goes back to its maker.

Cheers
MrE

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 1:24 pm

You have a VIA chipset motherboard. Reverbs and Delays both use your computer's main memory, via the PCI bus. VIA's PCI bus has problems with Creamware cards.

Do some searches on VIA here on PlanetZ for more information and possible fixes. (Best fix: save time & sanity and just get an Intel-based chipset on your motherboard)

Mr Even · Post by **Mr Even** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 2:24 pm

Done some reading and I guess you weren't joking about VIA, subhuman. The fact that it's the reverb and delays that are affected seems to incriminate the mainboard. But considering that I have had none of these problems during my first couple of months' use, does this sound like the kind of thing that can happen suddenly?

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 2:28 pm

It COULD also be one of your sticks of memory ... try removing or isolating each stick, see if you can make it go away using 1 stick at a time. Memory can, and does, go bad on occasion - especially the generic stuff. Did you recently add more RAM? What kind, and how many RAM slots do you now have populated?

It could also be an IRQ-sharing problem, maybe you added another PCI board or got a USB mouse or something.

It also could be a loose STDM cable, a PCI card not seated properly, or a damaged DSP board (in the worst case!) But I suspect even CW support will probably be pointing fingers at your VIA as the possible problem...