PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

If I'm not mistaken, the wacked out cards are for games and their programming techniques for 3-D and mapping, fractals. That doesn't come into play for regular old video. I've edited sound and audio together at 48Khz for full-length features with a 1GB PCI card with no issues. I don't even download or install the game stuff, just the basic driver. A real techie buddy of mine who always builds his own stuff finally gave up after his last box disaster. No matter what the heck he swapped it just wouldn't work. After weeks or maybe months of OCD insanity (even I couldn't take him anymore) he had finally had one built that was tested and worked before it shipped. I'm not saying the SCOPE boo-tique isn't throwing a curve at you here, the jury's still out on that. All the vibes so far are pointing at the video card. Wouldn't be the first time.

Any luck, Mr A ?

Still ongoing.

Mr Arkadin wrote:Still ongoing.

So ? Are you asking a new MB with the warranty ?
Or are you selling your Xite ?

Nothing is finalised yet. Plenty more to try and I've calmed down and have a bit more patience at the moment (I was unfortunately in a downbeat mood when the computer arrived due to loss of work, so I wasn't really in a positive place to deal with it).

OK I spent a day at the factory as I thought it was easier taking an XITE down to them, as well as having more motherboards to try. Plus it was sunny and they're not far from the coast.

We tried three different versions of the X99, two by ASUS, one by Gigabyte (which even had a x1 slot), various BIOS tweaks and less intensive graphics cards and...

...exactly the same PCI error each time. Ugh.

So we tried it in an Z97-K (the cheapest Z97) and it worked first time, with a big graphics card and no tweaking. So it looks like I'lll be settling on a similar spec as I have now but as Z97 (so slightly reduced RAM speed and slightly reduced processor clock speed) but it works. Maybe there's something that could be done for the X99 with the right tweaks or BIOS update from ASUS, but that might never happen.

I'll also be going for the top-end Z97 model just to make me feel better.

I'll let you know the outcome of the new build when it arrives.

Good news. Wonder if this is a problem common to all such boards? Sounds likely given your 100% fail across three boards, which given the investment and effort required, is a decent sample size! Wonder if others have had issues x99?

Another one for garyb's little black book

Good to hear that you found a solution

Interesting. I assume you kept the OS installation whilst swapping motherboards ? Anyway glad you found a solution - other than selling XITE !!

nice to see you succeed Mr Arkadin
Can understand the hard feelings tho.
But a working machine is a working machine, especially if the real work gets done on an Xite.

We had an ASUS X99-S, ASUS X99 Pro and GigaByte X99 (not sure if Pro, but configuration was different with x1 slot). Also don't forget my original ASUS X99-S still at home, so that's four. We had four different systems laid out on the desk (includng the Z97) - just boards, graphics and SSD. All W7 64-bit. I loaded Scope 5.1 for XITE and Cubase 8 Pro on all machines, swapping my USB to license Cubase each time (and swapping the PCIe x1 natch). As I say we also tried a less heavyweight graphics card (just in the X99s, no need in the Z79), to see if that made any difference.

The X97 will still have plenty of grunt with 16GB RAM at 2400MHz (instead of X99's 2666Mhz) and i7 processors overclocked to 4.2GHz rather than the X99's 4.5GHz processors, so I doubt I'll notice any real world difference and there's still plenty of grunt there.

dante wrote:Anyway glad you found a solution - other than selling XITE !!

Yeah, I wasn't in my happy zone when this all started so I was really just sick of it all. But the sun is here now and things seem more promising - as long as the X79 works as it did at the factory when it arrives of course!

Eanna wrote:Wonder if this is a problem common to all such boards? Sounds likely given your 100% fail across three boards, which given the investment and effort required, is a decent sample size!

I think with enough patience and time (and access to different boards, some have more BIOS options) it could probably be figured out. But given the pool size of XITE users I doubt it would be top of ASUS's 'to do' list. It might even just be a BIOS update, but I don't want to hang around forever for a BIOS update that might fix something (and could very well be unfixable if it's a design issue).

It seems unlikely that I'm the only one to have tried X99 for XITE, so it would be good to get some figures and see if there's any pattern or fixes.

Search here for X99 doesn't turn much up. Another PCI user, and MrV was looking at the Supermicro X99.

Seems a damning indictment if its failed the same way on 4 of them, whether across the board or just with the batch.

dante wrote:Seems a damning indictment if its failed the same way on 4 of them, whether across the board or just with the batch.

Thing is one board was by a different manufacturer, so not so much a batch problem as a, in my view, design problem.

+1. That might also shorten the odds of a bios fix.....

Thanks for sticking with it and for posting the results here. Kind of scary as I have believed the Xite to be sort of future proof as long as the PCIe slots were still being made. Hopefully whatever it is that's incompatible will not be incorporated into other chipsets in the future.
Glad you got it working.

yayajohn wrote:Kind of scary as I have believed the Xite to be sort of future proof as long as the PCIe slots were still being made.

Yeah that was my thinking. Given that PCIe seems to be here for a while then we should've been OK, but if all boards from X99 onwards don't work with XITE, then in say ten years' time when I'm replacing this computer I worry that there'll be no compatible boards.

yayajohn wrote:Hopefully whatever it is that's incompatible will not be incorporated into other chipsets in the future.

I am hoping the X99 is an aberration that may get fixed in the next gen (X100 or whatever it'll be called), assuming people have other issues that need addressing too as I don't think Scope will be their top priority. Not sure how I'd go about reporting a problem to ASUS.

I have a Z97 based board. While I haven't connected the XITE to a chipset based PCIe slot, it works FUCKING AMAZINGLY connected directly to the CPU (i5-4690K).

My motherboard provides the direct-to-CPU access to a 16x PCIe slot, and there are boards that allow for these PCIe lanes to be split to multiple PCIe slots. These run at PCIe3.0 speeds, so there's no issue having a graphics card "limited" to 8x lanes if using the split option.

I make use of the CPU's built-in graphics, which works just fine, and the XITE has the benefit of talking through the CPU directly to the memory, rather than going to the chipset, then to the CPU, then to memory, and back again.

This has provided me with extremely LOW DPC latency (max 50us, typical 6us), allowing for sustained use of the lowest ULLI settings, with large numbers of ASIO channels. I should make a project with all available I/O running just to prove it to myself at these speeds.