Clicks and crackles when playing or recording

[Warp69]

Hi,

I have some problems with clicks and crackles when playing or recording a sound in Audition (even using Mplayer).

I can see that Alienhand have the same problem as I and the only thing we have in common is Asus P5W64 and Scope cards.

I have done most things - My old computer didn't have any problems.

1) New install of Windows XP SP2 (several times with different settings)
2) Disabled almost all devices on the motherboard
3) No IRQ sharing
4) Tried 3.1c and 4.0 drivers
5) Tried Double Dawg
6) With and without RAID (bought an Areca 1231 incl 1GB cache)
7) Did every single optimization trick found on this forum
Tried every single combination of BIOS settings

But nothing works!!!!!

But it seems that ASIO are without problems, but unfortunately Audition 1.5 doesn't support ASIO (and I hate newer versions of Audition). And I would prefer that wave (MediaPlayer, Quicktime, Flash etc) was possible on my system.

Have anyone been able to get the Asus P5W64 working?

Kind reagrds
Martin

[bassdude]

Smiley is also having problems with the wav drivers

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22624

and he users a 975x chipset as well (ASUS P5WDH). Is there anyone else having problems with this chipset?

[Shroomz~>]

Can you give us some more info ?

It would help to know more details of your full system, CW cards etc as well as what you have connected to them, in particular, what midi streams etc are running. Just as much all-round info on the situation as you can give.

cheers!
S

[Warp69]

Hi,

I have the following system :

Intel Q6700
2GB Ram
Asus P5W64 WS Pro
Areca 1231ML - 1GB cache PCIe
3 * 320GB RAID 5 / 2 * 750GB RAID 1
Nvidia 7900GS PCIe

Scope 1
Pulsar 2

I have only connected the ADAT's of the Pulsar 2 to RME ADI-8 QS converters - therefore no MIDI.

I have tried every settings of ULLI and sample rate without succes.

I have the EXACT same problem as Smiley - http://www.planetz.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... c&start=48 - sound file illustrating the problem.

Cheers
Martin

[okantah]

I would suggest you format your harddisk and install windows fresh,mainboard drivers and video card drivers MUST be install.cheers

[valis]

Did you try the output preload slider found in the device's properties panel? (accessible from device manager or the hardware tab in sounds & audio devices control panel).

[valis]

After reading through problem solving more today, It seems that there are multiple dual core users having problems with the wav driver that I haven't seen on NT since the 2.04b days (the first win2k compatible driver). Back then it was due to my using a dual Xeon system when it was still a rarity, but it was pretty much solved by the 3.1c release (ASIO was solved before that) so I haven't had a problem with it in years.

I wonder if it has something to do with the duo2 cores having access to the same cache rather than separate caches per cpu? Bit out of my league here, the output preload slider I referred to above always resolves any issues I experience these days.

[Warp69]

I copied this from another thread :

As far as I remember, the last cw driver version exhibited such behaviour here as well (not shure if exactly this behasviour, but it was unusable). So I used the driver version before the last one. However this one always stuttered, when a stream was started (i.e. hitting play on WinAmp).
I'm back to Win98 since a longer time because of that (and the faster screen redraws on dual-monitor setups).
Maybe using a previous driver version helps ?

best
Wolfgang

Hi Wolfgang,

You are absolutely right.................

Its working, but as you said - every time you pause in Audition, MediaPlayer or any thing related to the wave drivers its stuttering. But there's no problem if you use Stop instead............................... So it IS a driver problem.

Version 1.50.0.0 [18-09-2001] - The only problem is stuttering when pausing, but no clicks or crackles when playing/recording.
Version 1.50.10.0 [07-05-2002] - Problems with clicks and crackle when playing/recording.
Version 1.50.12.0 [xx-xx-xxxx] - It is the exact same driver as 1.50.10.0 and therefore have the same problems.
Version 1.50.17.0 [30-10-2002] - The same problem as Version 1.50.10.0.

Does anyone know where I can kind additional drivers - preferable between 1.50.0.0 and 1.50.10.0

Thank you Wolfgang.

Btw - no orther settings - that could be preload, BIOS changes, Windows optimizations etc - has any effect on the problem. Also confirmed by SpaceF.

Cheers

[Shroomz~>]

Very interesting !!

I thought this issue was somehow graphics related, but as usual it seems I was wrong in my assumption

Glad to hear that your making headway anyway !

[dawman]

May I ask the purpose of the giant RAID 5?

I assume the RAID 1 is for the O.S. + Apps., but RAID 5 is for audio I presume.

I would be interested in which RAID controller you are using, and it's downtime during a re-build, that is if you have performed simulation crashes to check it's performance.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/re ... 9JRD0xMzY2


Strength And Honor,

[garyb]

why raid at all?

[TimingLess]

I had problems with the raid 5 as well and after installing the Hard Disks in normal AHCI-Mode everything went fine.

I Have the ASUS P5B-Deluxe and the E6600 with 2GB Ram.

Hope that helps

DT

[Warp69]

The RAID 5 (or RAID 1) is not part of the problem - I have reinstalled winXP SP2 serveral times with and without RAID (MATRIX and HW RAID).

Right now Im not using MATRIX RAID (Onboard), Im using the Areca 1231ML with 1GB cache - extremely fast.

But if it was related to RAID - shouldn't I have the problem with ASIO as well?

The RAID 1 is used as a backup lun - The RAID 5 is used for os, apps and audio. I'll probably buy the Sony BWU-200S later this month for additional protection. As you can imagine - I have lost important work in a crash.

Cheers

[astroman]

I thought this issue was somehow graphics related, but as usual it seems I was wrong in my assumption ...

actually graphic is a pretty good guess - I haven't yet figured out the source, but it seems I get significantly more clicks with my new Nvidea 6200 dual screen thing even in Win98 and ASIO with native stuff (with whatever GUI action).

cheers, Tom

[Shroomz~>]

Ha, now that's interesting Tom! Did you try switching off & unplugging the secondary screen then putting the display settings back to single screen mode? It would be interesting to hear if that makes a difference because we had these problems with WAV & ASIO recording at one point in the past & couldn't find a fix. Then one of our 19" CRTs blew & we've been on a single screen ever since (without ANY of these crackle & pop problems).

regards,
Shroomz

edit:- I meant to mention that running only a single display seriously improved the graphics performance of Scope on our system as well.

[astroman]

well, it may be related to the fact that the Win98 driver doesn't support my widescreen's 1680x1050 native resolution. I can't even enter it manually in the respective box, so it's slightly blurry on 1600x1024...
Anway, when a single Asio stream is active, then I get clicks as soon as the mouse enters an SFP devices's surface area.
I.e. moving the mouse over the desktop or even in the native app doesn't matter, but as soon as it enters those device area(s) the clicking starts.

One may say Win98 is a piece of crap anyway, but then I never noticed it before - only now with the Geforce 6.
Of course there may be some DirectX stuff not properly installed, too - as I don't care much about that

cheers, Tom

[Shroomz~>]

I bet you didn't reinstall after swapping out the gfx card Tom.

[astroman]

no, I had to reinstall everything from scratch because something went wrong with the disk image of the previous installation ...
so I happen to have (a copy of) a messy SFP directory that's been used for a long time and one that was freshly generated from CD - both are identical regarding this subject.

Imho it's legitimate to simply swap those folders, once SFP has been registered to the operating system as what makes the SFP directory content grow isn't related to the OS at all. Makes handling your extra devices much easier.

but (unfortunately) I will have to approach the case systematically anyway
first I have to rule out that the VSTs don't max out the system...
then VDAT is completely fu**cked up, too - with almost random bahaviour and I cannot switch to 96k anymore - not that I need it, but it used to work before

I find it pretty annoying to be honest - the synth part is fairly ok, but as recording is concerned...
probably I'm just out of luck currently, as (guess what) the Boss RC50 Loopstation I recently aquired had a display failure after just 5 or 6 hours.
It's a recording device, basically...

cheers, Tom

[Shroomz~>]

woops

[astroman]

double feature ...

the clicks are EnergyXT, not the graphcard, wtf
switched to another VST host - clicks are gone

loss of sync seems to be caused the Pulsar I once got for a few bucks on eBay which was supposed to be 'unknown state', no warranties.
removed the card and samplerate is selectable again and the system doesn't loose sync in the middle of dragging a window.

afaik EnergyXT and Scope both use wxwidgets... maybe the graphic system looses track which is which, or wxw is another piece of public poo...
how I hate this

don't judge a click by it's cover, Tom