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USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?

207.216.246.51
Posted on July 1, 2008 at 13:53:16
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hi gang:

I have USB2.0 on a pretty fast XP machine. I am connected via USB to a Burr Brown PCM2704 chip in a JVC RX-D205S receiver. It sounds quite good considered the cost, but I still get droupouts from time to time.

What happens: The "Linear PCM" light turns off on the receiver momentarily corresponding to a drop out in audio.

What I've tried:

Got rid of USB drive by copying audio files to C:
Unplugged USB card reader - no other USB devices now
Adjusted ASIO buffer sizes
Played with Process and thread priorites
Disable un-used USB Controllers/Hubs in Device manager
Turn page file on/off
Change priority from programs to background services and back
Change priority from programs to syste cache and back
Used windows usb driver versus 3rd party ASIO driver
Changed latency settings in ASIO driver
Tried ASIO(exe) versus ASIO(dll)
Changed PCI bus latency settings
Changed video card acceleration settings.

Good Lord. Is there anything else?? LOL!

All in all, I get the dropouts no matter what software player, driver, ASIO buffer size, player priority, thread priority... It's the same dropout (like a communication loss) every 5 to 10 minutes.

I have tried to monitor background services and enabled every column in the task manager... nothing specifically points to the problem.

I have read that background services can cause these stutters in XP with USB audio, but I have NOT been able to find any data about WHICH ONES cause the dropouts.

Anyone who has been down the "USB Audio Dropout in XP" path that wants to chime in with their best guess, I am all ears!!

Cheers,
Presto

 

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Update #3: After the re-install, posted on July 3, 2008 at 09:59:40
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hey gang:

For those of you following this adventure of mine with XP + USB...

As reducing my PC to a "Standard PC" from the glorious "ACPI Multiprocessor" did not eliminate dropouts, I thought this was an opportune time to re-install windows.

1) Installed Windows XP SP2 (using slipstreamed installer)
2) Shut off themes, tuned visuals for max performance
3) Let Windows install whatever updates it wanted
4) Installed drivers for video, card reader, LAN NIC
5) Installed UAA HD Audio Bus driver - release1 (KB835221)
6) Installed UAA HD Audio Bus driver - release2 (KB888111)
7) Installed C-Media (Onboard Sound) Driver
8) Turned off un-needed processes - 17 running processes

Not bad for a few hours work.

Then I plugged in my annoying JVC RX-D205S receiver and it installed the drivers automatically. Except THIS TIME:

***The drivers matched the instruction manual in the JVC, where before - how I missed this I have no idea - they did not. Under USB Devices, the receiver was recongnized as a "Composite USB device" where before it was called "Burr Brown PCM2704...etc. etc". This may have had something to do with the usb-asio driver I installed...

Now, scrolling madly in internet explorer does not cause dropouts. I got a few dropouts before implementing my custom service configuration. Once I did that, *again* I got repeated tracks with NO dropouts.

So now, I have:

1) a fresh and updated install of Windows XP SP2 + Updates (=SP3?)
2) A hyperthreading PIV machine ACPI Multiprocessor, (again)
3) disabled un-used services
4) what looks like the CORRECT Windows USB Audio driver installed
5) directsound 2.0 in operation with Foobar 0.8.3.
6) the windows default audio devices all set to C-media onboard
7) the "use only default devices" box checked

Tonite I will listen to an many tracks as time permits, watch for droupouts and maybe fire up Cics wonderful memory player.

I think this might work, since I am almost POSITIVE I had the JVC doing glitch free audio in the past. I just sounded terrible to me before where it is sounding quite good to me now. Could it be possible that there has been burn in of that receiver?

Something nice about a fresh windows install, minimized for high performance...

Something also nice about having no audio interface installed!

Cheers,
Presto

 

You might want to turn on System Restore, posted on July 4, 2008 at 14:47:56
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 You might want to turn on System Restore before you start doing any fancy system configuration work! I got real clever with one of my computers last month and trashed it totally. Turns out I had turned off system restore and was unable to recover from one trivial mistake. I had to restore everything from backups. This took all night, because my system configuration was outdated and I had to run all the SP updates. (Usually this happens every few years, just long enough that I have forgotten how to do it efficiently.)

Tony Lauck

"Perception, inference and authority are the valid sources of knowledge" - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: You might want to turn on System Restore, posted on July 4, 2008 at 16:46:58
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Tony:

System restore is for wussies!! ha ha.

Just kidding. :o)

Seriously though, I run my machine with such a minimalistic setup, its not much of a bother to wipe and reinstall. I have "recovery" discs burned with all of my data, program configs, OS settings... it's not that big of a deal. I used to re-install ALL of my audio software, but now I only install whatever it is I fancy using that particular month.

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: Update #3: After the re-install, posted on July 3, 2008 at 13:09:14
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12589
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hey, how about a screen shot of those 17 processes???

Glad you seem to have solved this!!

 

Screen shot won't do it but I have just the trick., posted on July 3, 2008 at 15:48:56
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 I can post my win xp service configuration that will GET you the exact same running processes. Thing is, my service config is based on a bare bones machine with only a wireless card for internet and a sound card or two. Sound cards, hard drive, USB HDD, basic disc management - that's it.

If you're doing ANY fancy networking at all, this service config could end up disabling services you were previously using. Big "use at your own discretion and risk" attached to THIS one! ;)

If you write down YOUR service config (or export it) before you start, that would be a VERY good idea. If something goes "bad", restoring the old service config usually gets things going again.

I'll post it when I get home...

Cheers,
Presto

 

How's this? Comma Separated Variable... (CSV), posted on July 3, 2008 at 23:46:10
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Name,Startup Type
Ad-Aware 2007 Service,Disabled
Alerter,Disabled
ANIWZCSd Service,Automatic
Application Layer Gateway Service,Disabled
Application Management,Disabled
Ati HotKey Poller,Disabled
ATI Smart,Disabled
Automatic Updates,Automatic
Background Intelligent Transfer Service,Manual
ClipBook,Disabled
COM+ Event System,Manual
COM+ System Application,Manual
Computer Browser,Disabled
Cryptographic Services,Automatic
DCOM Server Process Launcher,Automatic
DHCP Client,Automatic
Distributed Link Tracking Client,Disabled
Distributed Transaction Coordinator,Manual
DNS Client,Disabled
Error Reporting Service,Disabled
Event Log,Automatic
Fast User Switching Compatibility,Disabled
Help and Support,Disabled
HID Input Service,Automatic
HTTP SSL,Disabled
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service,Disabled
Indexing Service,Disabled
IPSEC Services,Disabled
Logical Disk Manager,Manual
Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service,Manual
Messenger,Disabled
MS Software Shadow Copy Provider,Disabled
Net Logon,Disabled
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing,Disabled
Network Connections,Manual
Network DDE,Disabled
Network DDE DSDM,Disabled
Network Location Awareness (NLA),Disabled
Network Provisioning Service,Manual
NT LM Security Support Provider,Manual
Performance Logs and Alerts,Disabled
Plug and Play,Automatic
Portable Media Serial Number Service,Disabled
Print Spooler,Disabled
Protected Storage,Disabled
QoS RSVP,Disabled
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager,Disabled
Remote Access Connection Manager,Disabled
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager,Disabled
Remote Procedure Call (RPC),Automatic
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator,Manual
Removable Storage,Manual
Routing and Remote Access,Disabled
Secondary Logon,Disabled
Security Accounts Manager,Automatic
Security Center,Disabled
Server,Disabled
Shell Hardware Detection,Disabled
Smart Card,Disabled
Speed Disk service,Disabled
SSDP Discovery Service,Disabled
System Event Notification,Automatic
System Restore Service,Automatic
Task Scheduler,Disabled
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper,Disabled
Telephony,Disabled
Terminal Services,Disabled
Themes,Disabled
Uninterruptible Power Supply,Disabled
Universal Plug and Play Device Host,Manual
Volume Shadow Copy,Disabled
WebClient,Disabled
Windows Audio,Automatic
Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS),Automatic
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA),Manual
Windows Installer,Manual
Windows Management Instrumentation,Automatic
Windows Time,Disabled
Wireless Zero Configuration,Automatic
WMI Performance Adapter,Disabled
Workstation,Automatic

 

Sorry I should have given instructions, posted on July 4, 2008 at 12:32:08
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 1) Copy and paste data into notepad.
2) Save as services.csv
3) Open with excel

Commas will be gone. Service will be in column 1, startup type will be in column 2. Much easier to read!

Cheers,
Presto

 

Thanks a bunch Presto!!! nt., posted on July 5, 2008 at 02:01:55
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12589
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 d

 

No problem Dawnrazor... (nt), posted on July 5, 2008 at 12:33:16
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 nt

 

Thanks to all espcially theob..., posted on July 1, 2008 at 20:15:10
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hey gang:

GOT IT! It WORKS!

I read the articles about ACPI in XP (thanks theob) and since I tried everything else, I thought I would give it a go. So I converted my quasi-dual processor (Hyperthreading) PIV 2.6 Ghz machine from a ACPI HT Processor into a Standard (non-ACPI) single processor. Sure, probably lost some performance there... but I use 5% CPU playing 44.1 tracks with Foobar. No biggie there. I also removed the System device "Microsoft ACPI driver".

Then I headed into the IRQ map, which was disappointing because I thought I would be able to customize IRQ settings. Nope. The "automatic" checkbox is greyed out and cannot be removed. I will crack this one eventually...

But then I realized something. Not all USB controllers were assigned the same IRQ. For each controller there is a corresponding USB HUB. By looking at which device was on which Hub, I could work back to which controller was handling which device (For example, conroller 2 in the list of controllers controls the 2nd USB HUB in the list of hubs.) So I switched around the USB connections until I was using a controller that shared an IRQ with NO OTHER DEVICE!! (Then I completely uninstalled all other controllers and corresponding USB HUBS).

The result? TEN CONSECUTIVE TRACKS, NO DROPOUTS! :o)

When I was using a shared IRQ (IRQ 5), the MS UAA HD Audio PCI bus driver *AND* my video card were sharing this IRQ. Although "no conflicts" were reported, using the scroll-wheel in Internet Explorer fast enough caused such bad dropouts the audio would almost stop completely.

Sure, it was extreme. But I just wanted to win. And I did. YAY!

For those having dropout issues with audio, I would probably not remove ACPI, but I sure would check the IRQ table by going:

Start -> control panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> View -> Resources by type -> Interrupt Requests (IRQ)

Thanks guys! Learned a bunch today.

Cheers,
Presto

 

Update #2. Not so good. Re-installed windoze this morning., posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:33:45
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 I should have left well enough alone.

When I mucked around "organizing" IRQ's to get both USB HDD and USB DAC on their own seperate and unique IRQ's... I started getting dropouts again!

Screw it.

This morning I backed up my resource folders, service configuration, and foobar / eac settings files and wiped the b*tch.

Fresh install of windows xp. Probably service pack 3 or just SP2 for now.

I will try the windows usb driver with a completely untouched fresh install of windows - with no service configuration changes. Funny thing - I never got these dropouts when I first ran the receiver in USB mode months ago. They just started recently. SOMETHING must have changed.

I will then try the usb-audio.com driver which seems to be a reallly good driver (and is not to blame for the dropouts, I am pretty sure).

Let this be a lesson to die hard Windows XP fans. You can use PCI. You can use Firewire. You can even use USB. But if your USB solution is giving you dropouts... I'd get away from XP's usbaudio.sys and go with Vista.

Vista has been said to be a much better alternative to XP specifically for USB audio. Gordon said this too. I believe this wholeheartedly.

Since some USB devices seem to be more IRQ dependent than others, I would say XPs limited IRQ setting ability (especially with ACPI enabled processors) is a reason to stay clear.

The bright side?

I got a FRESH INSTALL OF WINDOWS waiting for me at home! :o)

That's always nice.

Cheers,
Presto

 

An Ax is my favorite tool also...(nt), posted on July 2, 2008 at 16:21:19
SeVeReD
Audiophile

Posts: 944
Joined: March 25, 2001
 timber!!1


Acer Aspire 9500 laptop Pentium 1.73GHz w/ 2 gigs ram, Vista Premium 32 bit, WAV/CUE files on Hard Drives via firewire, XXHighEnd player Q1 14, player priority nothing,thread priority high; Stello 100 USB-DAC nos

 

PC Load Letter? PC LOAD LETTER!?! I'LL GIVE YOU..., posted on July 2, 2008 at 16:52:37
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 PC LOAD LETTER!!

SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH!

From "Office Space". One of Charlie Sheens finest moments.

Cheers,
Presto

 

It would be great to have some USB mapping tool better than USB View, posted on July 2, 2008 at 10:34:21
Gordon Rankin
Manufacturer

Posts: 2928
Joined: June 9, 2000
 Presto,

I have said this for years not all USB ports are created equal. That being said it's kind of a shame that there is not better support for looking at the USB map, except in device manager which does not give you much detail.

USB View is pretty poor overall and sometimes just stops showing stuff after certain devices.

AHHHHHH

There are some other programs but the cost money.

Too bad...
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin

 

RE: Thanks to all espcially theob..., posted on July 2, 2008 at 07:22:53
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 How does that usb asio driver work? Is it better than asio4all? Is it 24/96 capable?

 

RE: Thanks to all espcially theob..., posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:19:57
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Theob:

The driver will basically do what the hardware can do, all the way up to 32bit/96khz. You can set the DEVICE bitdepth lower than the ASIO bitdepth (at which point I think the ASIO driver just pads the 16bit data to make it work - not sure there).

The usb-asio.com driver is "pre-programmed" for around 20 or 30 common usb chipsets and specific hardware devices. It's all there on the site.

www.usb-audio.com

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: Thanks to all espcially theob..., posted on July 2, 2008 at 05:05:16
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Glad I could help you. You, all of you have certainly helped me.

 

RE: Thanks to all espcially theob..., posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:25:19
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Theob:

It's a powerful collective of knowlege we share here. The group is greater than the sum of its parts. Although individual members will have their own opinions and preferences regarding specific implementations, there is a "knowlege base" of do's and dont's that I have come to swear by. And I swear a lot in this hobby! ;)

A very excellent group to be part of. It's made my PC Audio hobby possible, really.

Cheers,
Presto

 

IRQ !@#$%&*!!!, posted on July 2, 2008 at 01:15:04
The Sound Guy
Audiophile

Posts: 716
Joined: November 16, 2003
 On my laptop my internal sound , graphics, modem, ethernet, USB controller, firewire controller and PCMCIA controller share IRQ 11 !!! (Actually a total of 11 entries since USB has 4 entries & PCMCIA 2). Maybe they decided IRQ 11 needed 11 items!).
I'm not sure who to blame: M$ or Acer (laptop manufacturer) or Intel (motherboard/chipset manufacturer). The laptop BIOS has no way of tweaking the IRQs neither does the XP device manager allow it. It's no wonder I have dropouts when I use USB audio devices. Any idea on how to evenly spread out the IRQs?

 

Here is my take on it., posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:23:01
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Sound Guy:

If you go into the device manager you can tell two things by looking at each USB controller. 1) what device is on each controller and 2)what IRQ each controller uses.

Try to get your USB device to use a controller that uses an IRQ that is unique to that controller, or only used for *another* USB controller.

This should work find, unless you have 10 USB devices hooked up besides your audio interface!! ;)

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: Here is my take on it., posted on July 2, 2008 at 23:18:47
The Sound Guy
Audiophile

Posts: 716
Joined: November 16, 2003
 Presto, thanks for the help but if you carefully notice my post, all my USB controllers share the same IRQ along with firewire, graphics, modem, ethernet, internal sound. So I'm not sure how I can implement your suggestion :-(
I need a way to make my hardware to use other IRQs.

 

I am aware of that., posted on July 3, 2008 at 10:52:50
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Soundguy:

I have 5 controllers on my PC, and 5 corresponding hubs.

some controller/hub combinations are shared, while others are either shared with another USB controller, or not shared at all.

The trick is to know which hub you are plugged into (which is academic if you are using the device manager and looking as "resources by type -> IRQs". Then find the hub that is either shared with only other USB controllers, or not shared at all.

Sometimes this requires moving PCI cards around.

There is no way that I have found on the net to "map" IRQ's manually in XP. The ability to over-ride is greyed out, and likely because most PCs now are 'ACPI Multiprocessor' based.

Cheers,
Presto

 

I'm glad you seem to have your answer, but..., posted on July 1, 2008 at 21:33:46
hermanesque
 does anybody expect anyone other than a complete fanatic about this to dig that deeply into the problem. "Complete fanatic" is a complement by the way.

To get this stuff main stream it has to get easier like it is on a MAC. So why do I care?

I firmly believe higher resolution downloads are the wave of the future if enough people buy into it. It looks like the studios have the 24/96 or higher just sitting there and I want them to make it available to me, but as long as Joe 6 pack has to go in and adjust his interrupt settings to get it to work it isn't going to happen.

It is just too damn hard to get the results you want for the major players to jump in. Until they do we won't get the music we wnat in the hi-rez format we want it in.








(iTunes) or (Wilson Benesch ACT2/analog cart - M-Audio Fastrack pro 24/96) - iMac core audio 24/96 -- Toslink - Monarchy DIP - modified Behringer DCX2496 - MSB multichannel volume control - SET triamp Avantgarde Duo Omegas with DIY bass horn

 

Complete fanatics 'r' us!! :o) -t, posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:21:03
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 -t

 

Poor Implementation on the JVC, posted on July 1, 2008 at 18:03:35
Kenn
Audiophile

Posts: 459
Joined: March 10, 2005
 I never had any problem with USB 2 with Audigy 2NX. I don't see how a properly implemented USB 2 device can have any drop out.

With M-Audio Transit (USB 1), break ups do happen. But they can be cured by using exe version of ASIO with "Process Priority" at "RealTime".

Harddisk I/O's are usual source of problems. If you have multiple drives, when one of them awakes or sleeps, the whole system may freeze for a moment and cause a break up.

 

RE: Poor Implementation on the JVC, posted on July 1, 2008 at 20:41:41
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Kenn:

That is what I was fearing... but it's not the JVC or the Burr Brown PCm2704.

It was the wacky shared IRQ assignments done by XP. Sometimes guys have no problems with USB devices in XP/2000 and other times they dig all they way down to IRQ issues.

I had already tried process and thread priorities, buffer sizes, ASIO drivers, you name it.

The question with your Audigy (although it functioned) was were you able to get bitperfect playback using an Audigy 2xxx device. Some could with kernel streaming, but over USB? That's a good question.

With the usb-audio.com ASIO driver *OR* direct sound v 2.0 I am getting bitperfect audio (passes DTS test - no resampling) and I am sending this into a PWM digital amp (the JVC) so the signal is not converted to analog.

Very neat sounding setup.... for $78 from ecost.com!!

It sounded good with SPDIF, but I HAD TO make USB work... :o)

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: Poor Implementation on the JVC, posted on July 4, 2008 at 16:49:58
Kenn
Audiophile

Posts: 459
Joined: March 10, 2005
 Audigy 2NX was reported to pass the DTS test. It is amazingly resilient to system interruptions.

Before using exe version of ASIO with the set-up described above, M-Audio Transit was constantly bothered by simply typing on the keyboard.

 

RE: Poor Implementation on the JVC, posted on July 11, 2008 at 18:40:12
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Kenn:

I betcha they used KS or ASIO to get that to work!

But that's cool that the NX works.

There was a major amount of bandwidth spent on forums figuring out which Audigy cards did bitperfect and which did not.

The new X-Fi has a "bitperfect" checkbox in the Audio Creation Mode, that basically shuts off effects that alter the datastream. It's hard to tell what stuff you need and don't need when installing though. Install gets really bloated in you do a "full install"...

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 17:53:36
SeVeReD
Audiophile

Posts: 944
Joined: March 25, 2001
 How about cleaning out the registry? I use regsupreme (aggressive mode); keeps computer running smother....
I'm sure you don't have any spyware junk; run superantispyware (dumb name but not spyware itself) & Combofix
lan/wireless off? sure you have the best usb port? (plugneval)
and when all else fails for me... format and start again hehe
gl


Acer Aspire 9500 laptop Pentium 1.73GHz w/ 2 gigs ram, Vista Premium 32 bit, WAV/CUE files on Hard Drives via firewire, XXHighEnd player Q1 14, player priority nothing,thread priority high; Stello 100 USB-DAC nos

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on February 19, 2010 at 16:27:23
TechGuru1


 
In my experience cleaning registry with RegInOut keeps PC run smooth and with high speed

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 23:52:09
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Severed:

I am a clean freak. It was ACPI / IRQ conflicts!

I can now see why some guys have NO problems with USB and others have MEGA problems. Its because of XPs IRQ assigning process, and how it can assign multiple devices to the same interrupt. They may not "conflict" per se, but performance is affected severly for real time devices like audio. I don't think USB was really designed for clocked data...

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 17:28:10
panhead
Audiophile

Posts: 920
Location: chicago
Joined: January 20, 2007
 Try hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL at the same time. Go to task manager and then the performance screen. That will tell you if the cpu is busy. If the cpu is busy then that will lead down one path. You might run several virus and malware scans - they sneak in when ever you arent watching.


If your machine isnt busy have you looked at the interrupts. Is the AGP assigned an interrupt. Does the USB share its interrupt with anything else?

I hope this helps.

Cheers

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 23:28:27
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Panhead:

I went to the device manager and looked right at the IRQ table.
Before, my USB controllers were sharing IRQs with the Video card.

Now, the two USB contollers (1 for USB external drive and 1 for audio interface) each have their own unique IRQ...

Shits and giggles as they say!

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 16:37:31
Old Listener
Audiophile

Posts: 2090
Location: SF Bay area
Joined: February 6, 2005
 You've tried a lot of stuff. I was not sure reading that list whether you had tried waveout and/or DirectSound as an alternative to ASIO. (If you are using ASIO4All, keep in mind that neither Microsoft or the DAC maker ever tested that path from player s/w to the hardware.)

Some questions:

- What are the specs for your computer system? (CPU, graphics h/w, ram, motherboard) AGP sounds like an old system.

- Are you sending 44.1 KHz / 16 bits to the UCB DAC (in your receiver) or a upsampled rate like 192/24? If you are upsampling, do you hear dropouts when you send 44.1 / 16 out on the USB cable?

- What CPU utilization do you see? Is it low ( < 1o%) or high (> 80%)?

A suggestion: You might start the music player and then bring up task manager. Click on the performance tab and watch the CPU utilization graph. Check to see if a spike occurs at the time when you hear a dropout. If so, then click on the processes tab and then click on "cpu" to sort processes by that measurement. Scroll down so that you are seeing the largest users. Keeping watching through one or two dropouts.

Bill




 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 23:44:38
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hey Old Listener:

My PC is a "Cicero" once sold by the electronics megagiant Future Shop.
It has a MicroStar Mobo for a PIV Socket 478 CPU and supports Hyperthreading. I have the 2.93GHZ hyperthreading CPU. It came with 1GB ram and I've never needed more. It has a speed controlled oversized fan that barely spins. CPU load when playing back 44.1 material is under 5% but is now 10% because I am down to one processor when I disabled hyperthreading to get rid of ACPI. Still, that's peak - average is 5%.

I do have a wireless card in there, but no other PCI cards. The graphics is AGP, which is only a few years old. AGP 8X was quite common a few years ago, and PCIe was just coming out. This PC is only about three years old.

- I am not upsampling. The Burr Brown PCM2704 is only good fo 16 bit and from 32 to 48 khz. Even when hardware warrants it, I am usually not a software upsampling fan.

- CPU is about 5% average, peaks of 10.

I have already been watching the task manager like a hawk, with ALL columns enabled. Nothing. Nada. No correlation. No CPU or memory spikes. No I/O read or writes... nothing seems to coincide. Except one thing. When I use the scroll wheel in iexplorer, I can get CPU utilization of almost 80% on internet explorer! (This was before - now I am not sharing an IRQ between my network card + video card and USB controllers.)

The answer was in IRQ conflicts, and the ACPI in general.

Thanks for chiming in Old Listener.

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 2, 2008 at 00:15:01
Old Listener
Audiophile

Posts: 2090
Location: SF Bay area
Joined: February 6, 2005
 Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions after you had found your problem.

I took a quick look at two of my PCs on which I play audio. I noted that I have shared interrupts involving USB on each computer. On one PC, I'm using a PCI soundcard that has an unshared IRQ. On the other PC, I'm currently using on-board sound which shares an IRQ with USB. I have not heard any dropouts. Of course, I don't use USB audio either.

I'd guess that your problem is more specific that just a shared IRQ. Either the IRQ routines are not well written or the AGP video is generated far more interrupts than it should.

Glad to hear that you found a solution.

Bill

 

You have a point there., posted on July 2, 2008 at 13:45:37
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 "I'd guess that your problem is more specific that just a shared IRQ."

It seems this was the case too - when I got the IRQs to be unique to each USB controller / USB HUB that I was using, the problem actually got WORSE.

Something else is at work that is beyond my PC know-how.

I am re-installing windows to see how the drivers bahve with a fresh install with the default windows service configuration.

If I get glitch-free playback, I might be inclined to believe that by making my machine faster by eliminating services I *thought* I didn't need, I could have shut of services that I really DID need!!

Just FYI - I have every audio interface I own (about four of em) running perfectly any time I want with no problems or dropouts. It's only this recent desire to try a USB audio device under XP that has lead me down the garden path.

Sadly, the sound BETWEEN dropouts was exceptional - and is what made me so determined to make it work. When I try SPDIF tonite, I will report back with my sonic impressions. Hopefully, SPDIF will not be a lesser method. I recall it was not that bad, but I think I was favoring USB there for a while.

Could be pscyhoacoustics... I mean psycho-delusion at work...

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 15:58:42
Scrith
Audiophile

Posts: 1169
Location: Los Angeles
Joined: July 19, 2005
 I wish I had a magic answer for you, but I don't. I can sympathize with your problems, though, having had a number of audio pc setups over the years, something occasionally goes wrong with them from time to time. The answer is usually a simple change, but finding that simple change can be an incredibly frustrating and time-consuming experience.

I can tell you that on my current system, even when I'm being abusive with it (e.g. playing a 3D full-screen internet game using USB keyboard, mouse, and microphone) I don't get dropouts like that with my Benchmark DAC1 USB, Vista 64-bit, and 8GB of RAM. I realize that is of little consolation to you.

Question: what USB driver are you using? The one built into Windows XP? If so, perhaps this is part of the problem. I say this because the only time I've ever had problems with dropouts using USB audio was related to a problem with the USB driver...in this case, it was the M-Audio USB driver (with both an M-Audio Audiophile USB and an Empricial Audio Off-Ramp 2 Turbo w/ SuperClock 4). The problem was usually caused by using the wrong latency settings. Have you tried a 3rd-party USB driver like this one: usb-audio.com

The next question isn't going to cheer you up...is it possible the USB implementation for this receiver is just bad? I've never heard of anyone else using that particular device.

 

Ah hah - excellent question, posted on July 1, 2008 at 23:46:49
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Scrith:

I am using both the Windows USB driver and a custom ASIO USB driver from usb-asio.com. Both show identical behavior.

The answer (at the end of it all) was the ACPI power management in XP, and the goofy IRQ assignments that I was able to shuffle into USBs favor. Now both USB controllers I am using (1 for USB HDD and 1 for audio interface) each have their onw unique IRQ!)

Yee haw!

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 14:28:44
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 Did you check your VIDEO CARD's PCI latency setting? If it's 248 (maximum), as is often the case, it's asking for trouble with USB audio - you'll need to change that.

 

I have a question about that..., posted on July 1, 2008 at 15:04:42
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hey carcass:

Thanks for your reply.

I have two devices that show up on my PCI bus tweaker - my wireless network adapter (changed from 128 to zero with no effect) and the 1394 firewire adapter (changed from 32 to zero also with no effect).

The video card does not show up at all - it's AGP... so does it still have a PCI latency then? Or only PCI/PCIe video cards? I reduced it's hardware acceleration in steps and even disabled write combining, but all to no avail.

Cheers,
Presto

 

No, as I understand AGP (and PCI-e) have nothing to do with PCI latency., posted on July 1, 2008 at 18:55:46
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 You probably don't want to hear about it, but here's solution for you: stick one of your sound cards (you have more than one, if I recall) in PC, use SPDIF out, and forget that freakin' USB altogether.

I know, being as crazy as next guy on this forum, I wouldn't follow such advice myself.

 

Bwah ha ha ha ha.... (evil laugh), posted on July 1, 2008 at 20:00:17
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Carcass:

You're kdding right? Read my post to all above. Collectively, we got it licked. DONE like DINNER!

Cheers,
Presto

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 14:15:33
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12589
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 P,

Drop outs blow! USB scares the hell out of me, and I really can't figure out why everyone loves it.

Just taday I was doing some work on the hifi rig, moving from internal hdds to external ones since I have a flash drive for the OS.

Anyhow, I plugged in the USB drive and winamp reported that it saw it and asked if that was a portable drive.

Well WINDOWS doesn't see it so my plan to just grab all the ASIO plugins off this disk (it used to be my main disk) was foiled....except that Winamp could open the folder but windows certainly couldn't.

Fresh install of windows winamp and Lynx installed and windows still can't find it.

You want to put audio on that??

 

I almost switched back to CDP last week! :P -t, posted on July 2, 2008 at 11:26:43
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 -t

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 14:10:03
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Did you try to get rid of all anti virus stuff? That was source of my pops/crackles.

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 14:13:46
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Here's a tool that may give you some help.

 

RE: USB audio drop outs on XP - every other track. Anyone?, posted on July 1, 2008 at 14:20:55
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Here's a thread where another fellow gave me some advice in my search for solutions to my usb issues. The Microsoft ratt tool very good but difficult to use.

 

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