question for windows-based musos & techies

[Quiff Boy]

i have a question for the windows-based musos out there...

my sound card isnt working correctly. it seems to "stutter" when playing back sound

its as if it cannot get enough cpu cycles to process the sound. it stops & starts and generally sounds like its stuttering...

this happens in all audio applications, with all media formats: wavs in cubase, mp3s in windows media player, even the myspace music player!



and this is where it gets wierd:

i have a network card in my pc which connects to my router & then to the internet...

bizarrely, if i disable the network card in device manager, the sound card starts working correctly

wtf?!?

but if i enable the network card again, the sound stutters, as before

i'm using the latest asio drivers, and i've tried it with 2 different sound controllers: an internal pci card (m-audio audiophile 24/96) and an external firewire controller (edirol fa-66), and both exhibit exactly the same behaviour, so i'm sure its not the devices themselves

it must be either the nic card or something in the windows subsystem...

i've looked in msconfig and the network card isnt sharing any irq resources with the audio controller, although the audio controller is sharing irqs with the usb drivers (at least i think it was the usb drivers - i'm not at my home pc right now)

i seem to recall the network card is a cnet2000 or something like that.

disabling the network card whenever i need to play a sound file is a pain in the arse, and it means i can never listen to any streaming audio or video

any ideas?

[markfiend]

Get a mac

[mh]

Shared IRQs are handled fairly painlessly for the most part in NT class versions of Windows anyway, although the order in which devices come up may be an issue.

Before even going there... have you an NVidia motherboard?

[James Blast]

Get a mac

You bastard!

[Quiff Boy]

@ mh: dunno about the mobo - its a dell pc, so i doubt it

i have an nvidia gforce agp grafx card...?

[markfiend]

Get a mac

You bastard!

Because I beat you to it?

[mh]

@ mh: dunno about the mobo - its a dell pc, so i doubt it

Me too, but had to check. There's a fairly well known (but you'll have quite a job finding any definite statement on it) prob with their mobo drivers, which can cause symptoms similar to what you've got.

I figure it's the order your devices are coming up in, during boot-up time, and that if you experimented with switching around PCI slots you'll likely fix it.

[James Blast]

Get a mac

You bastard!

Because I beat you to it?

Natch'
and what happened to that MacBook you were lusting after Boss?

[Quiff Boy]

@ mh: yeah, tried moving pci slot around

@ blast: still getting the pennies together

[Ghost]

Most probably pci slot swapping would cure that, but as you said it was already done...
Have you tried to update the NIC's drivers (motherboard chipset drivers too)? The maker of it's chip Realtek, sis etc will have the most current ones on their site, unlike the manufacturer of the card. Other thing to try is using other NIC. Other things to mess with on bios are PCI latency, you might try other values as 32,64 or 128, and enabling/disabling pci prefetch if you have that option available.

[esox]

Over to Scotty?

[scotty]

Over to Scotty?

Thank you, I use the encron 4:15 systme, it's a wee bit heavy on the base but easy to use, the vvd downloads are a doddle to use for anybody with a modicum of savy, they're all windows, Mac, Linux compatible.
I put the encron through the vvd then clean it up with a Tomy Two way Home HI/LO med' res' unit.............

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Over to Scotty?

Thank you, I use the encron 4:15 systme, it's a wee bit heavy on the base but easy to use, the vvd downloads are a doddle to use for anybody with a modicum of savy, they're all windows, Mac, Linux compatible.
I put the encron through the vvd then clean it up with a Tomy Two way Home HI/LO med' res' unit.............

Utter rubbish techtalk which solves nothing but is, in a creepy way, totally correct...

You, sir, are a GENUINE IT Wiz!

IZ.

[James Blast]

or a Rent-O-Killer!

[Ahráyeph]

i have a question for the windows-based musos out there...

my sound card isnt working correctly. it seems to "stutter" when playing back sound

its as if it cannot get enough cpu cycles to process the sound. it stops & starts and generally sounds like its stuttering...

this happens in all audio applications, with all media formats: wavs in cubase, mp3s in windows media player, even the myspace music player!



and this is where it gets wierd:

i have a network card in my pc which connects to my router & then to the internet...

bizarrely, if i disable the network card in device manager, the sound card starts working correctly

wtf?!?

but if i enable the network card again, the sound stutters, as before

i'm using the latest asio drivers, and i've tried it with 2 different sound controllers: an internal pci card (m-audio audiophile 24/96) and an external firewire controller (edirol fa-66), and both exhibit exactly the same behaviour, so i'm sure its not the devices themselves

it must be either the nic card or something in the windows subsystem...

i've looked in msconfig and the network card isnt sharing any irq resources with the audio controller, although the audio controller is sharing irqs with the usb drivers (at least i think it was the usb drivers - i'm not at my home pc right now)

i seem to recall the network card is a cnet2000 or something like that.

disabling the network card whenever i need to play a sound file is a pain in the arse, and it means i can never listen to any streaming audio or video

any ideas?

Dropping in late, but perhaps I can help shed some light, seeing as I'm using a Dell myself and used the big bro of the FA-66 - FA-101- up until I got my nifty Focusrites. I've never had network card related issues, though...
- Swapping PCI slots may help. My first thought was that the soundcard and the network card shared the same IRQ, but you pretty much ruled that one out, so that can't be it. I'm a bit worried about the audio controllers sharing IRQ's with the USB's. But swapping slots may just do the trick.
- Curiously, I'm also suggesting to uninstall either driver of the audio interfaces you're using. Here's why : I had LOADS of trouble for about a month getting my Focusrite interfaces and my M- Audio 8x8 MIDISport USB interface to work properly. I got countless blue screens, reboots, interrupted sound and all this nasty stuff you don't want to happen to you. When the Focusrite helpdesk came through (took a week, but at least they came through) they suggested a very simple solution : uninstall the FA-101's drivers. I did and the problem went away like it never existed! So Barry, you haven't mentioned this, but if you've got both the drivers for the Audophile and the FA-66 installed, ditch one of them.
- Something else, which is pretty standard advice for any DAW nut concerning sound cards : disable your on- board sound chipset in BIOS. It will eventually mess up your audio with its drivers, pretty much as described above.
Last point : all recent (say, counting from five years back) pc's - and certainly Dell pc's - have a network port installed, which eliminates the need for a separate network card. You could try to use this port instead of that of your separate card. All network ports have a standard transfer rate of 10/100 Mbit so there wouldn't be much use for an extra network card anyway if it's only used for Internet and small network access.

That's all I can think of right now...

[Carpathian Psychonaut]

Also a bit late (but inspired by that cracking previous post) I'd just drop in that if anybody has stutters etc and has a Creative sound board under XP then maybe look at CTHelper.EXE. It's an interface between the soundboard and 3rd party software wanting to use it.

In some peoples systems you need it loaded to ensure a smooth run and good sharp comms. In others it can lag and cause lockups and wasted processor time.

The launch line is in the Windows startup so use something like SpyBot and you can temporarily disable it, test the system, and put it back on if that doesn't help.

If you need any more (links etc) then PM me....

[Ghost]

Also a bit late (but inspired by that cracking previous post) I'd just drop in that if anybody has stutters etc and has a Creative sound board under XP then maybe look at CTHelper.EXE. It's an interface between the soundboard and 3rd party software wanting to use it.

In some peoples systems you need it loaded to ensure a smooth run and good sharp comms. In others it can lag and cause lockups and wasted processor time.

The launch line is in the Windows startup so use something like SpyBot and you can temporarily disable it, test the system, and put it back on if that doesn't help.

If you need any more (links etc) then PM me....

On the subject, the same is valid for SBDrvDet.exe, this file does the interface for frontal 5.25" modules as those that come with platinum series. The problem is that it may cause trouble with other programs (as the dfi ITE monitor), so it can be disabled too.
An easy way to disable these programs at startup is to go to run and type "msconfig" and use the startup tab to untick stuff instead of messing directly with registry if you don't feel confident.

[Ocean Moves]

i have a question for the windows-based musos out there...

my sound card isnt working correctly. it seems to "stutter" when playing back sound

its as if it cannot get enough cpu cycles to process the sound. it stops & starts and generally sounds like its stuttering...

this happens in all audio applications, with all media formats: wavs in cubase, mp3s in windows media player, even the myspace music player!



and this is where it gets wierd:

i have a network card in my pc which connects to my router & then to the internet...

bizarrely, if i disable the network card in device manager, the sound card starts working correctly

wtf?!?

but if i enable the network card again, the sound stutters, as before

i'm using the latest asio drivers, and i've tried it with 2 different sound controllers: an internal pci card (m-audio audiophile 24/96) and an external firewire controller (edirol fa-66), and both exhibit exactly the same behaviour, so i'm sure its not the devices themselves

it must be either the nic card or something in the windows subsystem...

i've looked in msconfig and the network card isnt sharing any irq resources with the audio controller, although the audio controller is sharing irqs with the usb drivers (at least i think it was the usb drivers - i'm not at my home pc right now)

i seem to recall the network card is a cnet2000 or something like that.

disabling the network card whenever i need to play a sound file is a pain in the arse, and it means i can never listen to any streaming audio or video

any ideas?

have you tried run -> dxdiag
and then in the sound tab, reduce the acceleration from full to basic.

[Quiff Boy]

Dropping in late, but perhaps I can help shed some light, seeing as I'm using a Dell myself and used the big bro of the FA-66 - FA-101- up until I got my nifty Focusrites. I've never had network card related issues, though...
- Swapping PCI slots may help. My first thought was that the soundcard and the network card shared the same IRQ, but you pretty much ruled that one out, so that can't be it. I'm a bit worried about the audio controllers sharing IRQ's with the USB's. But swapping slots may just do the trick.

nope. tried it again & no difference...

- Curiously, I'm also suggesting to uninstall either driver of the audio interfaces you're using. Here's why : I had LOADS of trouble for about a month getting my Focusrite interfaces and my M- Audio 8x8 MIDISport USB interface to work properly. I got countless blue screens, reboots, interrupted sound and all this nasty stuff you don't want to happen to you. When the Focusrite helpdesk came through (took a week, but at least they came through) they suggested a very simple solution : uninstall the FA-101's drivers. I did and the problem went away like it never existed! So Barry, you haven't mentioned this, but if you've got both the drivers for the Audophile and the FA-66 installed, ditch one of them.

aye. i ditched the audiophile drivers before installing the edirol

- Something else, which is pretty standard advice for any DAW nut concerning sound cards : disable your on- board sound chipset in BIOS. It will eventually mess up your audio with its drivers, pretty much as described above.

nah, when i bought the pc a few years ago it didnt come with an onboard sound card (it actually had a cruddy "turtle beach" card in it)

Last point : all recent (say, counting from five years back) pc's - and certainly Dell pc's - have a network port installed, which eliminates the need for a separate network card. You could try to use this port instead of that of your separate card. All network ports have a standard transfer rate of 10/100 Mbit so there wouldn't be much use for an extra network card anyway if it's only used for Internet and small network access.

it didnt come with an onboard network port either - that card that is in at the moment is the one it came with

That's all I can think of right now...

thanks anyway.

i have 2 spare pci slots, so have tried all the cards in various positions with no difference

my pc is a dell dimension 4400. its a P4 / 1.6ghz with 1gb ram

i upgraded the original grafx card to a radeon 9600 a while back (socket is AGP)

there are a 5 pci slots (i seem to recall), in which i have: a usb2 card, a firewire card & the original 10/100 network card

when i first went broadband i used a usb dsl modem. i didnt use the network card, & had it disabled. the audiophile i was using at the time worked fine...

when i got a wireless broadband modem/router (so jo could use her laptop to surf at the same time) i started connecting my desktop to the wireless router via a network cable - thats when the trouble started with the soundcard.

that was when i bought the firewire card and the edirol in the hope that it would use different system resources etc and thus the sound would not not stutter anymore, but it hasnt helped at all

however, once thing i did notice in the edirol's manual was it says stuttering can often occur in sound devices when using network cards. the trouble shooting guide suggests disabling them.

which is a right load of f*cking use innit?

short of binning the lot and getting mac (;)) i'm not sure what the best option here is.

should i try a new network card? maybe a newer nic will have better drivers (even though my current one's are up to date)?

or maybe i should get a wireless card for the desktop, and disable the current card?

pah

i'll try running dxdiag

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Oh, and Barry, it's not that we're not on speaking terms or so, I simply don't have any clue whatsoever

As you say it, It is almost exactly the setup I use.

I have a Sysco wireless router, I hooked up my Big Machine with a network cable, I also hooked up the Missus' desktop pc with a network cable, and our laptop is either on the wireless USB stick thingie or on a third cable that is lying there on the bureau, ready for use.

I still use the M-Audio Firewire Audiophile, and never, ever had any problems. The only thing I had to do was play a bit with the buffering.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan05/a ... sician.htm

Maybe this is the solution to your problem, give it a read, especially because:

Setting the correct buffer size is crucial to achieving optimum performance from your audio interface: if it's too small you'll suffer audio clicks and pops...

I have no experiences with the Edirol, but if the problem persists, I can ask your question on the Belgian Homerecording forum, they are semi-pro's

Best of luck!

IZ.

[Quiff Boy]

yeah, i did actually try playing with the buffering on the edirol (the audiophile is now consigned to a box under the bed in the spare room, awaiting a good home... ) and it seemed marginally better, until i had a few other apps open in the background (i tried opening photoshop, outlook and excel as a "stress test") and it started again

(i assume running a DAW with a few vst instruments & fx would create a similar load on the pc, so this seemed an easier way of creating the test...)

its a weird effect though - its not popping or clicking like the faq sites always describe.
its just that playback stops for a fraction of a second, and then restarts at the place it left off

as if i hit the pause really, really quickly

its like it cant get enough cpu cycles to process the sound or something

very odd

i just think its suspicious that it started when i enabled my nic card, and it goes away when i disable it

there must be a way for the 2 devices to co-exist, even it means getting a newer nic

[mh]

WARNING - NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED

I think you need to modify your device driver load order so that your sound card comes up before your NIC.

This unfortunately requires some diving into the deep end of the Registry - HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services, to be precise.

Have a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115486 - method 1 looks like the solution you need.

[Quiff Boy]

WARNING - NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED

I think you need to modify your device driver load order so that your sound card comes up before your NIC.

This unfortunately requires some diving into the deep end of the Registry - HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services, to be precise.

Have a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115486 - method 1 looks like the solution you need.

good lord alive

i'll give it a whirl!!

[mh]

WARNING - NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED

I think you need to modify your device driver load order so that your sound card comes up before your NIC.

This unfortunately requires some diving into the deep end of the Registry - HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services, to be precise.

Have a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115486 - method 1 looks like the solution you need.

good lord alive

i'll give it a whirl!!

so long as no animals get hurt.

but with this kinda stuff, it goes without saying to make sure you have a system restore point, and remember that "last known good configuration" can be your friend.

[Quiff Boy]

are there any toolkits out there to make editting this device driver load order a bit easier?

juts had a look at the first method and my work's pc reg "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder" key is a "List" in hex