828 MKII USB,pops,squeals WORKAROUND-READ ENTIRE THREAD!

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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. with Windows
robleighton22
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Post by robleighton22 »

thehowler wrote:Tested again last night, and everything is STILL OK!

Blimey, could the pain finally be over?
is there a vista hotkey fix similar to the one for winxp you found? i know its a windows problem as ive tested my motu on macs and as a standalone device, and its only on my windows vista machine do i get crackles, pops and audio dropage.
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

I'm not sure, to be honest.

The one I got sent convered XP SP2 only. They advised that it will be included in the next SP for XP - one would hope that the fix is already in Vista
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

Problem is solved by the USB fix
robleighton22
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Post by robleighton22 »

thehowler wrote:Problem is solved by the USB fix
well prob is definitely not solved on vista. the tech support of motu seems pretty useless. if the usb issue actually isnt a vista issue anymore (which as u said, u would think that it would b fixed by microsoft when they release a new os)....then the problem is with motu's drivers. grrr, its frustrating paying lots of money for something that doesnt work properly.
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

PS - to those who were wondering what the problem SOUNDED like, here is a link to a video I made...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1wovHAMq4g
thehowler
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Motu 828 MKII USB, pops, crackle, squeals - NOT FIXED!

Post by thehowler »

Alas, it seems as if the old problems are back to haunt me...

So, I have spent all weekend digging even deeper to find out what has changed. This is probably going to be a long-running thread until I get to the bottom of the issue. Like the rest of you, I know how bloody annoying this problem can be as it is like having a great-looking car that you can never push hard for fear of it breaking down.... So I will use this thread as a kind of blog to keep you informed of my progress.

The first think I can say with some confidence is that getting the MOTU 828 MKII USB to work with a Motherboard and/or USB adapter that uses the VIA chipset is just too problematic. I have found a few threads of information here and there that say VIA should be avoided, so I've knocked VIA on the head, for now. Maybe after this investigation I can put VIA back on the good list...

I managed to get hold of an ASRock Conroe 1333 666MHz DDRII (ConRoe1333-D667 R1.0) (http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... R1.0&s=775) board from a mate of mine so I could do a new build - the board is better than my current Gigabyte (GA-VM900M (rev. 1.0)) (http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/Mothe ... uctID=2407) as it supports SATAII and a couple of other nice features to speed up my rig.

I did a straight Windows XP SP2 install from scratch, and sure enough, the machine was really quick. So, I decided to build upon that, backing up a Hard Disk image before every change (that way I can easily revert back to the previous build to determine what broke it). The test I use to determine if everything is OK is great because it perfectly reproduces the problem. That test is to use Windows Media Player to play an MP3 and then minimize / restore the window repeatedly. If there is a problem, the audio will squeal and dropout. The steps I took are numbered below:

1) Install XP Pro SP2 on clean HDD
2) Install Acronis True Image Home 11 (for backup / restore)
3) Install latest (www.motu.com) 828MKII USB Drivers - perform Test - OK
4) Install Oxygen49 USB keyboard - perform Test - OK
5) Install Sonar 7 Producer - perform Test - OK
6) Plug in USB pen drive - perform Test - FAIL
7) Remove USB pen drive - perform Test - FAIL


I examined the Device Manager, and sure enough, Windows had reshuffled the IRQs to share the USB2.0 Root Hub with the graphics card (Nvidia NVS 280). I also use ProcessExplorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96653.aspx) to see what is going on on the machine. I can see that when the problem happens, the "Hardware Interrupts" use a lot of CPU. Coinicidentally, when everything is OK, the Hardware Interrupts barely even register...

So, I rebuild the machine using a non-ACPI Hardware Abstraction Layer (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068). My graphics card is now on IRQ 8, and the USB2.0 Root Hub is on IRQ 116. As it stands, I have just backed up the Hard Disk image and am going to start building and performing the tests to see what breaks this build. Naturally, I'll kee you informed as I go. I'm planning to keep at it most evenings (UK time) and will update this thread the next day.

Some other useful tools are DoubleDawg (http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3/dawguse.html) and the DPC Latency Checker (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml)
Last edited by thehowler on Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

OK, so here is the update from last night...

I got in and continued my build-and-backup routine. Sure enough, when installing Cakewalk Sonar 7, the problem started again - the Hardware Interrupts went through the roof, and I couldn't understand why.

After doing a little digging yesterday, I stumbled upon this link (http://neodon.blogspot.com/2006/07/litt ... drive.html) that talks about a little known "feature" of Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/st ... E-DMA.mspx). In a nutshell, if 6 or more hard drive errors are detected by the OS, it forces the UDMA mode to a lower value in an effort to reduce the number of errors. So, I made the change as described and started again...

This time, when installing Sonar 7, XP started to bitch about file system errors and corruption on the hard drive. It was then that I realised what was going on. The tweak mentioned in the above link forces XP to NOT reduce the UDMA mode of the disk. As a result of this, I was now getting reported hard drive errors. So I restored from back up and this time did not apply the tweak.

Sure enough, when the problem next occurred (the Hardware Interrupts went through the roof!) I could see that my hard drive was reduced to "PIO mode" which was causing all manner of hardware interrupts. So, I ran a ScanDisk on the drive and, guess what... there were tons of errors on the drive.

Therefore, the harddrive is faulty. It is a Maxtor 250GB SATA II (not 100% sure of the model) I removed the drive and restored everything to another drive and everything is fine! As of this writing I have almost completed my reinstall with Sonar and my VSTs and everything is behaving properly.

When this post started (last year), I can say that the only part of my computer I haven't replaced is the hard drive in question. This is being remedied as I type!

I am about to replace the harddrive and build the rig. Fingers crossed this should be the fix I have been searching for. BTW, I am still using the NON-ACPI build - I like more control over my IRQs than ACPI will allow.
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

So, time for an update...

I'm pleased to report that the problem has been fixed with the installation of my new Hard Drive, and the use of a non-ACPI (MPS Multiprocessor) Hardware Abstraction Layer.

Everything went according to plan and I now have (for the first time ever) full, uninterrupted audio through my MOTU 828 MKII USB.

FYI - my computer specs. are:

ASRock Conroe 1333/667 mobo
Intel E4400 Core 2 Duo CPU
3GB DDRII 667Mhz RAM
1 x WD 250GB SATAII HDD (XP SP3 and Cakewalk Sonar Producer 7)
1 x Hitachi 350GB SATA HDD (VSTIs)
1 x PNY (Nvidia NSV 280) PCI Graphics Card (using Windows own Drivers)
mush
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Post by mush »

hey howler, that sounds like heaven!

i'm thinking of buying a new system, in order to get my •••• solved also.
i'm not really a computer wizzkid, so i was wondering if you could check my list below of the system i'm planning to buy...
is this a good option?

(i've asked for a Mobo with firewireport allready mounted on it, as i'm working with motu fw)
(price for this one below with adjustment fw on mobo is 600€)

thank you for your help!!

this is the mobo:Asus P5KPLC/1600
Processor
Intel QUADCORE Q6600 2.33GHZ 1333MHz 2X4MB LGA775
Chipset
- Northbridge: Intel® 945GC A2
- Southbridge: Intel® ICH7
2 x 1GB DDR2 667Mhz CL4
320GB 7200rpm SATA-II 3.5LP 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB 3GB/S
Internal Card Reader 20 in 1, 3.5inch black
- Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
- Pixel Shader 2.0, DirectX 9.0
- Max. shared memory 224MB
- 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
- Realtek PCIE x1 LAN 8101E
- Speed: 10/100 Ethernet
- Supports Wake-On-LAN
- 2 x PCI slots
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot
- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
- 1 x HDMR slot
- 4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors (No support for RAID and "Hot Plug" functions)
- 1 x ATA100 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- 1 x IR header
- 1 x COM port header
- CPU/Chassis FAN connector
- 20 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin 12V power connector
- CD in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers (support 4 USB 2.0 ports)
HD 8CH I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x VGA Port
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Legitieme Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
thehowler
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Post by thehowler »

Hey Mush,

It looks like a pretty solid rig to me. The good news is that it has an Intel chipset (same as mine) so that should be cool. It would be worth checking the vendor of the on-board firewire chip. I'm not sure if Intel provide this - you might end up with the firewire chip not being a "Motu Approved" Lucent or Texas Instruments one. Failing that, you could always not bother with the onboard FireWire option and buy a PCI/PCIe expansion card with the recommended chipset on it.

If this is to be used as a Digital Audio Workstation I don't think you'll get the benefit of a quad (or even dual) core processor. I'm pretty sure that most Windows DAWs out there can handle the fact that there are multiple processors, but they won't use them in the manner for which multiple cores are intended. However the trend is multicore so you might as well get the best you can afford. I use a dual core 2Ghz and have no problems with 20 VST/VSTi-laden tracks simultaneously. Not really tried any more tracks.

The Hard Drives are certainly up to the task. Don't forget to disable the onboard sound, Infra-red, and Serial/Parallel interfaces - no point taking up IRQs for these legacy interfaces.
2GB or RAM is good - get more if you can, but remember that a 32-bit Windows OS can't use much more than about 4GB. The alternative is a 64-bit Windows OS. Look into RAM speeds - there is now a step or 2 above 667Mhz, but this may have implications on your CPU choice and Mobo.

I'm assuming the graphics card is onboard. Not really sure if it's better to have an onboard or PCIe one. The main thing is that if this is to be used as a DAW then you won't need much of a Graphics Card to do the work. I use a 64MB one that's pretty lame - but I didn't want a resource hungry graphics card interfering and placing load on my CPU. Mine supports 2 monitors though which is always a nice option to have.

Which Windows OS are you going for? If XP, remember that there's a firewire bandwidth constraint in XP Service Pack 2. There are plenty of posts around here to overcome this constraint.

Sorry - just noticed you're gonna be using Vista - beware!!! I've read a lot of problems about the MOTU Vista drivers. My advice would be to use XP, but it's your call. I'm a software engineer and have to deal with Vista horror stories all the time. Even Microsoft are on the verge of labelling it a mistake (well, perhaps not a mistake, but they keep saying their next version of Windows will "learn from our mistakes".

Any help you need - just let me know. I know how £%&%$ annoying it is to have this problem with Windows and MOTU. You can also get me at alexhowleathotmaildotcom
Last edited by thehowler on Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
mush
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Post by mush »

thank you howler!

i just checked and the mobo would be:Asus P5KPLC/1600 (is this any good?)
i think i'm gonna ask for xp, i don't want to get in any other crappy troubles...

the chip for FW is TI (at least that is what they tell me)
hoth
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Post by hoth »

I definitely agree on the recommendation to stay away from Vista. I dual boot a Sony Vaio laptop with Vista and XP SP2. I get the dropouts and squeals no matter what I do with Vista unless I use an ungodly latency (and sometimes still). If I then boot into XP (with no hardware changes), no problems at all. I have tried both the onboard Firewire and a "recommended" TI chipset PCMCIA cardbus card. No love. The sad thing is I bought a UAD Xpander which requires Vista which now I have to sell for a loss.

I think it's pretty much case closed that Vista and the MOTU products don't work well. (BTW, I have an MK3, Traveler and Ultralite and all of them hate my Vista setup.)
mush
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Primary DAW OS: Unspecified

Post by mush »

I just ordered an ADK laptop...
lets see what my Motu will think of that.

fingers crossed.
if the •••• hits the fan again, i'll drop the motu and go for something else
hoth
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Post by hoth »

mush wrote:I just ordered an ADK laptop...
lets see what my Motu will think of that.

fingers crossed.
if the •••• hits the fan again, i'll drop the motu and go for something else
I'm on the fence. I am close to doing the Fireface 800 with the cardbus card and see if that will work better in Vista. I still like my MOTU. It's a shame.
arth
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Location: Simsbury, CT, USA

Re: Motu 828 MKII USB, pops, crackle, squeals FIXED - READ A

Post by arth »

thehowler wrote:As you can see, it was a real ball-ache. Then I noticed that the problem seemed to be in sync. with changes the UI e.g. minimize and maximise the Sonar screen whilst playback was occurring. So... I removed my GeForce 7300 graphics card from its PCIExpress port.

PROBLEM SOLVED! :lol: I am now running on the Motherboard's in-built graphics controller and everyting is great!
That's (a) a workaround, and not a fix, and (b) did nothing to identify what the actual problem was.
thehowler wrote:I don't know if this will solve your problem, but as you can see, I went through a bunch of solutions to find it so it might save you all some time.
More likely, waste people's time.

- Your problems disappearing might be coincidental to removing the graphics card, in which case it won't help others. (Had you at least re-inserted the card to see whether the problem came back, you would have established that the presence of the card was a factor. You didn't, so you didn't.)
- The removal of the graphics card might have prevented a piece of software from running that would have triggered the problem, which won't help others without that piece of software.
- The problem might have been with your motherboard not being able to provide low latency interrupts on time to the southbridge FW controller while using PCIe x8 or while using DMA or the card slot might use the same IRQ line as gets assigned to the 1394a port, and not have enough interrupts for both. In which case, someone with a different motherboard won't necessarily be able to gain any advantage from your workaround.
... or it might be a myriad of other reasons.

In either case, you did not provide a solution to a problem - you didn't even identify the problem, although you did find a workaround for your particular situation, which I'm glad to hear.

And if the above tips helps one or two people, while it wastes quite some time of fifty others, and causes them other headaches, is it worth it?
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