MOTU Ultralite MK5 drop-outs on Windows 10. Any ideas?

[fadingsignal]

Hello! I just got a brand-new MOTU Ultralite MK5 and am experiencing random drop-outs and frequent soft pops. Every 5-10 minutes or so, sound will cut out for roughly half a second before returning. Every so often, sound will completely stop and not come back until I power cycle the unit.

The issue happens with any audio application I've tried so far, from Cubase, to Spotify to Windows Media Player.

A few things worth noting:

• The device is connected directly to the PC using the provided USB-C cable
• I ensured all of the following troubleshooting settings were correct listed here https://motu.com/techsupport/technotes/ ... dows-audio
• I'm running the very latest MOTU firmware and drivers
• I'm running the very latest Windows 10 updates
• Device is set to 24-bit 48khz but issue happens with 24-bit 44.1khz as well

Some system/hardware specs:

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900K CPU @ 3.70GHz, 3696 Mhz, 10 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)
• Motherboard: ROG MAXIMUS XII APEX
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro version 10.0.19044 Build 19044
• RAM: 64.0 GB DDR4
• Video card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ti

Lastly, I noticed that in System Information, High Definition Audio Controller is sharing IRQs with Intel Serial IO I2C Host Controllers, but I have no idea if this is a problem, or how to remedy it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I had a MOTU Ultralite MK3 that gave me grief on two different PCs and a MacBook pro, and I hope this isn't more of the same. MOTU really is the best pound-for-pound when it's working great and I'd love to get to the bottom of the issue.

Thank you!

[FrogFromBog]

Hello, I too have this problem I've tried every single buffer setting for the MK5, but regardless of what I choose, I inevitably see dropouts. My computer is pretty similarly beefy (Intel i9-12900KF, 32GB ram).

Have you discovered anything?

Thank you!

[Atumila]

I also have this problem, I have had the Ultralite Mk5 for about 5 months now and I have been having the issue since getting the device.

My system is :
Windows 11
Intel i7-9750H
16Gb Ram
RTX 2060

It happens when using Spotify and Ableton, I haven't noticed it happen when on YouTube and it has never happened when watching a movie on Amazon Prime for example. I haven't noticed it when using other media players on windows either, but I know other people have the problem with all sorts of applications.

[ezzru]

Same problem!

Brand new, bought a month ago. After about 30 minutes of operation, the sound disappears for 5-10 seconds and a lo-fi effect appears. After restarting the device, you can work for about 30 minutes more.

I wrote to support saying that the device probably needs to be replaced. Now I can not stay without a sound interface, so I did not send it to them.

[jotunbjorn]

It's always some silly power saving feature that causes grief. To get my M4 to work properly I had to disable CPU core parking, XCHI hand-off and Legacy USB support.

[rp88.2]

So, I had a problem on Windows 11 and it turned out to be Microsoft’s built-in virus protection.

Not infront of my computer right now, but once I disabled the ‘cloud sourcing’ feature, I didn’t experience dropouts. It seemed every file accessed was going out to the Internet for analysis.

In addition, you might want to look at the some of the Windows optimization guides at Sweetwater.com.

Windows needs some tuning to really be an audio workstation.

[jotunbjorn]

"Lastly, I noticed that in System Information, High Definition Audio Controller is sharing IRQs with Intel Serial IO I2C Host Controllers, but I have no idea if this is a problem, or how to remedy it."

That's probably your motherboard's integrated audio. You can disable it in BIOS if you don't need it. The other solution is to enable Message Signaled-Based Interrupt (MSI) for the driver.