AGAIN-audio dropouts + high pitch noise, WITH A TWIST

[J8stringer]

hello members,

First off, I have an Ultra lite MK3, windows XP, sp2,Core 2 Duo 2.1Ghz, 3GB RAM, HD 7200 rmp, Lenovo t400 laptop with Rico f/w400 (4pin), I have done all the Windows tweeks. I have been running Tracktion 3 for about 8 months with no problems. Very stable. I run maybe 8-12 MIDI and 4-8 tracks of wave. My MIDI instruments are SampleTank 2.5 (no real latency, but high CPU), or externally, Roland Sonic Cell or Korg MicroX. Both of them have software plug-ins that open in Tracktion (small latency,but internal DSP, so no load). All was well... Then out of nowhere, dropouts and that high pitched squeal. I opened Que Mix, changed latencey up & down. Now it seems its hear to stay. Could my f/w400 jack have taken a hit and went bad? If someone thinks its a driver issue, I will try the AVT drivers.

Can someone who had success post in?? How could it just go all of a sudden? I take good care of my equipment.

P.S. I just remembered, the only thing I changed on the MOTU was the driver update #3.6.8.1400, with the oscilloscope.

[TheRealRoach]

Well I hate to break it to ya, but your problem doesn't seem to have come out of nowhere.

Everything working fine ---> update driver to 3.6.8.1400 ---> Everything messed up.

Just by looking at that it seems like you should roll back your driver to the previous version and see if it behaves itself again.

[HotShot]

You can either roll back or install the newest driver 3.6.8.1410.

3.6.8.1400 had some issues. There is a long thread here at MOTUNATION on that driver. I'd uninstall that driver version!

[J8stringer]

Hey RealRoach,

Thanks for posting in. I have read your 8 pager 2X. Before I rollback, what about these newest MOTU drivers, or
those AVT drivers. I have the AVT's in a folder ready to go. Any conflicts popping up after using AVT's???

Thanks for the help. Very good info in your post.

[TheRealRoach]

Again, given how your predicament came to be, I would first try the driver that was working previously and see if things go back to normal.

You might have a System Restore point that you can revert to.

Firewire bus controller changes (like the SP1 change, or the AVT drivers) are a whole other can of worms that are best left closed until you know for sure that your problem resides in that domain.

[J8stringer]

SORRY my mistake! After opening Device Manager to check my UltraLite's driver, I found it is #3.6.8.1394, which I had rolled back to last month after problems with 3.6.8.1400. (It was very late last night when I was working. But today I did three things and the dropouts and noise are gone.
1. dropped latency to 194 on MOTU
2. un-plugged my USB Express Card, which was the USB in for my Korg keyboard and its plug-in software. Korgs L&R audio outs went into MOTU's 5&6 in's, so I shut down the keyboard to not strain the bandwidth of the MOTU.
3. used the second Ultralite fw400 jack, just in case the first was bad (it always seemed sensitive to any bump of the fw chord,sometimes loosing the connection, requiring a re-start).

Do any of the above changes make sense to anyone??? Thanks for all of the help.

[TheRealRoach]

1. dropped latency to 194 on MOTU
2. un-plugged my USB Express Card, which was the USB in for my Korg keyboard and its plug-in software. Korgs L&R audio outs went into MOTU's 5&6 in's, so I shut down the keyboard to not strain the bandwidth of the MOTU.
3. used the second Ultralite fw400 jack, just in case the first was bad (it always seemed sensitive to any bump of the fw chord,sometimes loosing the connection, requiring a re-start).

Do any of the above changes make sense to anyone??? Thanks for all of the help.

Any combination of the changes in your list may have improved the situation. By "dropped the latency" do you mean you changed it to a larger number or smaller number? The USB express card may have been interfering with the PCI bus of your system, and furthermore the original FW connector on the MOTU may be damaged as you mentioned.

What I would suggest - now that things are back to normal - is to use a piece of software like Paragon, or Ghost, to back up a drive image of your operating system hard drive to a DVD. This way if anything gets messed up in the future (as hardware changes, drivers get updated, software changes) you may find yourself happy to be able to get back to the a configuration that works in only a matter of minutes.

[J8stringer]

Very good suggestion RealRoach. My dektop at my studio does have Ghost (a great program) with a FreeAgent, but this laptop is my home set up, for creating and also for learning the software thats in the desktop! Trying to keep piece on the home front and keep my set-up small. Ha-Ha!

Yes I did lower the latency setting on the Motu. It had been much higher. So a day later and still all's well and quiet.

I have to say I do like using my UltraLite small home set-up better than my Quad processor and Mackie Onyx board with fw400 interface. All in all the Motu & Lenovo are a much better combination for stability.