Pops, crackles, & cracks with audio playback with UltraLite

[JDuc]

When I use just WinAmp or Foobar 2000, it sounds normal, no clicks pauses, buzzes, etc. (with ASIO Plugins)

When I run Console (http://console.jp/en/), no such luck. I get some pretty noticeable clicks in the music. Currently, to just try and figure out what's doing it, I just have Console set up with MOTU Audio ASIO Wave In and Wave Out only and have the phone ports just patched through to each other so that it's just a straight through run. I can set the ASIO buffer to maximum even and with as little as 7% CPU usage, I still have clicks.

I'm not really sure what else might be causing this issue? Any thoughts on what I might be able to check?

Can anyone point me in any direction to check anything?

[Mark S]

Some suggestions that may or may not apply to your system:

1) TI or Agere /Lucent chipset on the Firewire card

2) Separate physical hard drive with audio files on it (set as master on secondary if you still have IDE), usb if it's external since you have a firewire interface

3) Adjust PCI latency timer for your video card to a much lower value

4) Unnecessary peripherals turned off in BIOS: wifi, nic card, parallel port, modem, etc.

[JDuc]

1) TI or Agere /Lucent chipset on the Firewire card

Hardware Device ID: VEN_1217&DEV_00F7 = 02micro, so I should be good here. Though, I can't actually confirm that it's not using one of those chipsets. Good to know though since this is just a test laptop.

2) Separate physical hard drive with audio files on it (set as master on secondary if you still have IDE), usb if it's external since you have a firewire interface

I'll see about testing this @ work since my external HDD is @ work.

3) Adjust PCI latency timer for your video card to a much lower value

Found a way to do it from here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=121190

Can't do it from my laptop natively with it being built in and all. Nothing in the BIOS.

4) Unnecessary peripherals turned off in BIOS: wifi, nic card, parallel port, modem, etc.

Turned off LAN & BT as well as SpeedStep.

I also upgraded to the latest MOTU drivers, and now I get no sound using ASIO plug-ins for WinAmp and Foobar.

I'm going to downgrade to the drivers on the CD and see if I get sound and if it's improved with the other changes that I made.

Thanks for the help!

[JDuc]

Ok - switched back to the original drivers and I'm still getting pops - going to mess with a few other settings yet again and see if I can get any type of improvement.

Anything else that anyone can suggest I mess with?

[JDuc]

ok - no matter what settings I go with in the MOTU Audio console, I cannot get it to improve when running audio through Console.

Maybe AudioMulch will be better?

[JDuc]

Audio Mulch was much better!

[Mark S]

wow, that's quite a result to say that a 3rd party app runs better than the native supplied with the driver!

I'm still not so sure about the interface chipset though the device was made by MSI (microstar). There should be a description in device manager that will say something like "via ochi". in the case of a VIA chipset, and so on. I have an MSI board. They use a lot of VIA chipsets. So far I'm lucky to not have problems with them but it's always on my worry list. (Hey, even my laptop has VIA)

Also anything pci express has lots of trouble.

Still, you got a third party app to do better. And I'm using 3rd party firewire drivers for the same reason,... go figure

[JDuc]

wow, that's quite a result to say that a 3rd party app runs better than the native supplied with the driver!

I'm still not so sure about the interface chipset though the device was made by MSI (microstar). There should be a description in device manager that will say something like "via ochi". in the case of a VIA chipset, and so on. I have an MSI board. They use a lot of VIA chipsets. So far I'm lucky to not have problems with them but it's always on my worry list. (Hey, even my laptop has VIA)

Also anything pci express has lots of trouble.

Still, you got a third party app to do better. And I'm using 3rd party firewire drivers for the same reason,... go figure

When I say Console (note the capital C) I'm referring to http://console.jp/en/, not necessarially the MOTU Audio console all the time. I realize that can be a bit confusing.

I'll keep the PIC Express thing in mind as I'm going to be using the final implementation of this set-up on a mini-itx board with a FireWire card in a Car Audio application.