Skips and Jumps

[wolfie]

I have a "crippled version" of CEP called CEP Special Edition Ver 1.1. It seems to work fine on my friend’s computer, but when I use it on mine I hear glitches, and skips. As you can imagine, this makes multitrack recording very difficult. I also hear these skips if I use CEP to play wav files that have been extracted from CDs using my CD-Rom drive. I have tried the remedies listed in the help contents, but have had no luck. Turning of the background-mixing gauge seems to help a little. My system: Athlon 650, 128 MB IBM RAM, Maxtor 7200 RPM 20.0 GB hard drive, XPERT 128 AGP video card, and a very cheap sound card (Creative, Ensoniq ~$30). I have to use this card because my Echo Darla is not compatible with my new system. Any ideas?

[dobro]

Good description of all the variables.

How does your friend's computer differ from your own? Different sound card? And why can't you use the Darla?

[wolfie]

Dell assembled my friend’s system. He has a P-II 450 MHz, 96 MB RAM, and a TBS-Montego PCI Audio card. Darla doesn't work with my system. When I install it, it works for about a minute and then my entire system locks up. I've put about 20 hours into this one and I can't figure it out. I've upgraded my BIOS, upgraded all of my drivers including a VIA PCI IRQ Routing miniport driver. Echo (the manufacturer of Darla) won't help me. They sent me an automated response stating that sometimes their cards work with AMD systems and sometimes they don't. I bought this cheap sound card with the intent of at least recording my ideas but with the skipping, this isn't possible. I think I’ll try reinstalling it today to see if that makes any difference.

[wolfie]

Reinstalling CEP, that is.

[dobro]

I don't know, but I would guess that it's the cheapo sound card, and that a reinstallation of CEP won't help. I'll see if I can get some help with this one.

[fbrgls]

I have been plauged by skips and jumps for years. I've tried many different solutions. The one thing that seems to make the biggest difference is using a SCSI hard disk. Even a slow SCSI hard disk works better than a fast IDE. Faster CPU, different sound card, changing buffer sizes, didn't do any good for me. The other thing that helped to some degree was disabling video acceleration. This found in control panel, system, performance, graphics. I don't know why IDE works ok on some systems and not on others.

[gibs]

Start, then settings then desktop settings and reduce the color...you'll get a squashed image if you go to the lowest, but even lowering to 256 colors helped me out...also ctrl/alt/delte end task stuff running in the background 'cept for explorer and syst....I think Dragon, emeric, and eddie N all gave me this advice back in Oct and it worked....gibs

[dobro]

gibs - I shut down the clock and screen saver before I record. Does the control-alt-delete-end task maneuver you mention accomplish that? Does it shut down more than the clock and the screen saver? What sort of things run in the background anyway?

[wolfie]

Hey I really appreciate everybody's response to this. I will try some of these suggestions and let ya'll know how it goes on Monday. Thanks..

[gibs]

dobro, when you hit ctrl/alt/delete, everything that is running in the background will pop up on a small screen, and you can hit and then end task on each thing that's not needed....hope that helps...gibs

[gibs]

sheesh I didn't read your post very well...no the ctrl/alt/delete thing doesn't shut down the screensaver or the clock, they have to be done just like you know how to do..and sometimes they have to be shut down too, you're right, along with the other stuff that ctrl/alt/del and the color settings do......gibs

[Slackmaster2K]

Skips on an adequate system are usually not related to smaller things like screen savers, desktop resolution, etc...and it's certainly NOTHING to do with IDE vs. SCSI which we don't need to get into again.

Some things that come to mind immediately:

1) It's your VIA chipset and that Darla and there's nothing you can do about it. This would be the reason that everyone is still a little leary about the Athlon.

2) It could very well be that Maxtor hard drive. Which OS are you using again? Maxtors cause problems in that they don't like to run in DMA mode under Win95 (which is NOT acceptable for recording). You can check the mode your drive is running in by getting into the hard drive properties via the device manager. See if the DMA box is checked. If it is NOT checked, but enabled, you can try to check it AT YOUR OWN RISK. I've seen this solve a person's problem (much like you're describing) and I've seen this knock a system out. Only enable it if you're 100% certain that your IDE controller and hard drive are both capable.

3) You should make sure that your soundcard has its own IRQ. You don't want it sharing an IRQ with your video card or anything crazy like that.

4) Try some different software. Download n-Track from www.fasoft.com and see what happens. If the problem only occurs with CEP then ditch it.

Slackmaster 2000

[wolfie]

In response to Slackmaster 2K:
1. You're right about Darla, but this is an entirely different pain in the ass...

2. The Maxtor hard drive is running with the DMA enabled. The device manager recognizes this as GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47. Do you know if this is fine? I'm using WIN 98 S.E.

3. The only other device that is sharing an IRQ with the card is an IRQ HOLDER FOR PCI STEERING. This is the case with my modem and video card as well.

4. I tried n-track and there was even more skipping and jumping with this.

I'll be trying more things soon. I still haven't visited CEP's tech support or the tech support for my sound card.
Thanks again everyone I appreciate all of the help.

[dobro]

Hey, Slack - thanks for the well-thought out response. We're mucking around with screen savers when it's much deeper than that.

Wolfie: "IRQ Holder for PCI Steering" is not a device, I've been told, just a place holder. In other words, your sound card is sharing an IRQ with nothing at all.

[wolfie]

I'm going to try a different sound card today. I'm willing to spend up to $80.00. Eventually, I will buy a wave 824, but not today. Any suggestions? (My previous card is a Creative Ensoniq Audio PCI, Model ES1371)

[Slackmaster2K]

Why not try that AudioPCI? I use one. Decent sound for such a cheap card. You're not going to get into anything much better in the $30-80 range...everything's crap until you spend the big bucks.

Slackmaster 2000

[wolfie]

Are you referring to my Creative Ensoniq Audio PCI? This is card that I'm currently using. It works fine with WinAmp, but when I use it with multitrack recording I hear skips and jumps.

[Slackmaster2K]

Oops, sorry man, I thought you said you were using a Darla....I misunderstood.

Ok, that AudioPCI should work just fine. I would try first to update its drivers. I know it sounds silly but you might be suprised.

Second, are you SURE SURE SURE that your drive is operating properly in UDMA mode and not PIO? You will get a lot of skipping and jumping if it's not using DMA.

Third, how old is your Windows installation? Do you do a lot of software installation/unistallation?

Maybe we should describe these skips and jumps a little better. Is the hard drive thrashing when it skips? Or does the hard drive appear to be responding normally? (you'll know)

Slackmaster 2000

[wolfie]

Thanks for your help Slackmaster 2K, but I updated the drivers and the skipping is still there.

I think that my hard drive is running in DMA 66 mode based on the following: my mother board supports it, I have the correct cable, my hard drive supports it, the DMA is checked in the device manager, and upon booting there is a message that the hard drive is running in DMA mode.

Windows was installed about 3 months ago when I got the system. I've uninstalled a few things. And I've reinstalled the VIA IRQ minirouting port drivers a few times. I'm tempted to FDISK and try with a fresh installation.

I guess the best way to describe the skipping is like so: It's like someone has removed 1 millisecond of the music from the recording in a lot of random places. So if you were trying to 'get your groove on' and dance to this music, you'd be thrown because the beat gets displaced. If you'd like, I can send an MP3 of this to you. The file is 2.28 MB. My hard drive is very quiet during all of this. I think that it is behaving fine.

Can you think of anything else, or do you think I should FDISK?

Thanks again..


[This message has been edited by wolfie (edited 04-04-2000).]

[wolfie]

I just wanted to let you guys know that I did try adjusting to a lower resolution and I tried shutting off programs running in the background, but this made no difference. Thanks for the suggestions and please keep 'em coming.

Keeping you informed,
Wolfie

[Slackmaster2K]

Hmm...it sounds like we can eliminate the hard drive here. Lemme sleep on this tonight.

Slackmaster 2000

[wolfie]

I just wanted to let everyone know that I bought a new sound card (Sound Blaster Live) and everything works fine now. It must have been some kind of conflict with my previous sound card that was causing the skipping.
Thanks,
Wolfie

[dobro]

Whew! That didn't take long, did it? Good for you. The two big downsides of computer recording - non-portability, and problems that suck up loads of time that could be better spent writing, playing or getting it onto the CD.

I'm using a Wave 8/24, by the way, which you mentioned before. It's great - probably the strongest link in the whole signal chain.

[Slackmaster2K]

Glad you got it running also. I'm going to guess that you had some sort of driver problem. But alas, if it's working it's working.

Slackmaster 2000