Can someone PLEASE tell me why my USB Soundcard is doing THIS!!!!!!

W

WinstonCowboy

New member
OK....well...I have a M-Audio USB Duo...and I thought I had been having problems with it...but come to find out that they are not the ones I originally thought they were...I thought I was having issues with the ASIO because...I couldn't get windows to detect the Duo in ASIO mode...(ASIO drivers bypass windows mixer, Doh!) So I found out that I need to run it in MME mode...Well, I tried this and Ta Da!...I was so damn happy...everything seemed to be finally working properly...YET...The other problem I was having in the beggining - when I was using the ASIO drivers started happening again.

Here is what happens: If I play a song...OUT OF NOWHERE...the audio drops out and this HORRIBLE static...fuzz...feedback..NOISE!!! Comes blaring out louder than the music was playing!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Make your fucking heart skip a damn beat when it happens.....It is GOD awful!!!!

I have used Foobar...and WINAMP....and this problem has occured with both. Ths last time I was using Foobar with waveout and buffering set to 1000ms.

Can anyone shed some light on this PLEASE?! What is going on....I thought it was a driver problem...yet, I switched to the MME..and it does it even worse!
 
try to return it and get another one and see what happens.

what music application are you using?


and post your specs on your computer, mother board, chipset, Ram, processor, and harddrives
 
That's ugly.
Does the static happen at the same place every time?
If not, my guess is your buffers are too small or there aren't enough of them. You might need to increase the number of buffers, and take a latency hit. But that has to be better than evil satan static
 
Hey Guys....thanks for writing....Here is another response I got from a different BBS I posted this on:

Wow, this sounds like the exact same problem I had with my Revo right at the very end of 2003 after I had it without any problems for about 45 days. I remember the first time it occurred out of nowhere when I made no major or even superficial changes to my setup. It was incredibly painful, I didn't even think my speakers could get that loud. It's like this awful screeching, crackling representation of a song and the volume completely disregards any of my settings (think around the year 3000 or so if the loudness race continued to perpetuate at the same pace ). This screeching would remain until I rebooted or strangely until I would generate a clip of pink noise with a sampling rate no less than 96khz. Upon playing the clip everything would resume back to normal for a undeterminable amount of time.
What's makes it more strange is that it disappeared as inexplicably as it occurred. I kept looking for patterns and looking for patterns but couldn't find anything concrete. I changed drivers several times and restored to a point that I knew didn't have these problems but to no avail. At first I thought it was just certain progs but I reproduced it with just about every media player, then I thought it was my speakers and perhaps they were dying because it didn't seem to be happening with my headphones so I stopped using my speakers altogether and used the headphones only and like a week went by with nothing and then it started to happen with even those. Started happening more and more frequently, could only get by a few hours without being deafened so then I finally wrote M-audio and they told me it sounded like the board was bad and to get an RMA so then just my luck that's when the problem went away mysteriously and has been gone for well over 100 days.
So, in short I have no idea how to solve this problem if it is indeed the same problem but it is interesting (and scary) it's occurring with someone else with a different M-audio card. Hopefully someone can be of more assistance, for the both of us because I'd really like to know what could cause something like this.


SEE what I mean....this POOR guy actually knows what I am going through! This NOISE it fucking unbearable...and the way it hits out of nowhere....and completely random to the settings or setup! That is why it is SO fucking aggravating!

While...I was reading this..I started to get SO excited because I thought he was gonna have the answer for me! Yet, he said that the problem just disappeared! Go figure!

And he said that it was on an Evolution...so now maybe it has nothing to do with USB?!

Ok here are some of my specs:

P4 mobile 1.7ghz
640 Ram 128 original HP Ram...additional 512 of Crucial
Toshiba MK2018GAP 20GB
Ali MOBO
I can get chipset if you really need it.
XP home & Pro
Winamp foobar2000 both ASIO and MME drivers

And see how the other guy mentioned how random it is....because what really frustrates me...is that I did a bunch of shit to try and fix the problem...and I thought it worked...until the DEAFENING FEEDBACK came charging out at me.

I updated my BIOS which addressed a BUNCH of issues....I wiped my HD clean and bought a new copy of XP so that I could do a clean install and get rid of a bunch of HP software that might be interferring! I went and bought the extra 512MB of RAM. I ALSO...returned the original DUO in hopes that it was causing the problems..but to no avail...the new one is doing the same thing.

I mean....I am like fucking scared to even play a song...this is so fucking depressing...it is not even worth it....and the sad part is that I have no idea how to stop it...so I can't feel confident that it won't eventually happen again.

I sure hope someone else out there has had a similar experience so that they can help me fix this.

I AM GOING MAD!!!!!!!! NO MUSIC!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AM I IN HELL! IS MY NAME JOBE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Here are some other people who have witnessed this phenomenon:

Reliability: 1
Never use this on a gig without backup! Also, I had exactly the same issues as Mike on this page. I tried to use it at home to monitor my editing. Every day - sometimes 3 times a day - my ears got BLASTED - and I mean blasted - with a crunch/thump of pure digital distortion. I tried every driver I could find, old ones, current ones, beta ones - same effect. The laptop was XP Home - using all the hints and tips in the Duo manual. Also, I used the MME drivers and the ASIO drivers - neither worked.

Reliability: 1
The Duo experiences awful, intermittent distortion and blasts of noise under Windows XP, which is great if you're Merzbow but it's probably not what most people want out of a DAW. I'm ready to chuck the thing out the window, pound my head with a hammer and check myself into the mental institution all because of this little hunk of metal. Don't depend on it to work unless you're using an older version of Windows. What's the voodoo? Why won't it work under XP? I can't tell you, but that's my experience. Learn from my mistake!


See....I guess the XP drivers are the problem...MAN that is some horrible fucking NOISE it makes!

Anyway....the first guy said:

After a month I could stand it no longer - I swapped it for a Roland UA-5. The UA-5 is rock solid - Roland know how to write drivers.

Is this a comparable unit?

Oh yea....I think the Duo has been discontinued....I guess that EXPLAINS alot!
 
hey man, my condolances, that sucks ass. I'm wondering, how long ago did you buy that sound card, maybe it's time you gave up on it and got something else completely. Maybe a tascam, or ardwark or echo. Maybe a PCI card or a firewire card.... ANYTHING to get you up and running again. It sounds like you have done way more work than you ever should have to enjoy using your DAW. Music recording should be fun and not a chore/frustration like your setup. Maybe you could trade that in for an audiophiole or omni usb or something?

good luck, let us know how it turns out.
 
IS there any chance this could be caused by an IRQ conflict? I have 3 other devices on the same IRQ as my USB controller. They include:

Video Card
Modem
Ethernet Card

I am on a laptop running XP home SP1....I thought in XP....that the ACPI is suppose to automatically steer the different IRQ's to prevent conflicts?!

I am really considering...ditching this thing...and getting an M-Audio 410 Firewire...I checked my Firewire...and the only other thing on it's IRQ is the Cardbus!

What do you guys think?

I really hate to have to dump the DUO..because it perfectly fits my needs and budget. And it SOUNDS great when it works!
 
You could try getting a cardbus USB adaptor, and then use it just for your DUO, as long as nothing is plugged into your firewire port it should have that IRQ all to itself.
 
Strryder said:
You could try getting a cardbus USB adaptor, and then use it just for your DUO, as long as nothing is plugged into your firewire port it should have that IRQ all to itself.
Click to expand...

Wow...this is the EXACT same idea I just had...I THOUGHT it was genius! I was about to ask if this would clear up the IRQ.

Anyway....I am a fucking wizard...and have done the near impossible or so I have heard. I read that it was a BIG deal to fuck with IRQ on a laptop....yet I fixed this BITCH!!!!!! *primal scream* CHAGA CHAGA CHAGA!!!!

Here is what I did....I went and disabled everything I didn't use...i.e. firewire...ethernet card...printer ports....and I also disabled internal sound...because I read another person who was having similar problems with M-Audio 410 Firewire...say that he did this and it helped stablize his setup a lot...(even though it isn't on the same IRQ) somehow it seemed to help him...so I did it!

Then...I rebooted....and restarted in Safe Mode....I went to the device manager...and uninstalled all the USB drivers.

I restarted windows...installed the DUO drivers...rebooted...and Ta Da....I checked the IRQ settings...and I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking amazed that it actually worked! Before I had like 3 other things on the same fucking number 10:

video card
modem
ethernet card

The video card and modem are moved to number 7...and now the USB Controller is all by its' lonesome on number 10! JESUS! I cannot believe it! I did a double take!

This little bit of knowledge could help a lot of folks who are working on a laptop and are having IRQ conflicts!

Everything seems to be PLAYING better than ever! *crossing fingers* What would we all do without Music...when you have to go without it for a day or more..you really discover just how dependant you have become on it to get you through a day!

Cheers...everyone!!!
"It's a beautiful DAY!!!!"
 
Another potential problem could have been . . .

Just ran into this article chunk in a review of the Duo:

"After the necessary software was installed, I started off by playing back several 16-bit, 44.1 kHz sound files using Syntrillium's Cool Edit Pro with the Duo's MME drivers. I quickly encountered loud bursts of digital hash caused by a power-saving feature called Speed Step that is designed into many newer PC laptops. The feature acts like an intelligent gear shift that throttles the CPU speed up and down to save on battery power while meeting current processing demands. Although that's good for most applications, it can get in the way of high-demand USB media devices. After Speed Step was turned off, the loud noises went away and the laptop played back and recorded stereo files without a hitch."

From: http://emusician.com/recording/emusic_maudio_duo_quattro/

Just in case it ever comes back.
 
Hey....Yea, I saw that article...that is the exact problem I was having...I tried the fix he mentioned....but it didn't do shit.

I eventually returned the Duo...I am sure it was the XP drivers that were causing the problem...seems like the only peeps who could get it to work were ones on 98 or Mac.

So to anyone who comes across this in the future...DO NOT BUY A DUO IF YOU ARE RUNNING XP! Unless...you want to lose some years off of your life.

Thank you and Good Day.

P.S. M-Audio is no longer updating the Duo drivers...so don't think it will get better.
 
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