New Audiophile Snaps,Crackles, and Pops

Chris Long

Chris Long

New member
HI All
I just installed an Audiophile 2496, and I am getting a lot of static and pops when playing sounds. The sounds can be in my Sonar, or anywhere else, system-wide. Even the Windows 'event' sounds aren't playing back smoothly. Very disappointed right now.

I am running XP, on a P4 2.4 machine. 1 GB ram, 2 HDs of 120 gb. I was using the onboard sound before this install (it sounded fine)--I've disabled that, and no change. The AP is set as the default sound card. I've downloaded the latest drivers from M-Audio. The sample rates match in the Delta Control panel and Sonar.

What should I do next?

Thanks in advance.
Chris
 
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I have a good Idea. You can sell it to me for say.......50bucks and that will 100% guarenteed, take care of you problem.


Just IM me and thank me later

Stockton
 
download the latest driver from M-audio site...

make a search in this site and try out the solutions.... (lotsa info)
 
Does your motherboard have a Via chipset? My Audiophile did what you were describing on my old comp, pretty much because my motherboard had a Via chipset and audiophile doesn't much like it. Make sure you have the latest 3-in-1 drivers for your MOBO (If it is a Via chipset that is). Also I remember some issues caused by the USB drivers from VIA as well. It has been awhile but updating my drivers for my MOBO fixed it for me. Since I upgraded and got a mobo w/ nvidia chipset I have had no issues.
 
Hi All
Thanks for all your input.

I have the latest drivers (5.10.00.0046) form M-Audio. They are the ASIO ones, right? At the same time, Sonar refers to WDM kernal streaming when I use their Wave Profiler--is there any contradiction there? And how can I know if they are ASIO drivers? Where does it say that, other than having someone here tell me what they are?

My motherboard is an ASUS P4PE, good solid board. The chipset is the Intel 845. All mobo drivers and firmwares are up-to-date.

I've increased buffers, step-by-step, up to 1024, and still the same. Ran the Profiler in Sonar each time. Pops and light crackle. Just for fun I dropped it to 384, same problem, not much different.

I've tried it with and without my A/V and Firewall enabled (both Norton). No difference.

One question, though I don't think it bears upon the pops and crackles, I'd just like to know: In Sonar, in Options->Audio, I'm given the choice of
"M-Audio AP Multi 1/2" or
"M-Audio AP 1/2".
I chose the latter, it seems more straighforward. Does it matter much which of these two settings I choose?

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'm going to get this resolved--it'll just take some time. Thank god I have a resource like this forum to give me suggestions and encouragement!!

Chris

PS I am currently using a PCI video card (a bit odd, I know, but it was an easy way to set up for 2 monitors). Does anyone else have success with a PCI graphics card? I have an AGP card that I'll switch to instead, to see if it makes a difference. But my question right now is this: anyone out there successfully using a PCI vid card with their AP2496, or Sonar, or both?
 
From others I've heard the latest drivers aren't necessarily an improvement.
Some installed the latest drivers but went back because of cracks and pops.
Try the 5.10.00.36 drivers (also available at the m-audio site).

My Audiophile works perfectly fine with the .36 drivers so I never even tried the latest drivers.
 
I'll try that when I get back home.

Last thing I did was disable my PCI video card and enable my AGP card. No difference there, either--it didn't seem to help at all.
 
Chris Long said:
And how can I know if they are ASIO drivers? Where does it say that, other than having someone here tell me what they are?
Click to expand...

The M-Audio 5.10.00.46 drivers contain WDM, ASIO and MME drivers within them. Which ones you are using depend on your setting in Sonar.

Go to Options > Audio and you will find a pull down menu which allows you to choose the driver mode. I'm pretty sure the default is WDM if you don't specifically tell it which ones to use.


i was wondering too, Delta AP Multi or Delta AP 1/2? and would i choose one for both in/out?
Click to expand...

Use the 1/2. The multi's are for when you have more than one card installed, I believe. Personally, I would disable the multi choice in the Options > Audio menus. Less clutter that way.
 
Oh, and BTW, you might want to follow Christiaan's advice and try some of the older drivers. Try the .27, .36 and the .46 to see if you see any difference between them.

With the .27 and .36 I am pretty sure you have to manually uninstall the other drivers first (there is a Delta program available for this). OTOH the installation program for the .46 drivers uninstalls any previous drivers as part of its installation routine.
 
dachay2tnr said:
The M-Audio 5.10.00.46 drivers contain WDM, ASIO and MME drivers within them. In Sonar...I'm pretty sure the default is WDM.
Click to expand...

The popping and crackling aside, will the WDM drivers perform at or near the standards of the ASIO versions in Sonar (ver.1)? I might try each driver in succession, to see which iteration might fix the problem.

Thanks for all the other ideas. I have plenty to do when I get home tonight! (keep 'em coming!)

Chris
 
Chris Long said:
The popping and crackling aside, will the WDM drivers perform at or near the standards of the ASIO versions in Sonar (ver.1)? I might try each driver in succession, to see which iteration might fix the problem.
Click to expand...

With the Delta cards, I would say they will perform equivalent or better than ASIO. However, there are variations with specific systems. Try both and see which give you better results and then use them. You won't hurt the system. Make sure to reprofile the card after changing drivers.

Also try them at different latency settings (via the Delta Mixer).

With your system I would not think you should need to use MME drivers.
 
Still working on it. Done a few things, all to no avail. Yet.

Going to switch the card to other PCI slots to see how that works. It is presently sharing IRQ 20 with my onboard 10/100 controller (ASUSTek/Broadcom 440X 10/100 Integrated Controller).

I freed up a few extra IRQs by disabling two serial ports in the BIOS, though the freed IRQs don't seem to have been used anywhere else since then. I'll see what happens to all of this when the card is shifted.

And in the BIOS I dedicated one of the freed IRQs to the slot the card was on, but it never took. I can only guess that XP denied it somehow.
 
Just put the card in three slots--slot five gave it its own IRQ (#21). So that's set. But the popping continues. It might be better, I think it is, but it's still there.

So then I tried the buffer thing again, and dropped it to 1024. No change.

I'm going to try an older driver. The one from the CD was .26, I think. I'll try the last one from the M-Audio site, .36 I think., then work backwards.

BTW I cannot find any drop-down driver mode section of the Sonar Options/Audio menu. Maybe this older version (it's V.1) didn't have it...
 
Chris Long said:
BTW I cannot find any drop-down driver mode section of the Sonar Options/Audio menu. Maybe this older version (it's V.1) didn't have it...
Click to expand...

Yes, ASIO support in Sonar was not introduced until ver 2.1 or 2.2 I believe.

So then I tried the buffer thing again, and dropped it to 1024. No change.
Click to expand...

What buffer are you changing? There is a latency setting in the Delta Control Panel (based on # of samples). Try that one.

Generally for the type of problem you are having you would want to increase latency. But I've heard stories of systems that performed better at lower settings. So you might want to go both ways.

These type of problems are a bear to lick - since there are a lot potential causes. Hang in there.
 
Thanks. The buffer I'm referring to is the one in the Delta Control Panel. Sorry, should have made that clearer...

At this point, the clicking noises seem to be independant of the buffer size I select. I just had it all the way down to 2048, and after running the Wave Profiler it performed just like it has at every other setting. Just for the heck of it, I had it down to 256, as well, and it performed in the same clicky, poppy way.

EDIT: I just uninstalled the .42 drivers and installed the .27 set. With the buffer setting at 512 samples, everything was the same. But when I edged it up to 1536 samples, the popping and clicking FINALLY seemed to go away. I have a latency of 34 msecs at that setting (44.1). Might try the .36 driver set (only one I haven't tried yet) and see what happens there.

Crossing my fingers that I might be close to having this figured out...

Chris
 
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