why cant delta and via just get along?!?

[bluelonestar]

via chipset + amd cpu + and delta soundcard = loud crackling.

Just to share my experience with others who have a similar amd athlon (1800+)setup and are considering purchasing a delta 66 soundcard. They say it's compatible but really it's not. You'll get crackling on about 8 out of 10 recordings you make. I say that b/c usually it crackles and I'll be fooling around with it and think I fixed it. Then I'll go to do a take and it's right back. So, I've tried everything to exhaustion. I flashed my bios, downloaded the latest m-audio drivers, 4 in 1 drivers, windows updates, changed bios settings, changed the latency, changed every setting possible, added more ram, nearly turned off my graphics, changed pci slots, confirmed there was no irq conflicts. Tried everything m-audio and others on this forum suggested. I called tech support and the guy told me it was b/c I don't have ultra dma on my hard drive. Well, I have a seagate 80 gb 7200rpm hard drive with ultra ata 100. Which my motherboard supports and I have the 80 pin conductor cable for it. I even went as far as to download a utility from seagate to confirm I was operating at ata 100 speeds. So they say theyre compatible but really theyre not. My only option now is to switch mobo to intel pentium. The funny thing was I knew this already, but people have posted on here that the amd incompatibility was a problem of the past. Well I'm here to say NO ITS NOT.

 

[crankz1]

I don't think it is so much an AMD issue as it is a VIA issue with certain VIA chipsets.
I'm an Intel user myself, but I have heard of good results from AMD users that use mobo's with the nVidia nForce chipsets.
Again, I don't know squat about AMD's nor which of the processors are supported by the nForce chipsets.
You may be able to get by with just a mobo/chipset change.

 

[Thom IV]

Bluelonestar--

I had the same problem with my amd/via/delta44 setup 2-3 years ago...I went crazy for 3-6 months lamenting my decision to go with Delta.

I downloaded the '(beta) .27 drivers' for the Delta, and installed them (along with the numerous other fixes which didn't seem to really make a difference).

It has been smooth sailing ever since (as far as those maddening crackles were concerned--other aspects of my learning curve can still be a little bumpy at times).

Don't forget to download the Delta driver uninstaller on their website, and use it, when trying to install these new drivers.

Hope this helps!!

Tom

 

[Jim Y]

Tom, are you sure your driver is .27? That's an old driver (that many people regard as stable) but I think the latest one is .46?

Just as a matter of interest BlueLoneStar, what graphics card do you have? Many people have seen the back of recording glitches by changing to a Matrox G450 or G550 AGP card.

 

[Thom IV]

I am absolutely sure...

This was a big deal for me when I finally solved my problem.

I hope that if you choose to give it a shot, it works for you too.

Tom

 

[Bulls Hit]

via chipset + amd cpu + and delta soundcard = loud crackling.

The funny thing was I knew this already, but people have posted on here that the amd incompatibility was a problem of the past. Well I'm here to say NO ITS NOT.

I used to run my delta 44 on an Athlon 1800+, via KT something or other chipset and 98. I had all those pops & crackles. I upgraded to XP with a clean install, blew everything away, and the problem disappeared. Just lucky? who knows.

My current rig is a P4 with an intel 865 chipset, and I've had no issues. There is a certain level of comfort in having all the main chips on the board made by the same manufacturer

As Jim Y mentioned, the other possibility is you video card hogging the pci bus. If you run this utility http://sound-on-sound2.infopop.net/2/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=215094572&f=351097254&m=150108472, you can check what latency your video card is set to. If its 255, you can lower it to say 64, which could improve your situation.

 

[Jim Y]

I know how frustrating it is - been there too! However, I have fixed it (fingers and everthing else crossed for luck) - Audiophile2496 (current driver .46), AthlonXP1800 in a Gigabyte Via KT400 board and XP in default ACPI mode. One thing is that I use a seperate hard drive as Secondary Master that I record all media to.

Strangely, the problem for me only showed when recording in CEP/Audition. Sonar 2.1, despite having a fairly low latency (5.6ms from a 256 buffer) always records flawlessly - and this was with an ATI Radeon graphics card.

I now have a Matrox G550, but the recording problem in Audition went away before - I think it was the .46 Delta driver that fixed it - but I don't record in that program often enough to swear that it really is fixed! I have recently recorded an entire cassette tape into Auditions editor and not one click I'm pleased to say.

Personally, I suspect that with WinXP, everything works better with the default installation - no need to mess with IRQ - I really think that's a thing of the past and you're only turning back the clock to the bad-old-days by installing in standard mode in order to force the IRQ. Sadly, it seems that tech support people are still dishing out advice based on Win98/ME/2000 issues with older motherboards.

By all means check out the link Bulls Hit gave - if lowering the AGP cards latency provides a cure, then we've finally got the better of a long standing problem for many people.

 

[bluelonestar]

wow, can't believe all the replies...I have GREAT news. I seem to have fixed the problem almost 100%. I believe I am using driver version .47. Definitely the latest one. I installed the george breese pci latency patch and the memory patch for via chipsets...with NO success. But right when I was about to give up after messing with this stuff for nearly 2 months and place an order for an intel chipset I decided to go over everything once more...i fiddled with the virtual memory and actually read online how to set it manually the correct way...then I rebooted my system and started recording...me and my friend did about 8 takes along with 24 other tracks with no problems 7 out of the 8 times!! It also worked flawlessly again today. I have 384mb of pc133 sdram...but apparently it's not enough. I had 256 and added another 128 and i still had crackling so I ruled memory out. but it's strange...I'm not running anything but my OS (win98SE)and vegas and I was still getting crackling...now with virtual memory set manually everything seems to be working. i dont get it...but i dont care. i can finally finish recording our project. i have it set to approx 3 times the amount of physical ram i have. thanks for all your input and hope this helps all of you!

 

[Joeybear]

During the past week, I've read this post (and a few other related ones), and yet I purchased an M-Audio Delta 66 anyways. To make matters worse, I run dual AMD CPUs with a VIA chipset.

Yes, I may seem like a gluten for punishment, but this card was EXACTLY what I was looking for in matters of ins and outs, etc. And since I repair computers for a living, I was in the mood for a challenge. LOL
All of which leads to tonight...

I installed the card, and as expected, there were plenty of random "rice krispies" with the SPDIF output. After an hour of tweaking and adjusting and re-adjusting, I wasn't getting anywhere. So I got busy with bigger things...

First, I checked the PCI latencies with the DoubleDawg and Powerstrip utilities. As expected, my ATI Radeon was set at a whopping 255, and the Delta 66 at 64. Unfortunately, changing the settings to more reasonable numbers had no effect.

I then set my video acceleration to it's lowest setting. Still no luck.

The next thing to do was to update Windows with a Service Pack.
Before all of this, I was running W2000; with no service packs. (I had no reason to update the OS; everything was running fine.)
I had SP4 sitting in my shop, so I went for it. And guess what?
NO MORE RICE KRISPIES!

Considering all of the aggravation that this card has been putting people thru, and the posts I've read, I've hardly seen any references to OS updates.
I know for a fact that service packs can make huge differences in these types of situations, and I also know that different versions of Windows handle even the simplest of tasks differently, and so on and so on.

In summation, from my experience tonight, is it possible that M-Audio has been getting the bum's rush when perhaps the real culprit all along has been Windows???