audio problems after major PC tune-up

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Secret Clubhous

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I origninally posted this in the Cakewalk forum but got no response, so I thought I'd try it here.

FYI, I'm running XP Home & Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 on a 22khz AMD PC w/120 gigs hard drive & Tascam US-122 as interface/sound card. It kept crashing intermittently, but only in that application.

So, after having numerous problems, I just had a master programmer check it out. He spent 3 hours diagnosing, cleaning, defragging & optimizing XP. When I tried to playback some files to test it, I could hear the MIDI tracks playing as usual (thru the MIDI keyboard) but can not hear any audio. There are plenty wave forms in the audio tracks, they are not muted, & it appears to be playing.

The US-122 is configured correctly in Options/audio & Global as well as in Windows Hardware Devices. The driver is 3.2.4.0, which I think is the latest one. Everything is connected properly as far as cables, etc. The junky onboard sound card is disabled.

Before this major tune-up of the OS I never had this problem with audio. Is there some little tweak or setting or dll somewhere that we have missed, that we need to change or enable so I can hear the audio? Could some key component of the program, OS, or interface have been deleted in the tune-up?

The machine had extensive bugs, mixups & nasties from the net all thru the OS, which were fixed Previously I had done the optimization tweaks on the musicxp.net website, not really understanding some of them, & I wonder if something was misplaced or turned off inadvertently? Should I roll back XP to the "last known good configuration"?

Cakewalk tech support said to change from ASIO (which I had been using) to MME. I tried that & also WDM. After adjusting the buffer I could hear audio but the program would not record. & why would I want to use MME, or WDM for that matter? Aren't those driver modes lower quality than ASIO?

Any insights will be appreciated! Thank you
 
lets see how good your guru is.
firstly do you have dma enabled on your hard drives ?
secondly - do you have anything else running on your usb bus
other than the 122. thirdly - how much memory do you have ?
whats your amd processor ? and tell me what you have in your pci slots while your at it. also tell me what version of usb in device manager shows up vers 1 or usb 2.0. also tell me if you have any flags against any devices in device mgr.
give me info, and this computer engr will help you.
also i want you to do a test as its all clues for me.
download a demo of ntrack and tell me if it still crashes.
if it doesnt this is further clues.
bear with me. i have method in my madness.
also if your guru is under 40 yrs of age i doubt he is a guru with respect.
 
Appreciate your problem-solving. Manning. This is definitely a more technical question, although I don't know if it would require familiarity with Cakewalk code?

re your questions:

1. Sorry, don't know where to look to find out if DMA is enabled. What is it?
2. nothing else plugged in to usb.
3. 512 ram, although it says 480 in the system specs.
4. AMD KM266. has onboard graphic card, unfortunately.
5. Don't know anything about pci slots, what or where they are--how do I find out this info? No other external devices in use. Printer is usb but not plugged in.
6. The system is USB 2.0, the US122 is usb 1.0. Device manager did not show any info about USB version for any device in properties.
7. Red "X's" only on Rhine II fast ethernet adapter (I only have dialup internet & no networks) & on unimodem half-duplex audio device. I disabled it myself in case the system was confused about audio drivers.
8. I have downloaded ntracks demo successfully twice, before the tune-up, but never really used it. Should I do this again & try to record? I don't really know anything about the program & it would take time to learn it. Are you asking if the system crashes while running ntrack or just after the download?
9. My "guru" as you call it is over 40 & has been in the field at least 25 yrs.

I'm sure there is "method to your madness." I'm a professional optician & patients don't always understand the clues I'm seeking when I ask them certain questions either.
 
your guru prolly knows his stuff then.
1. dma. control panel>>>system>>>>device mgr>>>>click on disk drives>>
click on the drive and an applet shows with a tick box showing if dma is enabled.
2.good ! have you got the latest tascam drivers ?
3.ram..good !
4.amd processor. how old is your system ?
by on board graphics ..do you mean using a graphic chip on the motherboard ?
5.pci slots are slots in your motherboard into which devices plug in from various vendors. your guru will know what pci cards you have.
6.been a lot of probs with usb devices. some people they work fine. yours should in theory.
7. ok if disabled. prolly not the prob in your case.
8.yes - i want to know if n track crashes. or not. this is a clue.
i'm asking you to use ntrack because i dont want people on here to think
i'm trying to push you in using what i use. you could also try multitrackstudio.com. if these two run finev then that tells me the problem is in your cake settings prolly. its like debugging a stereo system you see ?

yes - like you - an optician - or a doctor - i'm going through my own diagnostic steps. thnx for bearing with me.
if you could do one more thing. download diskbench(small utility) from
prorec.com and post the stats. this will help me understand how strong your system is. also please tell me if you get crashes using your on board sound card instead of the 122.
peace.
 
OK, it's taken some time but here’s what info I could find for you:

1.could not find DMA info on the hard drive but how about this:
Primary & secondary IDE channel properties/advanced settings:
Both say DMA if available, Device 0, Transfer mode DMA if available, Device O, & auto detection.

2. Using Tascam driver 3.2.4 dated 12/03—this was downloaded from Tascam.
Original driver on install disk was 3.2.1 dated 3/03. This is what it says on the Tascam US122 control panel—confusing. Tascam only has these 2 drivers available as far as I know so looks like I have the latest one.

BTW, I found this info in the US122 manual that came w/it, if it tells you anything:
Audio/MIDI interface protocols for Windows: ASIO,MME, GSIF
Manual says to use ASIO (Cake tech support said use MME).

4. system was assembled 8-9 mos. Ago. Yes, the graphic chip is on the mobo.

5. don’t know about pci—haven’t reached the “guru” yet. Anywhere else I could look? I don’t feel comfy opening up the box & poking around unless I could tell in some other way?

6. re USB issues :rolleyes: —yes, that is a given.

7. tried using an old ntrack v.3 demo I had already downloaded earlier. tried basic recording & playback, nothing fancy. It complained about sampling rates & buffering but did not crash.. I noticed that under View, the playback mixer came up but when I clicked on recording mixer, no window came up. Is this because I disabled the onboard sound card?

8. haven’t tried using onboard cheapo Realtek soundcard. It is disabled & now I can’t remember where to go to enable it. Sorry, I feel pretty stupid about computers. That’s what folks like you are for :o .

9. OK, I dl’ed Diskbench. The report stats window closed before I could write down all details& I can’t find where or if it was saved. But here’s what I did get:

Time check=1000
CPU check-50.18%
CPU index relative to Pro 200 Mhz=11.973899
Open=0 ms
Write=5312 ms, 48.19MB, CPU=2.23%
Flush=0 ms
Rewin=0 ms
Read=5609 ms, 45.64 MB, CPU=2.41%
Close=0 ms

BTW, the “guru” used ZDBench if that has any bearing on this.

& also BTW, I don’t think you are spamming for Powertracks. Perhaps some old hands on this BBS just get tired of reading you saying it repeatedly, because they may not have taken into consideration that many times you’re responding to a total newbie who’s never asked that question on the BBS, so they’ve never heard your answer before. People do need to know there are alternatives to expensive software that may be overkill for their purposes. The “alternatives” may not be so pricey cuz they don’t spend big $ on advertising, so they may not be so well known.

Anyway, I think your willingness to go to all these lengths to help folks you’ve never even met, is invaluable. Other than you, I haven’t found any “expert” yet who is versed in both computers AND audio. I think you’re being pretty damn generous w/your time. Maybe cuz you’re Canadian…I am actually considering moving there since this last US joke of an election…maybe around Nelson…
 
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well optician. this system is very very nice is my first reaction.
the hard drive transfer speeds are vgood.
the one thing you didnt tell me were the track counts reported by diskbench. but thats ok.
imho - there is no reason you cant use this system as a daw.
back to ntrack. in ntrack preferences is where you set your drivers like
any multitrack program.
so 16 bit. recording went ok ?
because i'm unsure from your post.
did recording go ok ? please clarify. no crashes etc ?
is this an intel or amd system out of curiosity ? clicking on SYSTEM in control panel will tell you.
please get back to me about your pci slot info.
but i repeat - a very nice good system for multitracking.
if you want to as well download the demo of multitrackstudio.com (not a big download)....and tell me if it runs ok.
also - your guru will know this. do you have the latest versions of directx
on your system ? on your system NOTE is a utility for dx diagnostics called
dxdiag if i remember. if you click the icon it will tell you a bunch of things about directx and do some tests. at different rates.

re....helping people. well i DO try. some appreciate it ...others...?
thanks for your kind words. one of my many jobs in the computer industry in the past fyi was working for computer manufacturers on very complex system issues with large worldwide customers. now i'm taking life a bit easier...
as i needed to recover from some personal family losses/deaths that hurt me . every body needs a break occasionally.
peace.
 
hi manning,
been off this board for some days dealing w/other stuff--sorry for the delay in responding. I wanted to answer your last batch of questions the best I can (which isn't saying much).
I found dxdiag, about 4 or 5 versions came up under Search. The latest was dated 8/4/2004 but when I tried to run it I got this error mesg:

"The procedure entry point for RtlIpv6StringToAddressExw could not be located in the dynamic link library ntdll.dll."

& the installer for the utility would not work.

This is an amd system.

As for ntrack, I have only done that one brief recording of a few measures. Didn't have the patience to delve into the program; it doesn't look difficult but it was too cryptic to figure out how to do things--the help files seem to leave out half the steps necessary. Like I couldn't even find Preferences on the menu's. Haven't tried dl'ing anything else yet. Once before, I tried to dl PTP but it wouldn't come thru to my computer--PG said to disable my firewall but I wasn't comfortable doing that.

I will ask my "guru" about the pci slots.
He suggested partitioning the box & installing win2k as the dedicated music os cuz it's more stable than xp & some folks say xp has compatibility problems w/lots of devices.

at this point everything is still in limbo. I'm sitting here with this spiffy box & all kindsa tunes in my head but have devolved to using a walkman...
 
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a couple of things. ...
1. lots of folks are using xp fine. but try 2k if you wish.
2. you have a very good pc system for a daw home studio.
it just needs setting up right.
3. if dx diagnostic didnt work it sounds like directx maybe wasnt installed properly somehow ...who installed xp on this machine ?
maybe its become corrupted.
a lot of multitrack software needs this to run properly.
4. if your running firewalls and other stuff - it can sometimes be
a problem for audio as all this other stuff is running in the background.
thus taking processing power away from the multitrack application.
it seems to me you have a lot of background processes running.
not good for a daw on some machines.
also point your guru at this..
musicxp.net
my own feeling is that your guru should try a fresh xp install, and see how that works out before trying 2k. i dont use partitioning frankly.
i find no need for it. i run two 7200 rpm hard drives with windows on one smaller one and the audio tracks on a second larger one,.
possibly something off the net corrupted the xp install in the past. but this is conjecture on my part.
what i do is use a junk pc for surfing the net. my recording pc never sees the net.
peace.
 
strangely enough, dxdiag did seem to work even after getting that error mesg. I ran some audio tests & things were OK, though I don't know enough to be sure. the shop that put the pc together installed xp home. since then I have downloaded & installed various updates.

I saw Guru today & asked about dx & pci. He said I don't have the latest 9.0A or B version. however, that was intentional because many on the forums said it interfered w/audio recording, so I didn't opt for it from windows update. as for pci slots we have to open the box.

re background apps, actually, guru pretty much stripped it down to lean & mean. we removed anything that could possibly slow it down, including background stuff, even down to desktop icons. I just wonder if something essential was inadvertently removed?

Before we did this I had already done the tweaks from musicxp.net. maybe I need to do them again?

where do I look to determine if the firewall is turned on, & can I just turn it off when recording?

he also said that having once done a reinstall of Home STudio, it's possible some of that app's code could have been damaged if it was reinstalled over the earlier install, because of the way xp works. your opinion? without being familiar w/the inner workings of Cake software he said it's pretty hard for him to determine that.

I agree about using a separate junk pc for the net. guru says I could use xp for that & use win2k for recording & it would be like 2 separate machines. if not I could try to get my old pc back from the people I gave it to cuz they never hooked it up anyway.

btw, I found this posted elsewhere on this board:

USB prevents PC going into Stand By

Whilst recording, you do not send interrupts to the PC. So after a while the PC goes in StBy mode. The TASCAM US 122 conflicts with WinXP (and so do a lot of USB devices). Check if your PC hangs after the expected time to go into resume or StBy mode. (And just turn that option off)​
 
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its really difficult as i'm not there. clubhouse.
the only thing i can think of at this time is there have been a LOT of problems with usb. it seems to work ok on some pc's but not others.
all sorts of people on this and other forums have reported usb problems.
yours just might be one of the others.
i dont use usb myself. because i feel the protocol needs to mature more.
my BEST advice at this time would be to try another soundcard.
on the basis you can return it to the dealer if your not happy.
delta pci sound cards seem to make most folks happy.
also i wouldnt worry too much about installing the later version of directx.
just check what the pci soundcard needs.
preferably you should install a pci sound card in its own pci slot,
and not any other pci device in a slot.
my advice would be to check with your guru and see if thats possible.
because you might have another pci slot occupied by a device you need.
for example tell your guru fancy video game cards, network cards, and tv tuner cards can sometimes cause issues with pci sound cards as they take over the pci bus. in my own pc the only thing i have in a pci slot
is the sound card. thus ive never had problems.
hope all this helps.
peace.
 
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