New DAW Build DPC Latency Spikes! Thoughts for Fix, Please?!

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perple

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Hello,
This is my first post here. Thanks for any help or input.

I just built my second computer, to be used with Cakewalk Sonar 8 Producer as a standalone DAW. I know a bit—much more after the last week trying to figure out this problem—but consider myself still a puter newb with some experience, always striving to learn.

Here's my issue:
The audio and video on my new computer had serious pops, clicks, jerks, stops, hesitations. Running DPC Latency Checker (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml) it was showing spikes at 80, 90, and100 THOUSAND milliseconds (us) spiking WAY into the red every 1-3 seconds! I've disabled/enabled drivers and uninstalled/reinstalled programs to try and isolate the problem and, after finding a tip on a forum, uninstalled EasyTune (a Gigabyte piece of software); some improvement, but still far from right.

Attached is an image of DPC running a few minutes after I fire up. Lows are in the 600 us, spikes are in the 80,000s. (Yikes...) It runs like this for a long time and, weirdly, inexplicably, with no discernible pattern, the red spikes end, but the green stays in the 600-700, obviously not right.

Also attached is an image showing CPU Usage.

Obviously... something...is spiking every 5 seconds on the beat.

I bought all of the following from Newegg a couple of months ago and over the last 4 weeks assembled. Over the last 10 days I've realized I have the issues I have and began troubleshooting.

Hardware:
Gigabyte MB GA-MA790X-UD4P rev 1.0 Bios F5
AMD Phenom II 940 quad core processor
Leadtek GeForce WinFast PX6600TD video card (scavenged from a 3-year-old machine)
4GB G.Skill DDR2 1066 PC2 8500 RAM
Corsair CMPSU 650TX
Presonus Firepod, with driver 2.46 (latest driver) audio interface

Software:
Window XP Pro SP3
Avast home antivirus
(Sonar is uninstalled, not running)

Things I've already tried:

* Contacted Gigabyte today and have not heard back yet.
* Downloaded and updated BIOS from Gigabyte.
* Disabled literally everything in device manager and then enabled as each did not remedy the situation.
* Uninstalled certain programs. Found that uninstalling EasyTune from Gigabyte made a huge difference. Started to uninstall other things, and realized I don't know enough to do this. Have checked on some things, but still uneasy about some things, especially after getting a message that system could crash if I continue!

Um, Help? Any thoughts on how I might continue troubleshooting this issue?

Thanks In Advance,
Perry
 

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Disable your network cards and see what happens. NIC cards can cause alot of havoc. Also there may be Windows XP SP3 isssues. I have the same processor and a gigabyte main board and have not one issue. But I am running SP2
 
New DAW Build DPC Latency Spikes! Thoughts for Fix

Disable the antivirus software and see if that helps.

-JR Miller
 
CPU spikes are normal during audio playback because the machine needs to read data from the drive every few seconds. Although a USB drive will make that far worse.

Have you loaded all of the motherboard controller and chipset drivers? Is there anything with a yellow "!" in Device Manager?

My recording computer never gets on the Internet. So, it does not need any network card, anti-virus, Windows convenience services, etc. You could strip down and tweak Windows just for recording.
 
BushmasterM4 said:
Disable your network cards and see what happens. NIC cards can cause alot of havoc. Also there may be Windows XP SP3 isssues. I have the same processor and a gigabyte main board and have not one issue. But I am running SP2
Click to expand...
Thanks for your time and input, BushmasterM4. Disabling network adapter devices and rebooting seem to do nothing to the DPC graphs. Same exact latency issues.

So what would SP3 do or issues be? How might I troubleshoot?
 
RawDepth said:
CPU spikes are normal during audio playback because the machine needs to read data from the drive every few seconds. Although a USB drive will make that far worse.
Click to expand...
Yup. However, the spikes occur with the computer in idle, Firepod off, no sound, no video. Take a look at the DPC image I attached. Clearly not normal.
RawDepth said:
Have you loaded all of the motherboard controller and chipset drivers? Is there anything with a yellow "!" in Device Manager?
Click to expand...
Yes. All drivers loaded and updated. No yellow!.
RawDepth said:
My recording computer never gets on the Internet. So, it does not need any network card, anti-virus, Windows convenience services, etc. You could strip down and tweak Windows just for recording.
Click to expand...
I have disabled anti-virus, network devices, all device drivers in fact. Turned them off one-by-one, rebooted, turned them back on when they did not noticeably affect latency. Yes, I understand stripped down, no internet, just for recording. I may, probably will do that, but as I try to get to the root of this issue, I'm going to stay online. I'm reasonably certain at the moment that these network and anti-virus devices/software are not the issue.

Windows XP SP3 I'm still evaluating...

Thanks for the suggestions and input. At the very least, even if it turns out to not help ultimately, it keeps me checking, double-checking, and tracking my changes and troubleshooting as I go.

Peace,
Perry
 
Ouch :eek:

I had major problems for a while, but ended up getting it sorted. Now get around 10µs average (not trying to brag :D).


I know you've already disabled a lot of background stuff, but make sure you've delved deep into background processes and services - run through msconfig and services.msc several times with a fine toothcomb! Especially seeing as it sounds like you've installed the software that came with the motherboard (note: this stuff is always rubbish, especially Asus stuff!), there may be something running hidden as a service which you haven't noticed.

Also, be even more agressive in the device manager. Don't just go for obvious things like network cards; try anything that isn't absolutely essential. With my laptop I found it helped to have my CD drive disabled. With my main workstation I found that disabling some of the USB controllers that shared IRQs helped out a bit too. Even things like System Beep / Speaker aren't necessary and probably won't make *any* difference, but you never know... that might be the one thing that is causing a problem!

With the problems I had with my laptop, part of it was also down to the drivers of the interface and firewire chipset drivers. Without the Motu unit switched on? 4µs constant. Switched it on? Spikes of 3000µs! In the end I found a good combination of firewire chipset drivers (rolled back to XP SP1 versions) and older Motu drivers. The SP2 firewire drivers didn't get a very good rep for playing nicely with interfaces - I'm not sure whether they were changed for SP3, but it might be worth rolling back to the SP1 versions just to check.
 
You definately need to tweak the background processes. Here is a link one of the best XP and Vista tweak sites. This link takes you right to the XP SP3 page. http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm When you read through the pages you will see the graph that shows what services do what. When I tweaked mine I used the "Bare Bones" column as my reference. You can try the "Tweak" column first. After tweaking all your processes run the latency check again. If it still spikes then do the 'Bare Bones" setting. Another process hog is CTHELPER, its a Creative Labs service which is totally annoying. If you have a Sound Blaster sound card installed that can cause issues too. Here is a link to some other tweaks at Sound On Sounds web site which deal with recording issues. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep06/articles/pcmusician_0906.htm and http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/pcmusician_1006.htm
 
what do yellow ? marks mean?

I have them in "Other devices" for Base system devices and video controllers
 
stupidfatnugly said:
what do yellow ? marks mean?

I have them in "Other devices" for Base system devices and video controllers
Click to expand...

It means that windows cannot make that device work properly. It is usually caused by a driver (the software that makes the device work) not being installed correctly.

You can right click on those items and get a few menu choices that may help deal with the problem. The manufacturers discs may be required.
 
should I try to correct those for the sake of audio or do you think it's one of those things I don't need
 
All is well with my new build! Beyond well. Fanfreakingtastic! I did a fresh clean reinstall of windows. But not just any windows, oh no. I was pointed in a direction and spent the last three days reading a couple of (loooooong) threads over at another forum and WOW, what a fix! Check it out:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=30162

I'm a near noob (altho after this week, less so...) not sure of my terminology, but it's a slippedstreamed version of xp pro and SP3 optimized for audio. Yup! someone (DuX over at Cockos Reaper forums) extensively weeded out the bloats in xp pro and sp3 so that it has only what is needed for a DAW. Other hardware drivers or whatever can simply be added after. This is all legal and legit, apparently, and has to be used with a good product key code from your own xp pro (tho NOT an OEM version. Not sure why.)

There is a whoooole looooot to read, so if you're a noob like me, read and reread and search before you do this. But I am psyched! It is up and running with my Sonar 8 Producer now and it ROCKS!!

Thanks again for input. I am Psyched!
Peace,
Perry
 
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