Popping problems - at wit's end!

  • Thread starter Thread starter noisedude
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noisedude

noisedude

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I'm having popping/skipping trouble with my PC. It's not related to volume as there's always a tonne of headroom at every stage going in and out of the machine. It doesn't always pop in the same place, yet my CPU usage never goes above about 30% even when multitracking. This is a serious bind cos it's stopping me getting my recording coursework for uni done! Here's a thread in the mixing clinic linking a file that pops on my computer.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1296661#post1296661

PS - My specs are:
Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
512mb DDR400
GFX5200
80gb 7200rpm HDD (not dedicated for music - could this be the source? Not had any trouble in the past)
Delta 44

My chain is - various mics --> Soundcraft M12 --> Delta 44 --> Yamaha MG10/2 --> Alesis M1A MkIIs + Sennheiser HD280s
 
Try checking for errors and defrag you hard drive.
 
Are you using many plugin effects? I was working on a mix the other day and had multiple inserts and sends on each channel engaged which led to some noticeable popping, even though my cpu seemed to be doing o.k. I think if you use the same effect on too many channels, you can tax the plugin. I could be just talking out my ass, though, as I know little about computers. I just know the popping stopped when I cut out some of the effects.
 
In the first instance, none running at all! And only one or two tracks of audio!

This is weird, I just noticed my startup sound skips and that the popping happens in all my audio playback of mp3s and wmas ... my monitors are v close to my screen, but it's a TFT so that shouldn't make any difference ... plus it happens through my headphones too.

This is well poor!
 
Good thinking .. will update and check those DMAs too.
 
Increase the BUFFER size in your Control Panel and see if the problem persists...

Check this site!!! www.musicxp.net

to run a music daw you really need to optimise it for performance as all the silly graphics and memory hoggin' shit can be removed to streamline performance...!! To get down to the real low latencies you might try Standard PC mode.

Update to the latest drivers !!!
 
That's an awesome site. I think I'm going to use another hdd I have, a 40gb 7200, with a clean XP (if it lets me activate twice in otherwise the same machine!) and follow all that stuff through with new drivers.
 
noisedude. please list what you have in your pci slots . ie other cards.
then i can go from there - because my suspicion is another pci card is conflicting. also get a second drive for audio.

about leeds uni (re..other thread) what is a snr lecturers remuneration these days ? still around 40 k ? i hear they are quite low. also - i guess leeds has their own studio ? sound nice. what have you in it ? cdn lecturer salaries are pretty lousy here.
 
My computer from memory -
GFX5200 (agp slot)
Delta 44
56k modem, perhaps

That's about it. There's a tonne of onboard stuff, some of which is mounted on backing plates but not using the PCI slots ... including extra USB, LAN, onboard sound (not used but I don't think it's disabled either), firewire, RAID etc.

Lecturers - They certainly don't think they get paid much but I'd be very happy on £40k!!! Our music school has two studios:

1. Pro Tools - some huge Sony digital desk, not really been in there but a tonne of Kurweil keyboards etc
2. Nuendo (RME hardware I believe) PC / Soundcraft Spirit 24 desk and Alesis HD24. This is where I spend most of my time, using Drawmer comps and gates and wishing I could afford some for myself.

Unfortunately these studios are both sharing a live space right now because studio two grew too big for its control room and had to move.

I have spent more time there than at home, which is why I feel clueless as to why my recordings are so crap now I'm in my bedroom again!!!
 
noisedude. its all the "other stuff" thats giving you a problem.
what do you mean by "back plane " ? sounds to me that you have some "custom" stuff occurring. for example - if you have "lan" running while
recording. disable temporarily in windows the activity.
the KEY aspect is not to have anything else running on the pci bus while
the pci sound card is being used in a session. particular culprits are network, tv, and fancy gaming cards. give it a try and i bet your popping problems disappear unless something strange is happening with your drives.

yep - still lousy salaries.
 
I'm going to try activating my copy of XP twice and put it on a new drive. Once everything musical is installed I will disable everything I don't need in the device manager.

Nothing custom -- just backing plates with USB sockets etc that connect to headers on the motherboard. Part of the design - they take up slot spaces but aren't actually in them, if you see what I mean.
 
nd. gotcha. all i can tell you is in my own systems nothing goes in the pci slot except the sound card. i never get a problem. be particularly wary of
high power gaming cards as well. ive seen case after case (multiplied by a thousand) in friends systems of extreme problems with these in the past.
maybe not so much now. seems to depend on the system.
remember one basic tenet. everything on a pc creates tasks , and overhead, and processes. the more things you add to a pc in summary the more overhead. this is why i caution folks on using the very huge hard drives once again. you want a lean simple pc configuration to run daw effectively with lots of memory and preferably nice big caches in hard drives for buffering.

nice studio at leeds. but you can get just as good at home imho with the right daw set up. you have excellent home equipment.
 
I'm trying my hardest - I think I have no excuse not to get something quite good with the setup I have now. So I think I better stay away from this forum till I get it sorted!!!
 
You MUST look at your IRQ's if your WinXP start up sound has cracks and POP's you are in real trouble...!!!

Yes, try a fresh install and do EVERYTHING on the musicxp site including the latest drivers, and checking for IRQ bios conflicts...and even STANDARD PC mode.. Trial and error...
 
WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I updated all my drivers, followed EVERY tip from MusicXP.net and still had no luck. Then I checked my IRQs ... the Delta was sharing with my mobo's firewire controller (I was barely aware I'd got firewire) so I thought, maybe I can save opening it up and swapping it about ... so I just disabled IEEE1394 in the Device Manager and now I'm laughing!!!!!!! Like this:

MUUUWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Incidentally - 2.6 millisecond latency! Rock on!!!
 
Wait a second ... did you hear the sound of someone speaking too soon? :(:(
 
noisedude said:
Wait a second ... did you hear the sound of someone speaking too soon? :(:(
Click to expand...

Don't give up your on the right track!!!

What MOBO spec you have...

I have an ASUS A7V266e with a Athlon XP and I have the EXACT same problem...

On my first install of XP i noticed my Video Graphics slot always wanted to share the same IRQ as my DELTA...even when I changed slots...WTF?

(Note: I think my Nvidia Video card and Cheapish memory 'cause incompatibilites running things like CUBASE which is a TOP end resource hungry application which is another thing to consider run your PC in standard mode in the bios not "Accelerated Mode" or "top performance settings" I even reduce my Memory speed bus to 200mz to increase the stability of the system to 100% no crashes no problems.)

So, I had to do a Fresh install of XP on a new partition and choose STANDARD PC when installing by pressing F6 on boot when it asks you for SCSI & Storage drivers..Now, I can manually assign IRQ's through the BIOS (this is the only way using XP by the way).

I can now run at the Lowest Latency available and its bloody brilliant...!!! Once, I start running multiple plugin's and tracks I find I have to adjust the buffers back a bit but due to M-Audio's "Monitor Mixer" option its all good.

Peace,
 
I am clueless as to what to do now! I do also have a RAID controller to which my hard drives are connected. I have to load drivers for that on installing XP.

My mobo is an Epox 8KRA2+ ... which is VIA KT600. Athlon 2500+ Barton core.

My Delta is on its own IRQ now as far as I can tell. Is there an easier way of checking than going through every single item in the Device Manager?

It's really annoying because my tracks are sounding GREAT- holding up against the ones I am making in properly treated rooms etc, but they're unusable because of the popping!
 
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