Weird crackle with Audiophile Delta 24/96

[Jolle]

Hello there. First, I've browsed around this issue for some time now without coming to any closure...

The system is as follows:

ABIT NFS-7 V2.0 Mobo
AMD Athlon XP2500+ @ XP3200+
Radeon 9800pro GFX
512MB Kingston 400Mhz
1 S-ATA 160GB with OS on 20gig of it
1 IDE 80 gig with a 1024MB partition for winxp swap file.
Running Windows XP Pro
Audiophile Delta 24/96 with latest drivers .46

Ok, as many others (it seems) I get crackles and some "pops" when I play sound from the computer. Doesn't matter if it is in winamp or cubase or whatever. I've tried different PCI-slots and making sure I don't get any IRQ-conflicts. Still no good. Haven't found any other drivers than the two you can download from m-audios homepage. Same result with both drivers.

At first I thought the crackling came by random. But I realized that when I had a new started computer and starting a song in winamp I didn't have so much of the crackling. Though when I started working with my web browser and such the crackling got worse. I also noticed that it at times crackled the exact same time as the CPU was working. Like, when the little red LED on the front of the chassi flashed the sound crackled. This is not ALWAYS the case, but very often. It seems anyhow that whenever the CPU does some work the sound crackles exactly the same.

I've tried turning the DMA buffers to 2048 with no result.

I would really appreciate some help. Considering I've got a pretty up to date hardware set up I don't really feel like I should have to strip everything down to sort this problem out. Then I'd rather go over to some sound card that doesn't need dual-CPUs or whatever in order to do music listening and web browsing at the same time...

 

[Jolle]

Ok. Some updates... It's definately the CPU that is disturbing the sound. The crackles do have the same characteristics as a working cpu, and identically to mine of course... Just to make sure I tried switching cables and loudspeakers, and even tried with a pair of Sennheisers with the same result. This was NOT a problem when I used the internal soundcard on the NFS-7. I have btw disabled the onboard sound card in BIOS. Also tried disabling ACPI and reinstalling windows, read somewhere it could cause trouble. Didn't help much though...

Please, please, please help if you know how.

 

[Jolle]

Just a little update if against all odds someone has the answer to my problem. Considering I haven't heard squat from M-Audio support regarding this issue (mailed them about 3 weeks ago), my hopes are dead gone.

Anyhow, I managed to get a new Delta from the store I purchased it and how now tried around some. Same deal though... I tried setting the resolution to 1024*768 instead of 1280*1024 that I usually run. I at least IMAGINE that the sound improves some. But very little. I still get the crackling deal...

 

[manning1]

quick tips.
3 big mistakes new daw users make.
1. not checking they have dma enabled on hard drives.
2. putting gaming high power cards in their pc's.
sometimes tv tuner cards can be a problem.
3. putting other card in pci slots with the sound card in a pci slot.
best i would advise is....
pull gaming cards and use motherboard on board video if you have it on your
motherboard. the problem is certain high power cards can lock out the pci bus. i dont know if this is your situation. but i have my suspicions....
another option is to try a different sequencer like ntrack, powertracks,
or traktion, or multitrackstudio.com all of which i rate highly.
using the demoes you might find one runs better than the other.
just some ideas.
i'm no gaming card expert but i suspect your radeon jolle.
might be a good idea to try a different card.
most folks report that matrox does not seem to produce the problem.
might be worth a try on the basis you can return it.
i notice also it seems you have the swap file on a different hd than windows.
no reason you cant have it on same hd and let windows manage the swao file.

 

[manning1]

also jolle - could you do an experiment for me ?
try the demo of saw studio and tell me if your problems disappear.
just some hunches ive got ....

 

[Bulls Hit]

To see if your video card pci latency is the source of your problem, run the diagnostic utility from http://mark-knutson.com/t3/

 

[Jolle]

I just made a quick installation but will look into this more tonight. Just run the Ulyesses program and it shows an interrupt of 3500-3800... Should this be normal? Also tried lowering the latency on the video card to 96 but it didn't seem to help much.

Anyways, I'll be looking into this more tonight and get back...

Thanks a zillion.

 

[tmix]

A friend of mine had the same problem.
It ended up being a setting in the M-Audio applet (I believe) The place the card was looking for sync was the spdif in, even though he was not using anything there. If the card in looking for sync / timing info from anywhere other rhan internal sync and timing master other than wav out you will probably have problems with clicks and snaps. The card is simply looking to lock up with a synch signal that is not present.

Tom

 

[Jolle]

Well then... I don't really know how to go on with this. I just can't get rid of the crackle. I might be looking into changing the delta for the new EMU 0404... Is there any possibility I'll be experiencing the same deal with that one?

Thanks again.

 

[Jolle]

Managed to test the sound card on another computer. Sadly though that computer also had a Abit NFS-7 V2.0 mobo but had no other parts the same. It also ran AMD but a slower one. The same crackling appeared on that one. I mean there is a small possibility I've managed to get two defect Deltas but I find that very unlikely. Could it be the nforce2 chipset on the mobos that are disturbing somehow? If so I'm surprised how little is heard about this precise issue considering the vast amount of people who has the NFS-7 V2.0 board. Anyhow, the shop has agreed to let me trade the Delta for a EMU 0404 so I guess I'll go for that one...

Thanks for all the help.