Subject:USB and Firewire a No No?

Posted by: Blood Paws

Date:12/2/2006 6:39:10 PM

Howdy yall.Been trying to troubleshoot the same one problem for about 4 months now with no success so here I am at the mercy of any knowledge anyone may have on this.

I configured and bought a computer (strickly for music production) and audio interface from Pcaudiolabs.com

The computer specs are:
AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ Dual Core
Asus A8V Proc
2GB DDR400 2x1024 Ram
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB Dual VGA
Plextor 16x Dual Layer DVD/-RW 2MB

80GB EIDE (Primary Drive)
150GB Sata 10,000rpm (Audio Drive)
160GB Sata ll (Audio Drive)

USB Floppy Drive w/Multi Card Reader

Windows XP Professional

The Audio interface i bought with this computer is a Motu Ultralite.

I have had it all plugged up since August and I've yet to get audio to stop popping,clicking, dropping out.

I know of the SP2 issue and Firewire devices.But it didn't fix it when I downloaded the fix for that.

I talked to pcaudiolabs guys many many times and downloaded several things all new updates and drivers for the motu and Acid Pro 6.

I was wondering if there is any general rules about using USB devices with firewire devices.
The Motu Ultralite is firewire.The internal Floppy drive Multi-Card reader is USB.
Plus my wireless mouse and light up key keyboard are both USB.
Do USB devices mess with firewire.
The popping clicking audio dropouts I get are sometimes random.
But Usually I can make them start happening by just scrolling around in Acid.Zooming in and out always brings on the pops and dropouts.
Most of the time the problems just seem to happen by me doing nothing but I can definatly tell when I zoom in or out or just grab the navigation bar Vertical or Horizontal and move them around the pops and clicks start.
I've yet to find anyone on unicornation having these specific problems so since I use Acid Pro as my Main Sequencer thought I try here.

Subject:RE: USB and Firewire a No No?

Reply by: drbam

Date:12/2/2006 7:30:40 PM

I'm running 2 USB devices (wireless keyboard and mouse) and 2 firewire drives without any problems. However, my audio interface is an Layla 24 (PCI).

Does this only happen with Acid? If it happens with other apps, and since the clicks/pops happen when scrolling/zooming, you might check the video card more thoroughly. There's always a chance it could be defective or failing. I assume you've updated the drivers? I had some very weird audio stuff happen when a video card was failing.

Subject:RE: USB and Firewire a No No?

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/3/2006 6:33:43 AM

I've got tons of USB devices including hard drives, working with my firewire M-Audio FW-410 audio interface. No pops clicks or anything. I hate to say this, but from what I have read, people who own PC's should stay away of MOTU stuff. They are a Mac based company and and their devices don't play well with PC's even though they do supply drivers for them. Maybe they have changed, but over the years I have read horror story after horror story from PC users who can't get MOTU gear working correctly. Just my 2 cents.

I just noticed that your motherboard has a VIA chipset. I know in the video editing world we tend to stay away from VIA as it gives nothing but trouble with various capture cards and video devices. I don't know about the audio world but I always stay away from them as well. So between the VIA chipset and the MOTU interface, you may be fighting an uphill battle. Make sure MOTU works with VIA.

I would try and borrow another firewire interface. Anything from M-Audio or Echo. If the problem goes away, it's the MOTU. If it doesn't, it's your PC.

~jr

Subject:RE: USB and Firewire a No No?

Reply by: Zacchino

Date:12/3/2006 11:02:37 AM

>you may be fighting an uphill battle

I love this sentence lol

Yeah, I second JR for the VIA Chipset. They had some issues with Audio in the past. I've heard everything's OKAY now but I also heard that people should all get Intel chipset for the most rocksolid DAW.

Subject:RE: USB and Firewire a No No?

Reply by: RMS

Date:12/5/2006 7:25:03 AM

Hello,
I had a similar problem w/ a new Dell.
Make sure that your audio drives have the option "use DMA if present" or something like that in the Device Manager.
You might also have to set this in the BIOS as well.
I installed an additional audio drive and could not get it to stop clicking and popping (no real drop outs, though) until I had my drive set to use Direct Memory Access (DMA).

Hope this helps.
Dan

Subject:RE: USB and Firewire a No No?

Reply by: Ed Ev

Date:12/7/2006 12:15:37 PM

MOTU soundcards are rock solid on PC's. I have used them since 1998 with zero issues although I haven't used VIA chipsets. I remember thery were an issue years ago with MOTU products. There was a corrected driver called the VIA4in1drivers to fix problems with VIA chipsets. What you should try first is go into the console view of the motu and readjust the latency. Try 1024 samples (depending if you are using record input monitoring ) I regularly change this depending on # of tracks and plugin count. (eg low for tracking higher for overdubs and mixing YMMV Also have you checked the MOTU FAQ on their website. There is some good material up there that may help