SoundCard HELL! Help
SoundCard HELL! Help Posted on: 14.03.2009 by Rebbeca Spina Hi, Im new to this community
but have been an avid reader of the DJTT blog for over a year now and have finally decided to join up Onto my problem - Im having abit of a evening mare with soundcards in general and wondered if anyone could give me some help. I had previously used a Behringer BCD3000 controller with integrated soundcard which worked PERFECTLY, however when i upgraded my pc to a laptop this also meant that my OS changed from XP to Vista and this is where the problems started... my BCD3000 wasn't really Vista compatible, so i decided to sell it and look for an alternative solution. I then bought a Numark total control with a Maya44YSB soundcard. The soundcard worked great.. when it decided it wanted to play, however the drivers were unreliable (despite downloading the latest Vista compatible ones). Sometimes they would completely disappear when i would restart, other times they just wouldn't work and would require several re-installs before they would start working again.. so, in short as great as the soundcard was when it worked - it was unreliable. So back to the shop it went. I then decided to buy a Numark DJIO believeing, its Numark, the controller's Numark, so hopefully it'll work together nicely... however this wasn't the case. When i installed the soundcard it would "pop" intermitently down the left channel, at increasing or decreasing intervals depending upon the latency setting....... At the lowest latency setting (3.9ms-4.9ms) it would "pop" approximately every 4-5 seconds; at the highest latency setting it would only "pop" every 4-5 minutes. So - again - I sent it back..... however I have just received a replacement DJIO and it does exactly the same thing, down (bizzarely) only the left channel again! Im running out of ideas as to whats causing thhis, as its maybe not the soundcard. Any help would be MASSIVELY appreciated as im quickly loosing my patience with Digital DJing because of the problems im having simply trying to get sound out My setup is as follows: Numark Total control, Dell Studio 1535 with 32bit Vista, Traktor 3, Numark DJIO, Cambridge Audio A300 Integrated amp, Mordaunt Short MS902 speakers. | |
| Mariah Itter 17.03.2009 | Dude, If XP worked so well before then install in on the new laptop, Most makes support XP, drivers being on their website. Xp home Oem is like |
| Mariah Itter 17.03.2009 | Dude, If XP worked so well before then install in on the new laptop, Most makes support XP, drivers being on their website. Xp home Oem is like |
| Rebbeca Spina 14.03.2009 | Hi, Im new to this community
but have been an avid reader of the DJTT blog for over a year now and have finally decided to join up Onto my problem - Im having abit of a evening mare with soundcards in general and wondered if anyone could give me some help. I had previously used a Behringer BCD3000 controller with integrated soundcard which worked PERFECTLY, however when i upgraded my pc to a laptop this also meant that my OS changed from XP to Vista and this is where the problems started... my BCD3000 wasn't really Vista compatible, so i decided to sell it and look for an alternative solution. I then bought a Numark total control with a Maya44YSB soundcard. The soundcard worked great.. when it decided it wanted to play, however the drivers were unreliable (despite downloading the latest Vista compatible ones). Sometimes they would completely disappear when i would restart, other times they just wouldn't work and would require several re-installs before they would start working again.. so, in short as great as the soundcard was when it worked - it was unreliable. So back to the shop it went. I then decided to buy a Numark DJIO believeing, its Numark, the controller's Numark, so hopefully it'll work together nicely... however this wasn't the case. When i installed the soundcard it would "pop" intermitently down the left channel, at increasing or decreasing intervals depending upon the latency setting....... At the lowest latency setting (3.9ms-4.9ms) it would "pop" approximately every 4-5 seconds; at the highest latency setting it would only "pop" every 4-5 minutes. So - again - I sent it back..... however I have just received a replacement DJIO and it does exactly the same thing, down (bizzarely) only the left channel again! Im running out of ideas as to whats causing thhis, as its maybe not the soundcard. Any help would be MASSIVELY appreciated as im quickly loosing my patience with Digital DJing because of the problems im having simply trying to get sound out My setup is as follows: Numark Total control, Dell Studio 1535 with 32bit Vista, Traktor 3, Numark DJIO, Cambridge Audio A300 Integrated amp, Mordaunt Short MS902 speakers. |
| Malcom Hardigree 07.06.2009 | Hello everyone, I've joined specifically to contribute my experience to this thread, I have the same pop when using my DJio on my desktop which is a desktop built from various components bought from all over the place over a number of years so it can't be Dell specific, I didn't realise it was the card popping until I read this thread. On my laptop (HP6735s) I have a completely different problem as well which is every so often it goes unbearably tinny and crackly but I also get the pop. I hope that helps, I believe it suggests it's not the Dell laptop anyway. |
| Rebbeca Spina 18.03.2009 | update - Dell are being predictably useless and havent responded to my email, so will have to do abit of chasing on the phone tomorrow i believe. The B'ringer UCA202 that i bought as a step in soundcard sounds great and doesnt pop when the latency spikes (which is a result and useful as a temporary measure).. however doesnt seam to show 2 sets of output channels in traktor? With the B'ringer driver it only shows up one set of output channels, and again the same with ASIO4ALL; i'd been under the impression that both of these should display 2 sets of output channels to allow you to listen to two sources of sound at the same time (club mix & headphone mix)? Am i doing something wrong?.. admittedly i dont know too much about ASIO |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | I've just had a quick search for RATTV and it would appear that it is rarer then rocking horse shit!.. plenty of references about it but no links to DL it.. oh well! Will get onto Dell in the morning! |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | BentoSan - I'll have a look for RATTV and try see if i can get it to identify whether or not it is indeed the mobo at fault or a driver causing the latency issues. DvlsAdvct - I've already tried a Maya44USB and had different probs with that (as detailed in my 1st post). I've just bought a cheaper Behringer UCS202 soundcard to triple check whether its the soundcard or not... if its still spiking then its def guna be back to Dell for a new MoBo. Will post up any progress I have once i've had a chance to play with it tomorrow. thanks for your help so far |
| Xavier Emanuels 17.03.2009 | Its a driver problem and its difficult to track down. You need to find the vista version of Microsoft RATTV (i cant remember what its called but its out there). Its not exactly an easy program to use but you really have little choice - just read the documentation and you should be fine. That will tell you exactly what drivers are causing what latency - then you can go about trying to find replacement drivers. Failing that, downgrade to XP. |
| Roberto Viccione 17.03.2009 | Like I said, the only other troubleshooting method I can believe of is to try someone else's sound card. It could be a weird driver incompatibility thing with your brand of MoBo, though I doubt it. If they'll replace it (cause it's their fault, and a documented problem) then do that and check it again. if it's still happening then you gotta try a different sound card. |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | BentoSan - done that and the latency issues and spikes still exist DvlsAdvct's - Yeah it does it with iTunes/WMP as well as Tratktor and when watching films in VLC; so in short all audio. Dell had offered to replace the mobo in the past, however as the crackling stopped i didnt bother persuing it - believe it looks like thats going to be best course of action at the moment. I can't find anything else to turn off/adjust the settings which i would cause the consistent 4 sec hikes in latency and the occasional large spike (whos occurence can be increased/decreased depending upon the latency setting in the S.C). |
| Roberto Viccione 17.03.2009 | I've heard about the problems Dell Studio laptops have heard, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's that. If they will fix it for free, and swiftly, then I'd say go with that. The only other option to troubleshoot it could be to get a different brand of sound card and try that. You've obviously tried to work the latency, so, it's not that. Is it spiking like this with just regular media players (not just with DVS/DAW systems)? If that's the case then I'd definitely look into getting the MoBo replaced. |
| Xavier Emanuels 17.03.2009 | right cick my computer, then go into your device manager - then turn off all the drivers that you dont need for a performance one by one. |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | DvlsAdvct - Optimising Vista was one of the first things i did when i got the laptop after hearing how much difference doing so can make. I've gone through my device manager disabling/enabling all of the devices that DPC suggests and also a few which i thought may be causing it to no avail... To verify what im already believeing - does this sound like it could infact be the MoBo at fault? |
| Roberto Viccione 17.03.2009 | Have you gone through the process of optimizing Vista (turning off Aero, and other unnecessary processes?) That spike could be Vista doing things in the background. |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | The big red bar is when one of the pops/spikes occured... :eek: On the whole the performance doesnt look great anyway though |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | Thanks Si-B.. i'd been hoping that it wasn't the laptop as i've been down this route before and had (maybe foolishly) thought that i'd ruled it out as the cause. I know that Dell Studio laptops are prone to sound problems stemming from a faulty motherboard in the earlier models (such as mine) as i'd suspected this might be the problem what i first started to suffer from crackly sound. This resolved itself once i re-installed the soundcard drivers... however i know of other Dell Studio owners that have had to send their laptops back to Dell to get a new mobo in order to resolve the sound issues. This would make more sense then two DJIO's suffering a faulty left channel which "Pops" in direct correlation with the freq of the latency setting on the SC.. I'll run the DPC Checker and post back up with the results. Argh Computers!! |
| Jacklyn Doerger 17.03.2009 | its possible this is an artefact caused by the latency spike issues reported on some dell laptops. i dont have any personal experience but have read about it. search the community
s as there are definitely posts about them. what i can recommend (as i rememeber someone else saying so) is to download the dpc latency checker program (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml) which will run in windows and report graphicaly on your systems latency. this tool has been used to identify that dell issue before. |
| Mariah Itter 17.03.2009 | If you have the original restore disks for vista, then it would be fine, i ran a shop for 5 years doing IT and repair install etc, so as long as you have the restore disks/partitions then nothing to stop you. |
| Rebbeca Spina 17.03.2009 | installing XP would solve allot of the problems i've been having... the only problem is that by installing a different OS it invalidates my laptops warranty so I want to try exhaust every option with crappy vista before i resort to that... I'm, getting a ground loop isolator today to plug into my rca's to see if this cures the popping, and also a cheap Behringer UCA somthing or other soundcard to try out. Fingers crossed one of them will get me pumping the tunes out again |
| Mariah Itter 17.03.2009 | Dude, If XP worked so well before then install in on the new laptop, Most makes support XP, drivers being on their website. Xp home Oem is like |
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