pc DAW weirdness

i57dwun4yb1pt8

pc DAW weirdness


brand new home built new pc , quad intel 9550 , gigabyte p43-ds3 mboard , Asus ATI Radeon 3450 Vcool Silent 256MB pci-e ai 8.5 drivers
xp sp2 with firewirepatches , studio konnektekt 48 firewire ( two of them - one on trial to check the issues ) latest drivers , siig ti firewire card in pci1
two 500 gig sata 32 mb cache disks for audio non raid and a 160 gig / 8 for windows

the whole lot sounds and works superbly except.

reaper 2.5 starts ok , but when you drag a window or open a vst , it freezes for up to a minute

cubase sx3 the same , but opens with audio engine cannot be started , have to select the konnekt card each time i open it .
then in a session opening vst's or graphics drags of windows , again freezing / audio engine issues.

Im thinking its the graphics for some reason - and irq wise all firewire is on dedicated non shared irq's -

its not fatal - but very annoying - just wondering if anyone has had issues with graphics causing audio issues.

all onboard stuff like sound etc has been disabled , and no graphics onboard.


only thing i havent done is turn off cpu speed stepping in the bios , which i sill do later.( just a hunch )


but if anyone has a tip - much appreciated.

its a pain in the h0le

Neurojazz

Last time i had the Siig FW card it was for a lappy and it didn't operate 100% with more than 2 devices attached... - have you checked that it's compatible with all your hardware? - usually manufacturers have a list of tested devices.

old gregg

I'd not be too familiar with the audio aspects of what you've got but in my other life of many years I'd suggest as a standard 1st test, dropping the graphics rate down to VGA using the vanilla VGA driver and then seeing if things still freeze. If they do then it's a graphics card/driver issue ... if not then ....

i57dwun4yb1pt8

the siig card is grand - only one device attached , and the built in board firewaire behaves the same issue wise ( also a TI chip )

I tried the grpahics last night with no driver and it was worse .

it did seem to improve when i reinstlaled an older driver and dropped all 3d stuff like open gl / anti aliasing etc down to low quality .

some plug ins use 3d knobs and buttons so use open gl based in the card drivers, so a weak grpahics card can cause issues - but this is a good card.
( !)

but since the issue occurs in dragging and moving frames and windows - thats why i think its either.

1. graphics drivers .
2/ cpu speed stepping ( moving graphics can increase cpu load , which then drops after - and speed stepping controls this )

Neurojazz

Amount of ram and swap file all setup right?

i57dwun4yb1pt8

yep 2 gig ram , 4 gig swap on each partion .

windows has its own partion on disk 1
tracking has its own partion on disk 2
samples have their own partion on disk 3

im good with pc's been building them for 10 years , i was an overclocking gamer in my youth ;-) but this one has me flummoxed.

weirdest issue ever ;_)

Neurojazz

hmm, you sure that the TI card is tested with your FW device... not all TI chipsets are compatible - even though the TI chip itself is compatible it doesn't guarantee it will work... - or roll back to graphics driver to the original WHQL certified driver that is known to be stable for the cards gpu... that's another issue i've found with some graphics cards being arse.

Ahhh, just saw the make of the fw device... SiiG may be the issue here... please check with TC, i have a powercore that wouldn't settle for a year and 3 FW cards later i ended up with a belkin one

PaulBrewer

DaDumTish wrote: »

brand new home built

Yea?

i57dwun4yb1pt8

errr, yea , home built , im not sure what you are innuendoing , but yes its home built and all new parts :D

and the software ( in case thats the innuendo ;_) )

but the siig card worked fine with the tc konnekt and a powercore togehter in my last pc - dual xeon server - cant see why it would suddenly decide its not happy .

but the dual xeon had tiny onboard graphics - coudlt do open gl
and also the dual xeon maxed out on vsts fast .

hence new pc.

Anima

What plugin uses 3D knobs using OpenGL? That doesn't sound right to me.

I've had problems like that before, usually always turns out to be a driver conflict. I think you should maybe reinstall windows new and don't install all the drivers just yet. Maybe try the gfx first with all your audio stuff left out. You could try using the onboard sound and see if the same thing happens in the DAW.

The fact is, it could be 10 different reasons why thats happening so you're gonna have to eliminate the sources of the problem.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

ok, fixed it - runs like a dream now .

it does appear to have been the bIOS cpu speed throttle settings , ( EIST )

i turned off all throttling and all fan control , so CPU is now on default settings with full fan on, all temperatures etc are low and its still nearly silent , and cpu use actually appears to have dropped .


no preblems at all now.
im getting 128 samples latency in reaper and 256 in cubase while tracking , so shes flying along , and i managed to open over 30 heavy vsts like SIR and it didnt even blink,

gotta love them quad core high 12mb cache chips.

the waves ssl plugins use open gl to render the 3d control knobs , so if you build a daw and need to use them - get a card with at least 128 megs ram,
but in this case it wasnt the problem - just a symptom ,