Gigabyte GA-FXA-990-UD3 + M-Audio Fastrack Problem

[Trig242]

Good Afternoon,

I recently completed my first build and after setting up my M-Audio Fasttrack 4x4 [USB audio device] I notice that when in use there are a LOT of clicks and pops coming through.  The PC is for a home studio, but also some moderate gaming so the audio is rather important.  I've updated the M-Audio driver, and am in the process of updating the MOBO realtek and chipset drivers.

I was wondering if anyone else had a similar problem, and if so, how they conquered it. 

Thanks in advance for any assistance offered.

Cheers,
Craig M.

[absic]

Hi Craig,

You might do better if you ask this question over on the M-Audio forums as there will be a lot more users of this device who will be able to offer hands on advice. You can find the forum here: http://community.m-audio.com/m-audio

That said, I run an M-Audio Delta 1010 and if your device is using a similar piece of software, can you change the Buffer size in the M-Audio Control Panel?
If you can, try increasing this to 512 samples or a little more. Don't take this too high though as it will also increase latency when recording.

Is the Fastrack USB Device being used as your only audio device? If yes, try disabling the On-board Audio chip so there are no conflicts between the two devices.

[Trig242]

Absic,

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out.

I initially did a lot of searches on the m-audio forums and saw a lot of posts about this issue, without any solid resolution offered.  As it turns out M-Audio is basically gone, and its product line sold off to a couple different companies.  Plus the audio interface I have is no longer produced and they stopped software support in 2010.

That said I think I may have isolated the issue, I came across a post that stated that the removal of the Nvidia audio driver corrected the issue.  I want to use the Realtek offered by the Gigabyte, but it appears as though the nvidia has taken over and become a little gremlin, not allowing me to disable it without disabling all audio.  So I am going to contact EVGA and inquire about the issue and maybe do a fresh install minus the nvidia audio drivers.  I really hope that cures what ails me.  

When I plugged in on my older laptop the M-Audio device took over, which was nice.  I think it becomes an issue with "too many cooks in the kitchen" audio driver, and audio enhancer wise.  I have a feeling the Nvidia driver is causing my problem.

on a side note, if I needed to buy a new audio interface, that may not be so bad either  

Thanks again for your help!

[absic]

Hi Trig242,

Ah the old driver conflict is a great thing to face, isn't it?

If you do go ahead with a clean install then I have found, through a lot of grief and stress, that the order in which main drivers are installed in the system can have a bearing on how well things work. I tend to go:

Install OS
Install Chipset - Reboot
Install Audio - Reboot*
Install LAN - Reboot
Check for other devices that need Drivers and install them one at a time, rebooting after each one.

Now, you may notice from this that, I haven't mentioned Graphic Drivers. With most Windows OS's you don't always have to actually install NVidia or ATI Graphic drivers to get things working properly and quite often I leave these set with the ones that Microsoft automatically installs. But, I am not gaming and don't need all the c**p that comes with Graphic Drivers generally.

* If you are planning on using the On-Board Audio as well as the M-Audio card then install the drivers for the On-Board sound first. You will find that Internet Browser and other system sounds will use this by default, leaving the M-Audio device for the important task of Audio recording.

[Trig242]

Great piece of advice. I can see where I may have faulted in minor ways here and there during my install and updates.

[Trig242]

Hello All,

Here is an update.  I am still having that pops and clicks problem.  I tried some clean installs on my drivers and attempted every variation I could think of with my audio properties.  I decided to run a little test.

I noticed that when the audio is coming from my GPU to my monitor speakers its OK.  When I would turn on my audio interface it would start clicking wildly.  I decided to plug a pair of headphones into the MOBO's audio out to see what was going on there.  It turns out the audio coming from the MOBO is where the clicking and popping resides.  Essentially when I turn on my audio interface the MOBO takes over and out comes the horrible sound.

Just when I think I pinpointed the problem, I am thrown complete off track.

Is there any explanation as to why the MOBO would be producing the clicks and pops?

Thanks again
Craig M.

[absic]

Have you installed EasyTune6? If yes, this could be a possible cause.

What OS are you running?

Try using Latency Tester (download from here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml ) and see if you can narrow down the cause of the problem.

[Trig242]

Thanks for responding and helping me revive this thread.

I am running Win 7 64bit SP1 for an OS, probably should've mentioned that at the start...Sorry.

I DID install EasyTune6, it's my first build and I had no idea what it was, should I uninstall?

I was also considering rolling back my BIOS on the board.  I may be remembering incorrectly but I thought I remember using my audio interface initially and it being OK.  Right now I am on F9, but I saved a backup to F8 on a USB stick.  I'm interested in any thoughts on that.

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a try when I get home tonight.

[absic]

Yes, uninstall EasyTune6 as it can play havoc with audio. This is the probable cause of the issue and I would try this before doing anything else.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, O/C'ing can also cause audio problems such as this, so my advice is to steer clear of this aspect of computing especially if you are serious about audio recording.

[Trig242]

This gives me hope! 

I was initially considering O/Cing but have since decided against it, she is running much faster than I anticipated.  The set up is mainly for recording with occasional moderate gaming, but nothing too strenuous.  Sound production is definitely priority one!

Thanks
- C

[Ripshod]

Don't know how relevant this will be.

I use a Roland FA66 as part of my setup. I had very similar problems, related to latency. I disabled onboard sound and all that to no avail.

From the AMD site I downloaded the southbridge drivers for my board (890FX), these contained a 'USB Filter Driver', and I noted when it was installing it was specific to USB Audio devices.

Suffice to say it fixed my latency problem and I was able to re-enable onboard sound too.

May be worth checking at AMD if there's a similar driver for your chipset.

[Trig242]

Success!!

It was EasyTune6.  I uninstalled and ran my reg cleaner [ccleaner] in safe mode on a restart and the popping and clicking have gone away!

I am super excited, now I can finally set it up for my studio work.  I will also be looking into the AMD updates if I see any latency issues as I get into setting up my DAW.

Thank you SO much for all of your advice and assistance along the way.  Could not have figured this out without your help.

Cheers!
Craig M.

[absic]

Pleased to see you got it sorted.

Sorry I didn't think of ET6 sooner, but I never install any proprietary software that comes with the motherboard or other items, except for the drivers as I have found that most of the time they cause more problems than they solve.

Good luck with your DAW and your future recording.