A8V UAD PCI-Slots

[Kontrakatze]

Hello,
I tried to search the forum, but for any reason I only got timeouts. Therefore I open a new topic.

I'm going to build a new DAW with an Asus A8V, X2 4400, matrox p750 (three screens), two UAD's and one RME HDSP 9652. Which pci-slots should I take for which card? What is proven to work?

I don't use the sata, but I need the nic.

Thank you very much for your help.

Kontrakatze

 

[Akis]

RME in slot 2 and UAD-1 in slots 4 & 5 should work fine. (That's how Suntower uses them succesfully! :wink: )

 

[Kontrakatze]

Great, thank you! This will save a lot of time.

 

[Agent Cooper]

My cat will hate me for replying, but ...
I haven't tried Akis' suggestion, but my UADs in slots 1, 2 and 3 work fine with the HDSP Digiface in 4 and a Poco Element in 5.
I chose slot 4 for the sound card since it's the only one that's not sharing at all.
Slot 2 should also be fine since it only shares with LAN.
Slot 1 is a no-no for the RME (crackles).
From my experience with several very different setups the UADs are very good at IRQ sharing, never had any issues.
Hope that helps,
Cooper

Oh, A8V deluxe, X2 4200, 2*1 GB MDT, TI 4200 VGA etc.
Great system, I'll post exact specs when some weeks have passed without issues , you never know

 

[Kontrakatze]

Interesting, did you have to play with pci-latency to get your system running?

 

[Akis]

In my setup (X2 4400, A8V Deluxe), HDSP is on slot 4 and UAD-1's in 3 & 5. However, I didn't recommend my arrangement, as I still have some problems, although they're almost certainly related to Powercore. When using only the UAD-1's, I never got a freeze. Had some audio drop-outs, though, but yesterday I used PCI Latency Tool 2.7 and set my GFX's PCI latency @ 64 (was 248) and they seem to have gone now. Time will tell... :wink:

 

[Agent Cooper]

It takes time to fine tune a system like that, so good luck, Akis, we're gonna get there in time.
Fingers crossed, I haven't had any freezes yet, but I won't trust the new PC until some weeks of everyday work have passed.
I'll hopefully be able to post in the \"working setups\" thread then.
Kontrakatze,
no PCI tweaks here atm.
Cheers, Cooper

 

[Kontrakatze]

Akis: What graphic adapter do you use?

Agent Cooper: This is great! So, do you have default settings for your UAD's? What is your min_gnt setting? Hopefully something like 64 ...

 

[Akis]

Akis: What graphic adapter do you use?

GeForce FX5200 128MB. It is causing me a lot of trouble on video playback (especially Quicktime/Real Player stuff) when used with the ASUS mobo - no problems when used on nForce mobo's (guess why?!!!), so I'm thinking of switching to a Matrox. :|

All trouble goes away if I un-install the nVidia drivers, but then there's so many other drawbacks... :roll:

 

[Kontrakatze]

Yes, the g-force are kind of greedy regarding bus timings. That's why I never used them on my daws. Matrox is great and today they are kind of cheap too (if 2 screens are enough).

 

[Akis]

Matrox is great and today they are kind of cheap too (if 2 screens are enough).

Thankfully, they are in my case! :wink:

 

[Akis]

OTOH:

UA went to Kentucky-based ADK for our X2 test machine. The foundation of this system is the Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard, which is well suited for UAD-1 users as it offers five PCI slots. The X2 used in this machine is the Athlon 64 4200+. ADK used the MSI GeForce FX 5200 video card. The machine has 1 GB of DDR400 RAM. Our testing with the latest version 4.0 software on this machine revealed the traditional UAD-1 stability with minimal host CPU loading. Similar tests were done on an Intel dual-Xeon system, with similarly excellent results. This system was built by UA around a PCI-Express-based motherboard utilizing the Intel E7520 chipset: A SuperMicro X6DHE-XG2 with dual 2.8GHz Xeon processors, five PCI-X slots, 1GB DDR2-400 RAM, and the nVidia GeForce PCX 5300 PCI-Express graphics adapter.

:?

 

[Kontrakatze]

Yes, I read it too. This is kind of awkward. In what I experienced, all gfx's which support 3d heavily are more or less a NO for daw's as they block bandwidth and bus timings. But maybe this has changed with newer boards.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Kontrakatze,
all UAD settings @ default values, only load limit set @ 95%.

Akis,
I've been using my MSI Geforce TI 4200/64 8x for years now without any real problem, I even have an identical one in my Internet machine.
But the newest drivers are not good for me.
http://forum.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=33074
If you're not able to find a suitable older driver to try, I can mail it to you (just PM me if you need it), ca. 16 MB.
At least worth a try. It's not a lot newer than mine, probably the first supporting your card (Omega KX 1.4345).

Cheers, Cooper

 

[Kontrakatze]

Agent Cooper:
this sounds very promising. I think I'll start with your configuration as soon as all components arrived.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Good luck for your new machine !
As stated before, I'm still in the testing phase,. so take all that with a grain of salt.
I'll keep you informed should any problems appear (fingers crossed).
Cheers, Rhino

 

[Kontrakatze]

Thank you very much. Hopefully the biggest hazzle will be to install everything...

 

[Akis]

OK, for anyone with GeForce driver problems, here's the nVidia driver archive page:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_archive.html

After a few trials and errors, I found that 56.64 does the trick for me. Earlier versions cause stuttering on video/audio if I scroll with the mouse during playback, while later versions - at least from 61.76 and up - cause stuttering on video in general.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Hi Akis,
just saw you found a solution - great job !
Hope it will be another step to a stable system !
Feel free to ignore my mails - sorry it took so long, but don't start me raving about GMX ...
Have a nice sunday,
Cooper

 

[Akis]

Hey Cooper, thanks anyway!

Actually, I wouldn't mind having your driver version in my archive, as well, you never know... :wink:

BTW, I've only received part 3 so far.