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HELP! My UAD Cards are causing my Audio to run like a DAWG

Fairlight

Venerated Member
Hi all,

I recently bought a new PC case (Antec P180) and trasnferred the guts from my old case to this swanky new one... In the process, I disconnected everything (including PSU), but upon putting it all back together I am having problems. Everything runs fine until I add a UAD card (I have two).

I have a project I was working on (in Sony Vegas 6) before the new case and continued working on it with my new case. I have 8 plugins loaded and (with both my cards installed) I am well within my UAD CPU limits, but I get VERY bad stuttering of audio and slowdown of playback. Sometimes it's subtle clicks n stutters, but mostly I'm unable to work with. It is horrendous how badly it chugs audio. It often causes fatal crashes to my system, shutting XP down, but this mostly happens when quiting Vegas or shutting down system soon after quitting Vegas.

I thought this might have been a Vegas issue, so loaded SX. Same problem, everything is fine until a UAD plugin (even one low CPU plugin) comes into the equation.

My system was PERFECT until I swapped cases, I use the same hardware, so nothing has changed. Somehow, though, my BIOS reset itself when I swapped cases, not sure how, but it did so was wondering if there is something in there I need to set. Everything seems to be in order, so I'm lost with what to do.

I have even swapped the cards about, added one at a time, etc, etc, but the results are the same.

Hopefully someone on here can help me :D

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,
Peter
 

Suntower

Established Member
May I suggest that there might be a grounding problem, or some slight short-circuit?

Over the years, I have had several gremlins magically disappear simply by removing the Mobo and re-mounting--=taking extra care that there are no elements touching things they shouldn't touch. And conversely, touching all the things they -should- touch.

---JC

PS: Sometimes, a bit of jiggling of cards helps too. The friction mount on PCI cards is often far from a sure thing. Sometimes, when they look and feel properly seated, they aren't making the best electrical connection.
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
Before plugging anything into the PCI buss take a $100.00 dollar bill, fold it abd rub it on the gold contacts. It will eliminate any static.

You may have damaged your PS durring the transfer. Sounds like the UAD-1s are drawing to much power.

Reconfigure your BIOS to the way you had it before.

I had an issue like yours once. I took my PC apart and blew it out with a can of air. Put it back together amd BAM!!!!! Fixed.

Did you flip your PS from 220 to 110 or vica versa, on accident?

Maybe one of your RAM chips isn't fully seated.

Another time I had something happen and it was from a little screw inside the power supply. It was causing the PS to put out to much power and it ended up damaging the MOBO... Weird..

Good luck
 

chris perra

New Member
Check your irq settings, in the transfer you may have too many things on an irq, messing with the bandwidth.

I had a grounding problem once in a transfer but my card just didn't work at all.

A little bending of the front slot metal peice, \"not the gold contacts\" but what goes into the case slot. and i was good as new.
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
Suntower said:
May I suggest that there might be a grounding problem, or some slight short-circuit?

Over the years, I have had several gremlins magically disappear simply by removing the Mobo and re-mounting--=taking extra care that there are no elements touching things they shouldn't touch. And conversely, touching all the things they -should- touch.

---JC

PS: Sometimes, a bit of jiggling of cards helps too. The friction mount on PCI cards is often far from a sure thing. Sometimes, when they look and feel properly seated, they aren't making the best electrical connection.
Thanks... I gave the MoBo a close inspection and everything appears to be seated correctly, but I will dismount it and try this too. Thanks...

Peter
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
imdrecordings said:
Before plugging anything into the PCI buss take a $100.00 dollar bill, fold it abd rub it on the gold contacts. It will eliminate any static.

You may have damaged your PS durring the transfer. Sounds like the UAD-1s are drawing to much power.

Reconfigure your BIOS to the way you had it before.

I had an issue like yours once. I took my PC apart and blew it out with a can of air. Put it back together amd BAM!!!!! Fixed.

Did you flip your PS from 220 to 110 or vica versa, on accident?

Maybe one of your RAM chips isn't fully seated.

Another time I had something happen and it was from a little screw inside the power supply. It was causing the PS to put out to much power and it ended up damaging the MOBO... Weird..

Good luck
Hi,

How would I know if I damaged my PSU? It's only a month old and appears to be working fine... It's also multi-voltage (as far as I know, I will check), so it auto selects the voltage.

With regards to my BIOS, I really don't know how it was before. It took some tweaking though to get all my drives working correctly, but I feel it took me a while because I was uncertain what I was doing.

I'll try some of the other advice you gave.

Thanks,
Peter
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
chris perra said:
Check your irq settings, in the transfer you may have too many things on an irq, messing with the bandwidth.

I had a grounding problem once in a transfer but my card just didn't work at all.

A little bending of the front slot metal peice, "not the gold contacts" but what goes into the case slot. and i was good as new.
As far as I know the IRQ settings in BIOS are set to auto...

Cheers,
Peter
 

secretworld

Active Member
when the bios resets it also enables the serial ports, paralel port maybe onboard audio lan etc disable everything you don´t use, that will also chqange the irq´s
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
Hi,

I have the new s/w (4.6) and bought the Helios EQ, as you do and loaded up the project I had been working on in Vegas. The problem was the same, BUT, in my Master Channel, I changed the 33609 to the 33609SE and it worked PERFECTLY, so I switched it back to the regular 33609 and juggled things about a bit, but without a great deal of luck although better. The 33609 seems to be the main problem.

I only have 6 plugins loaded over 2x cards:

1x 33609 (Master Channel)
1x 1073 (Master Channel)
1x Plate 140 (Send)
1x Dimension D (Send)
1x Cambridge (Insert)
1x 1081SE (Insert)

I thought if there is a CPU spike or overlimit, it gives you a warning, but I did notice (depending on how I juggled the plugins) one of the cards CPU was spiking at over 100% from time to time.

P
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
Fairlight said:
I thought if there is a CPU spike or overlimit, it gives you a warning, but I did notice (depending on how I juggled the plugins) one of the cards CPU was spiking at over 100% from time to time.
You could limit the DSP usage to a value like 95% in the Performance Meter, in order to avoid this from happening.
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
Akis said:
Fairlight said:
I thought if there is a CPU spike or overlimit, it gives you a warning, but I did notice (depending on how I juggled the plugins) one of the cards CPU was spiking at over 100% from time to time.
You could limit the DSP usage to a value like 95% in the Performance Meter, in order to avoid this from happening.
Hi Akis,

It is set to this! :?

Cheers,
Peter
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
Peter,
I'm showing huge Cpu spikes with the 33609, in SAM V9.
See here: http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums/viewtopic.php?t=7028

I have yet to find a way to solve it completely. Other than using Sam's Hybrid Engine mode seems to solve the munching, but increases Native Plugs CPU usage.

I know you don't have SAMPLITUDE, but I thought this might be of some aid. Seeing that it's a problem with the 33609 and not your PC.

Of course, this doesn't happen in any Steinberg applications.:roll: :)

Peace.

-Scott
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
Hi Scott (and the others who contributed),

I learnt a few things today...

1) My Motherboards PCI Slot 2 doesn't like any of my UAD cards (maybe other cards, but I've not checked). Previously, in Cubase SX any UAD plugin load caused glitches, crackles and pops. I moved them all down one slot and the problem has been cured (well, sort of.. See 2).

2) The problem in Vegas wasn't necessarily the UAD plugins / cards, but working at higher sample / bit rates. This added to the PCI slot issue and you understand how bad this was... I was working at 24 Bit / 44.1 kHz and if I increased these figures (24 bit / 48 Khz) this magnified the stuttering and playback issues. The more you up them, the worse they get and vice versa. Makes sense, yeah?

Playing back the project with SE versions of plugins I was using (Neve 33609, 1081, etc) was 1,000,000 times better, although still not perfect, unless I lowered the sample rate... Maybe I have too many tracks playing for my CPU / Soundcard to handle (56 tracks).

Now this makes me think, is this a problem with Vegas or UAD? If I use:

(a) the non SE versions at my regular project rate (24 bit / 44.1 KHz), I experience these problems
(b) the SE versions at the same project settings as (a), it works fine
(c) the SE versions BUT increase the project sample / bit rates (24 bit / 96 KHz), I get the same problems as a)

It looks like, to me, that Vegas doesn't like anything above 44.1kHz or maybe this is just because of how intesnse the project is with audio (56 tracks).

I will experiment again tomorrow, with a simple project edit, and try these theories.

Cheers,
Peter
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
I'm sorry..
It always seems funny to me to see people just now discovering IRQs in Windows and their PCI slots....
I guess I've been doing this so long, I just assume you knew.
My bad..
Also, with single core processors, you often have to disable Hyperthreading in your Bios. Solved my hiccups. Also making sure all PCI devices had their own IRQ in Windows and not the Bios.

sounds like you are on to something with the high SR and Vegas
Good luck :)
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
imdrecordings said:
I'm sorry..
It always seems funny to me to see people just now discovering IRQs in Windows and their PCI slots....
I guess I've been doing this so long, I just assume you knew.
My bad..
Also, with single core processors, you often have to disable Hyperthreading in your Bios. Solved my hiccups. Also making sure all PCI devices had their own IRQ in Windows and not the Bios.

sounds like you are on to something with the high SR and Vegas
Good luck :)
:D

The BIOS is set to AUTO for the IRQ / PCI stuff, so assume Windows picks these out for me.

Slot 1 is actually being over ruled with my AGP GFX card, so the next available PCI slot is 2 (which, for some strange reason, doesn't like my UAD cards (maybe others)), so the 2x UAD cards are being used on PCI Slots 3 & 4 respectively, while my Delta 1010 PCI card is occupying PCI Slot 5.

I was planning on buying a 3rd UAD card soon, but looks like it's going to be pointless.

Cheers,
Peter
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
Same boat as me...

I was going to get a 3rd card, but have no place to put it. Looks like we are running very simalar boards.

NOt to make you do extra work but...
Try putting the sound card in the 2nd slot and the UADs in 3 and 4. The 5 PCI slot still shares with the AGP (some times)... weird I know. Any time you see a mobo sharing AGP and slot 1 you can bet that 5 is thrown in there or it's sharring with the USB controller. Which will cause problems if you are using a USB keyboard, Mouse or Dongle.

So far 2 slot-SoundCard and uads on 3 & 4 work great for me. Try disabling Hyperthreading in the bios as a test.. Worked wonders for me. Only thing that suffers is Native Processing. No biggy.

Late
s
 

Fairlight

Venerated Member
imdrecordings said:
Same boat as me...

Not to make you do extra work but... Try putting the sound card in the 2nd slot and the UADs in 3 and 4. The 5 PCI slot still shares with the AGP (some times)... weird I know.
Hi,

I actually think this is how it was previously, although I don't recall if this was when it was working fine (pre new PC case) or during my recent problem. I'll give it a go, to at least verify if it's ACTUALLY the PCI slot that is faulty (is this possible?).

Cheers,
Peter
 
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