UAD & NForce3 motherboard AthlX2 - pops and glitches

[solarisus]

HEllo,

It's a while that I use all that wonderfull stuff of UAD-1 and actually, i've never had any problem at all!!! Always super stable, great sounding and just state-of-art hardware/software combination. Until...

Until i decided to upgrade to Athlon X2 to give me some more horse power.
Sorry, i didn't take a look on that forum before, 'cuz as I've said, it has never never given me any negative emotions I wish I would...

My new configuration is:

Athlon X2 3800+
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939
2 Go of DDR 3200 RAM Samsung
Matrox P750
1 IDE Drive + 2 SATA
Plextor DVD-RW 708A
Adaptec Fireconnect plus PCI
US Robotics TurboPCI Wi-FI G
M-Audio Firewire 410

I own other 2 computers working 1 - with Gigastudio 2 - for extra power via FX-MAX

The problem is pops and glitches in any host software just when i add a UAD plug-ins. And I've tried everything, reading this forum:

1. Disabling TurboDMA mode
2. Trying every single pci slot of my motherboards - sometimes, when sharing occuried, it was just worse
3. Trying every buffer size on my M-Audio card
4. Reverting to v3.9 of UAD software

Nothing helped 'til now. I mean, the rendering works fine, but it's a real hell to work in multi-track when you hear constantly those pops and so, all day long, while working on your music piece.

Do you have any suggestions? I mean, not just changing motherboard I'm really faithfull to ASUS but I didn't find a NForce 3 chip motherboard in their gamme, so I went for gigabyte.

Thank you in advance for your help!!!

 

[pvnuk]

I had exactly the same problems you describe and almost exactly the same computer.

I was actually able to fix the problem by stepping back to version 3.9 and now everything works as before.

Hey UA change your web site...Version 4 is buggy with N Force 3 chipsets as well!!! Not just N4's.

Paul

 

[solarisus]

Ah! Ok, thank you for reply, pvnuk. It's always reassuring to know you're not alone in your problems ......

Yet, I didn't have so much luck as you did by steping back to the previous version. It definitely reduced considerably my pops, but they still appear like little sparkles one or twice a sec.

Though, I will try to clean up completely uad drivers and then reinstall since the beginning.

 

[solarisus]

Oufff... I have just done all the cleaning work, with the proper uninstall procedure etc.... and going back to 3.9

Well, the bad news is that it hasn't worked for me at all. The same pops and clicks and even worse. SOS! I really have so many projects in cue and just can't use uad 'cuz it drives me crazy! As I've said, the rendering still works fine, but can you imagine me while mixing? poor my ears! :|

 

[franYo]

If spending some money is not a problem you could get an nForce4 mobo, A8N-E is a good choice if you like ASUS, a SLI version is good too, plus a PCI Express FW card to remove your FW audio card to a separate bus.

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=1&pid=999

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=1&pid=1013

This combination has been working well for me.


Franjo

 

[solarisus]

Thanx for the tips, Franjo!

But acually, UA warns UAD has some problems with NFroce 4 chipset. And there's not a lot of PCI slots on A8N-e, i still have a lot of pci and don't wanna give up with pci yet! I mean it will cost me a packet to change everything ((((

 

[franYo]

Yes, I realize UA are advising not to use NF4, however, the combination as described in my signature has worked well for me. UADs have the legacy PCI bus to themselves, and audio card is on its own bus too. That's the great thing about PCI-e architecture, multiple busses.

However, if you need more PCI slots, that's another matter. In that case your best bet would be ASUS A8V, if you can still get one, that is. There's a number of people here using it with success and UA have been using it for their in-house testing too. You might experience some problems if you are using a TC Powercore card though, and if that's the case I'm afraid there isn't a known solution working reliably with Athlon64 X2 CPUs. If you haven't already, you might want to try messing with one of the PCI latency tools, see if it helps any.

Franjo

 

[h4nc0]

Hey fran,

What kind of latency can you successfully run on your setup? I am also thinking about upgrading to NF4 board for more powerful graphics card, and wondered if I would be able to get similar audio performance I am currently getting on my NF3 Ultra setup with 2x UAD-1s. (As you probably know, I can do 64 buffer without pop/crackles on my setup.)

 

[franYo]

Hey h4,

With FireBOX I get clean playback with Thonex II at 2ms. 1.5ms gives me crackles, but no droputs. 2ms equals 80 samples, however, like all FW devices FireBOX adds some additional latency, in this case this is 32 samples, so the actual total playable latency is 112 samples. If I'm not mistaken Fireface adds 64 additional samples so 112 samples is actually an excellent result for a FW device.

With my old Terratec EWX24/96 card in a regular PCI slot I get clean playback at 64 samples.

When UADs are employed latency needs to be raised a bit. Depends on a project. I find that 6 ms is a good compromise most of the time. For example Thonex II with UADs loaded to 90% plays back fine at 6ms.

Franjo

 

[h4nc0]

Thanks, I will have to look into a NF4 board soon then. Hopely it will work as well as yours.

BTW, do you know if it's safe to get those SLI boards?

 

[franYo]

Hmm.. I forgot to update my profile... I'm running ASUS A8N-E now. Anyway, about the SLI thing, I think it'll do just fine. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't. In fact, those few people I've seen running NF4 boards successfully (on Cubase.net mostly) have opted for a SLI version, usually ASUS.

Franjo

 

[h4nc0]

I think I will go with ASUS A8N-SLI Premium. Do I have to get Firewire card or will I be able to use 2x UAD1s and Adaptec 8300 FW800 (PCI) card together without problem? If I need to get a PCI-E FW card, which one do you suggest?

thx~

 

[franYo]

You definitely need a PCI-e FW card. Your Fireface has to be on a separate bus. UADs on NF4 will not work properly if they share the bus with the audio card. That's from my own experience and others' too. I have personally tried two different PCI audio cards (Terratec EWX 24/96 and E-MU 1820m) and couldn't get rid of the crackles completely no matter what I did. Terratec worked better, but some slight crackles were always there, more so at lower latencies. Also, check this thread:

http://chrismilnecom.winstemp.com/uadfo ... php?t=3426

11th Records uses an ASUS SLI board and Firepod, see his experience with onboard FW.

I use this FW card:

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=14&pid=999

It's working great, comes with lifetime warranty, cost me about $55.

They have an 1394b version now too:

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=14&pid=1013

Franjo

 

[h4nc0]

Thanks!

 

[winnie_pooh]

... I am currently getting on my NF3 Ultra setup with 2x UAD-1s. (As you probably know, I can do 64 buffer without pop/crackles on my setup.)

Hi h4nc0,

that sounds like that you are using a NF3 chipset without pops and crackles. What is your actual setup? Are you still using the MSI K8N Neo2 Plat together with RME Fireface or RME HDSP, 2x UAD-1 together with an AMD X2?

As you may know I’m using the following setup with which it is possible to max out the UAD-1's up to 97% UAD CPU load:

/*/ MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
/*/ MSI BIOS 1.C3MOD
/*/ Athlon FX55
/*/ 4x1GB OCZ4001024ELDCPE 200MHz CL2.5-3-2-5
/*/ 2x IBM IC35 80GB PATA1 & PATA2
/*/ 1x WD Raptor 740GD SATA1
/*/ 1x Maxtor Diamondline III 300GB 7B300S0 SATA2
/*/ Matrox P750 with xp2k_110_01_002_se_u driver version without .Net PowerDesk
/*/ 1x RME HDSP Digiface PCI_1
/*/ 4x UAD-1 V4.0 PCI_2 to PCI_5
/*/ WinXP Pro SP2
/*/ Sonar 5.0.1 PE

The Matrox .Net driver gave me a lot of trouble since I installed the 4GB of RAM. Using the Win2003 Server driver version without .Net PowerDesk resolved these issues.

The question now is what will happen if I change the AMD FX55 to an AMD X2 4800? Do I have to expect a lot of pops and crackles?

Or is it possible to run this setup with the RME Fireface with the mobo’s FW400 port or with a PCI FW800 card?

Thanks for any comments.

 

[h4nc0]

that sounds like that you are using a NF3 chipset without pops and crackles. What is your actual setup? Are you still using the MSI K8N Neo2 Plat together with RME Fireface or RME HDSP, 2x UAD-1 together with an AMD X2?

The question now is what will happen if I change the AMD FX55 to an AMD X2 4800? Do I have to expect a lot of pops and crackles?

Or is it possible to run this setup with the RME Fireface with the mobo’s FW400 port or with a PCI FW800 card?

Thanks for any comments.

Hey,

Yes, I am using MSI Neo2 Platinum with X2 4400+ without pop/crackles, sort of. The system works at 64 buffers with Fireface 800 if there's only a few UAD1 plugins used.

When the UAD-1 usage meter goes up, I have to change the buffer to 128 buffers. Strange problem is that if I increase the buffer setting to higher value such as 256+, the pop/crackles will actually become worse. So, I am stuck at 128 buffers, but is it perfect without any glitch? No, Fireface 800 will show a few dopouts (error count) at that setting when UAD-1 is pushed more than 80%. The dropouts are very rare, but it's there.

My system has 4 SATA HDs and I need them all. Currently, I have two Raptors on the SATA 3/4 ports (as you already know port 1,2 aren't locked so I can't overclock) on Nvidia SATA and the other two on SI3112 PCI board along with Adaptec Firewire 800 card. That's 4 PCI cards which, I believe, is probable cause of the problem. The reason I am looking at NF4 system is that I can isolate UAD1s on the PCI bus, and use PCIe Firewire card for Fireface 800 on the PCIe bus, not to mention the SI3112 that I can get rid of when I have 4 SATA ports on NF4. Now, I am not so sure if this will work as well as I am hoping, but this is my only way out, I think. And I am also readying for 30" LCD upgrade that can only be used with latest PCIe VGAs.

Anyway, back to your question, you won't be able to run Fireface 800 on the onboard FW controller. I had problem with dropouts on mine. Will you have pop/crackle with X2 CPU? I don't know, but I wrote what's happening on my system above, so take a guess.

 

[winnie_pooh]

Thanks for your reply h4nc0!

When the UAD-1 usage meter goes up, I have to change the buffer to 128 buffers. Strange problem is that if I increase the buffer setting to higher value such as 256+, the pop/crackles will actually become worse. So, I am stuck at 128 buffers, but is it perfect without any glitch? No, Fireface 800 will show a few dopouts (error count) at that setting when UAD-1 is pushed more than 80%. The dropouts are very rare, but it's there.

As per FF800 manual – explanation of the error string page 89: Due to insufficient buffering within FireWire controllers, single peak loads on the PCI bus can already cause loss of one or more data packets. This is independent of the manufacturer and no RME problem. The FireFace 800 features a unique data checking, detecting errors during transmission via PCI/FireWire and displaying them in the Settings dialog. Additionally the Fireface provides a special mechanism which allows to continue record and playback in spite of drop-outs, and to correct the sample position in realtime.

My system has 4 SATA HDs and I need them all. Currently, I have two Raptors on the SATA 3/4 ports (as you already know port 1,2 aren't locked so I can't overclock) on Nvidia SATA and the other two on SI3112 PCI board along with Adaptec Firewire 800 card. That's 4 PCI cards which, I believe, is probable cause of the problem.

That’s a though setup and may overload or hog the PCI bus! Have you ever tried using SATA1-4 of the mobo without overclocking?

And I am also readying for 30" LCD upgrade that can only be used with latest PCIe VGAs.

Meanwhile I went with a triple head configuration with 3 Eizo S1910 and everything is much more convenient to work with than before.

Anyway, back to your question, you won't be able to run Fireface 800 on the onboard FW controller. I had problem with dropouts on mine. Will you have pop/crackle with X2 CPU? I don't know, but I wrote what's happening on my system above, so take a guess.

Actually there seems to be nobody who has tried an AMD X2 on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat together with a RME HDSP card and UAD-1 cards as far as I’m aware of in a more simplified PCI setup than yours. In theory and based on the assumption that the UAD-1 V4.0 PPI’s are bug free regarding NF3 chipsets, in your case the SI3112 controller and the Adaptec Firewire 800 card can cause these hiccups in your setup. This theory is supported by the explanation in the FF800 manual. I think guessing will not lead to the required results and trying will cost a fortune without having the possibility to ‘recycle’ the X2 somehow. Going the NF4 route will be tricky as well considering the reports which I have seen up to now. I have also asked UA support about these unclear issues with the NF3 chipset but haven’t received any reply yet. I would appreciate just to change the CPU and stay with MSI K8N Neo2 Plat for now because I have no issues with it at the moment.

 

[Akis]

Actually there seems to be nobody who has tried an AMD X2 on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat together with a RME HDSP card and UAD-1 cards as far as I’m aware of in a more simplified PCI setup than yours.

I have and it's a complete disaster, totally unusable. Works fine with PoCo PCI Classic/mkII, but not with UAD-1.

 

[winnie_pooh]

I have and it's a complete disaster, totally unusable. Works fine with PoCo PCI Classic/mkII, but not with UAD-1.

Could you elaborate your testing scenario any further? Have you ever contacted UA PC support in this regard? I received an answer from them which is not satisfying at all and states in general the items below appended with my comments:

1. The only problems of which they are aware of are related to NF4 chipsets. This indicates a clear contradiction to your statement.
2. Recommendation of a VIA chipset but not saying which one. At least one forum member was not satisfied with VIA if I remember right (pops&crackles). No recommendation of a specific mobo i.e.
3. Recommendation of a PCI firewire card but nothing specific at all (which model i.e.). I assume if the usage of a firewire audio interface is intended. ‘Someone’ in this thread has reported something different.

No comment about NF3 chipset or the specific mobo which indicates that they haven’t any clue about this chipset which is easy to understand – they may have only one VIA chipset based PC from ADK yet.

Sorry Sirs but this is not my understanding of customer support. If you are in hole stop digging. I expect really something different and more competent from UA regarding their UAD-1 PPI product. The time seems to be very close that they are getting outdated with their PCI design if they are not in a position to catch up with the newer technology available to their customers giving recommendations avoiding clear statements.

 

[Akis]

I've been in contact with them regarding this matter since the start of October. At first they had told me that the then upcoming v.4.0 would fix the problems with X2 across the board, so NF3 shouldn't be an issue. Of course, it was an issue, so I immediatelly contacted them describing the situation. Their QA guy was absent at the time, so I had to wait till he came back to receive real support. Well, I had to wait long enough that I had already switched to an ASUS A8V Deluxe when they came back to me...

Look here for more info.