[FINALY SOLVED] Dropouts during RECORDING (and ONLY recording)... ????????

I made it - thanks to you, guys.
 
Below (under stars) you'll find history of the problem, here you'll find WHY I had this problem and HOW I solved it.
 
I have pretty new and deamly fast (for AMD standards) computer:
Phenom II 1100T @ 4,1gHz, Gigabyte Motherboard with 990X chipset, 8gb DDR3/1600gHz RAM, SATA II 500gb hdd, SATA3 1tb hdd.... TWO graphic cards: nVidia GT440 (ddr5), Radeon HD 4350 (ddr3)
MOTU 828 mk3 interface......
 
FIRST I started to play Sherlock Holmes: why oh why I have dropouts ONLY when recording?
(suspects:)
- IRQ sharing
- too many onboard and additional cards (COM, 2xgraphics etc)
- VIA chipset on motherboard
- mess in WIN7 / drivers
- eeeee..... SONAR???
 
SECOND I launched Latency Checker to see if I have problems with system/hardware itself (withoud running Sonar) - all seemed to be OK. WITH Sonar - all seemet to be OK (so I was confused)
I've turned OFF all the external controllers, but it wasn't better, I turned OFF every unnecesarry onboard devices (COM port) and processes (LAN wake-up, USB wake-up, energy saving etc).
 
REMEMBER - I had dropouts only during RECORDING - not during processing live sound using Sonars mixer and efx
 
THIRD - after little chat here and advice of one of user - I looked very closely at BUFFERS. Advice was to INCREASE disc buffers in AUD.INI. But it gave me nothing!
 
In moment of desperation I went into advanced settings of system / disc managing in WIN and turned buffering OFF - it was WORSE than earlier.
 
FINALLY: I went again to AUD.INI, and:
1. SET the DISC BUFFER = 256
2. SET REC DISC BUFFER = 256
3. SET buffering (these two lines in AUD.INI above 1. and 2.) = 0 - all two parameters!
you will find these two lines above points 1 and 2 in AUD.INI file
 
AND SUCCESS!!!!!! No dropouts, no problems, everything works as it should!!!
 
IT LOOKS like Cakewalk developers made some strange default settings, which don't correspond with fast processors and HDDs..... And THAT WAS A PROBLEM!
 
ONE MORE TIME:
 
THANKS for all of you for your help and advices
 
*************************************************************************
 
Hi,
 
I have another problem. First I was thinking that interface was broken, or becaue of USB2.0 connection, then - I was thinking that it's because too slow computer.
I've change computer (as in signature), I bought few days ago new MOTU interface (this time FireWire) and this problem still exists.....
 
But now - I don't really know where the problem is.
 
I have dropouts, but ONLY during RECORDING. This problem disapears when in Console all channels are in ECHO ON mode (to play external instruments and using Sonar as a mixer / FX processor).
 
I tried wih empty project, just withaudio tracks only - no VST at all, no ProChannel.
 
Any ideas how to fix it?

??? do you mean - don't overclock computer's CPU?

try looking into your recording buffers in queue.or your interfaces driver(asio)is more likely the culprit

You dont need to go into the aud.ini file to change the ASIO buffer. you can do it via your MOTU control panel or inside sonar's preference menu

VIA FireWire..is the iuuse as stated use TI chipset firewire card !!

also you will have to turn off the via firewire in the bios. if
you need directions ask.. no problem !!

I just made an order for PCI FireWire card with TI chip - we will see in few days if it will help.

LATENCY CHECKER shows "all greens", so I'm little confused, because everything seems to be OK, but there are drops on RECORDING (not playing or processing using PC or VST FX)....

I'll try to update BIOS (it's a pretty new motherboard).

ABOUT UA-1000 and X1 - no problemo - you can download WIN7/64 drivers and go with minimal latency 96 samples, moreover patchbay is very usefull. And you can do 2 mixes using patchbay and switch between them.

But now I use UA1000 as ADAT expansion for MOTU. And it's a breeze to make them work together, there are no problems with synchro using dedicated (self made) cable, but....
I'm little dissapointed, because UA1000 works in ADAT mode only ONE DIRECTION at once - as a AD converter or DA converter:
* AD: Analog inputs to ADAT (with direct outputs to its analog outputs)
* DA: ADAT inputs from MOTU to Analog OUTPUTS of UA1000.

I don't think I'll sell UA, in a fact if I'll find another one for the price of first (+/- 150$) - I will buy it to get another extension - or I'll buy Behringer ADA8000.

@ StarTekh
Here you have link to MoBo

[link=http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3901#sp]http://www.gigabyte.us/pr...-page.aspx?pid=3901#sp[/link]

I know how to flash/upgrade BIOS, so it won't be a problem for me.

BTW. I've added a (found somewhere) FW card with non-VIA chipset, but the problems with dropouts during recording weren't disappered. During PLAYING BACK and using Sonar as a software mixxer - no dropouts.
Maybe something wrng with SATA hard discs? But even after defragmentation - no better results.
Latency checker shows that everything should work fine......

Tomorrow I expect that new FW card will come to me, but unfortunatelly I have two gigs (parties) to play on fiday and saturday, so I think I'll be able to do some tricks with computer on sunday.

Glad you got the problem fixed, but PlaybackI/O buffer size and Record I/O buffer size is set to 256 by default.
 
You must have tinkered with those setting before and forgot. :)

in the fact one f users adviced to INCREASE recording buffer, but it gave no result.

in AUD.INI file,  ABOVE this line  (buffer size), are two lines with default values "1" and they (i think) concern using buffers.
I've just set those two lines values to 0, and now IT WORKS as it should be.

What interesting - I had similar problem with dropouts earlier, with Edirol M16-DX interface, that was main reason I've changed interface to MOTU.

So I can only suppose that after these little changes in AUD.INI there will be no problems with Edirol too.........

weird.......

I don't have TI FW card, pal :P

I've just ordered one, but I still wait for delivery :P
 
AND: read carefully - I didn't had any problems with interface, transfer, playback and processing - ONLY RECORDING.