Weird X58A-UD3R Crackling problem.

I decided to redo my Windows 7 install and clean up a bunch of projects etc.
So anyway, I thought I put things back the way they were but apparently not.

After about say 3 minutes of playing Ivory, Dimension, Tru pianos, it doesn't matter what, I start getting weird crackling corresponding to pressing or releasing keys on my MIDI controller which is a Roland 150. It doesn't matter if I hit one or 10 or how hard or fast, it just makes crackling noises as if latency is set too low. Raising the latency to 128 samples makes it better for a while but then it starts again.

The kicker is, it doesn't start until somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes of playing, but once it does, it won't go away until I restart the program or play with the latency settings.
I tried Reaper with same results.
The Ivory standalone Cantabile does the same thing.

My DPC is like 10usec no spikes and this system used to run 64 samples all day long without breaking a sweat until I screwed with it. I had just defragged my samples drive and thought that was the problem.
It wasn't.

Anyway, I noticed if I played the keys using the on screen keyboards, it worked fine. Hmmm, sounds like an audio problem but could it possibly be a MIDI problem?

I  discovered the Cakewalk UMG2 MIDI was plugged into one of those USB3/SATA combo ports on the back of the board. Moved it over to the USB 2 port and BINGO, no more crackles.

Why?
Beats me..
Task manager shows nothing happening when it starts so I'm at a loss.

I remember someone else posting a similar thread where crackling started after a certain time, almost like clockwork, so I was wondering if this might help that person.
Of course I can't find the thread.
I can never find much with the search engine here.

Any ideas?

P.S. USB is set to "always on" BTW.

Hey Beagle !

Yea, that's what I'm thinking. The thing that gets me is how it starts like clockwork after say 3 minutes or so of playing. That's the weird part for me. At first I thought maybe the port was going into low power or maybe something Windows 7 was doing software wise was kicking off, but I couldn't find anything obvious.

I'm glad it's fixed though because it was surely one of the weirdest things I have seen in my 30 years of playing with and building computers.

This system is really powerful and should be able to easily play one soft synth.

The audio card Delta 66 shares IRQ with numerous devices, including the Network controller, but it doesn't seem to matter at all.
For example when I got it working, I started a transfer of 100 gig of files off my network server, Windows task manager Network Tab was pegged, everything else barely moving, I was able to load up Ivory and play to my heart's content at 64 samples without a tick.

Pretty impressive!

A weird problem though, I'm glad it's fixed!

@Fred
Thank you for the confirmation and good information!
Yea, I didn't even think twice about it when I was plugging it back in after reloading the system.
I just kind of filled up USB ports as I picked up cables.

I can tell ya though that as a test (I'm brave!) I plugged the CW MIDI interface back into the USB3/Combi port and sure enough after about 3 minutes of perfect playing at 64 samples, the crackling returned.

Moral of the story is, keep the CW MIDI interface on a USB 2 dedicated port, at least on the 58A-UDR3 board.

Enjoy! and hopefully this thread will help some other poor soul!