Horrible noises

I've had this problem now for a few years and it drives me mad and I've reached the point where I have to do something about it.
 
My sound card is a USB focusrite scarlett 2i4 but was having the same issues with my old Emu 0404 Pci card.
 
I have jut set up windows 10 and for the first few days the problem seemed to have vanished much to my delight but sadly it seems to have returned. It probably has something to do with some software that I have installed but I have no idea what!!??
 
Okay, so to describe the problem, for years I've had trouble with pops and crackles that come and go and have never been able to find the culprit, could it be my graphics card, usb devices or network card. If it's usb devices what the hell am I supposed to do since I use them all and need them running? Buying a new graphics card didn't resolve the issue.
 
The pops and crackles are bad enough but when I've had them and ran DPC Latency checker it's always been way up in the red
but this particular problem seems to go un-noticed by latency checker. What happens is that my audio suddenly runs at half speed or less and is horribly distorted. Here's a link to a sound sample I just recorded using my phone (http://www.mediafire.com/listen/8hvyrhsdcbw2dx8/rec_20151014-1129.mp3)
 
The sample your hearing is, (believe it or not) Rehab by Amy Whinehouse.
 
I'm not sure I've ever heard of this problem before but it seems to be quite frequent and usually happens shortly after booting up.
Rebooting, it does seem to go if I reboot or wait a while but takes quitea long time and when you're in the middle of recording or mixing it's immensely frustrating. As I said, when I had this just now I ran DPC Latency checker and it don't report any issues so I'm a bit flummoxed.
 
Hopefully the link will work and the filter won't assume it has some evil intent.
 
 
Steve

Doktor Avalanche
What are your ASIO buffers and project bitrate set at?

 
This isn't a sonar issue, it effects all audio from youtube to windows media player or whatever.

Use latencymon rather than dpc latency checker. You can nail it down to problem drivers. Other good tools to download are process monitor and process explorer.

 
Not installed it in windows 10 yet but have used it for years in windows 7 and always gives conflicting info but frequently shows issues with usb drivers which begs the question, why me and no one else?

Latest version of Sonar has an issue, if you disable in preferences 'allow arm changes during playback/record' that should save some CPU cycles.

 
Not a sonar issue

Advice is generally (no particular order)...

1) Update mix control to latest. I strongly recommend removing old version and rebooting afterwards. Then when new one installed reset the settings everywhere for it first.

 
Not required for the 2i4 so not used

) Temp disable your virus scanner. Before you do that though scan for your system for viruses and malware. Ie with AVG and Malwarebytes.

 
Always do, virus scanner is always off line and usually scan when booted or when closing down.

3) Make sure your audio interface is disabled in windows control panel sounds

 
Will try it but am not keen as it's the only device I have to poay audio through so wouldn't be able to play music or watch videos

4) Make sure the interface is plugged in USB2 socket.

 
Not trying to be funny but, it's a USB interface, where else am I going to plug it in?

5) Defrag.

Will try it, I've had, Perfect Disk installed on my windows 7 machine for years which defrags when no other processes are running but haven't installed it yet on windows 10 but this is a new instalation.

6) Update your display drivers

done

7) Update the rest of your drivers and firmware everywhere. eg controllers.

I'll check but I am always very up to date with drivers and this being a new installation of windows 10 has meant driver updates have been essential.

8) Disable unnecessary startup programs and services. Remove unnecessary applications from windows add/remove programs.

I've done this for years although there are some microsoft services I'm never too sure about killing/disabling.

9) Update your motherboard chipset (try Intel driver update site) and BIOS

 
Always a bit scared of doing that, p[artly because this is an overclocked machine that was built by a bespoke audio company and I'm concerned that updating bois will over ride those settings that I have no idea how to configure manually.

10) Check windows event viewer for bugs.

never done this before but where and what exactly should I be looking for?

11) Try deleting AUD.INI (google for details)

Not a sonar issue

12) Check windows device manager. Can you disable any drivers you don't need? eg HDMI drivers.

 
Will have a look see.

13) Check task scheduler to make sure nothing is running whilst using your DAW.

 
You mean apps and not services presumably? No, nothing else running.

Cheers...

 
Thanks for the suggestions and will try the ones I've not tried already.
 
 
Steve

14) Make sure CPU in windows power settings is set to 100 - min/max. Optimize your drivers for power management.

Are you saying it should be set to 100% maximum and 100% minimum?
 
It's currently set to 100% maximum and 5% minum

15) If you have ASIO4ALL remove it!!!

Tried it years ago and never again.
 
Steve

I would assume from your comments above that once you had found on a prior Windows version that you did not like ASIO4ALL that you haven't installed it on the Windows 10 build.
 
I myself never point Windows to use my audio interface drivers - I either use a small set of PC speakers connected to the audio output jack on the back panel of the computer, or more often connect my HDMI output from the computer to one of my HDTV's, and let the sound play through the TV speakers that way.
 
Even if you are pointing to your audio interface, is it running in ASIO mode?  For a short time, I tried having Windows also share my audio interface, and I recall also there being an issue where I had the interface using one sample rate and bit-depth, but Windows was configured to use 16-bit 44.1, and I had to alter the Windows settings to match how I wanted to run.  I ended up choosing to never again have anything but Sonar or stand-alone synths access the audio interface.
 
IF your computer happens to have a WiFi adapter - I would urge you to try something, as lots of folks have issues with DPC Latency spikes coming from their WiFi.  Just prior to running sound, disable your WiFi adapter in Windows Device Manager, or turn it off if there is a switch or function key to do so.  Then, stream your sound or launch Sonar.  When finished with your audio session, then you can enable WiFi again or turn it back on.  Again, if you do not have WiFi this will not apply.
 
Lastly, I always have my processor minimum state set to 100%, so that it never runs at anything other than full tilt.
 
I myself have had several computers that could be overclocked, but I choose to never myself do that.
 
Bob Bone
 

I have this problem intermittently also. If I restart the computer, it usually goes away. But it usually ends up coming back as I work on a project. It's been going on for years with me too. I just chalk it up to something I'm doing.(or not doing)

twaddle
 

9) Update your motherboard chipset (try Intel driver update site) and BIOS

 
Always a bit scared of doing that, p[artly because this is an overclocked machine that was built by a bespoke audio company and I'm concerned that updating bois will over ride those settings that I have no idea how to configure manually.

This is important, and one of the likeliest causes of your problems.  Many motherboards allow the user to backup your current BIOS settings in case you need to restore them later.  Call your DAW builder and have them guide you through it if possible.   Either way, what's more important to you, having an OC'ed machine that's giving you grief, or a non OC'ed machine that's working great?  I would worry more about getting this issue fixed, then later, you can see to OC'ing it again.
 
Also, don't assume that because you've upgraded to Win 10 and have all the updates, that you're good to go.  Odd as it may seem, sometimes you need to go to Intel or your graphics card manufacturer, etc. to get their latest drivers.  I would absolutely check your Intel chipset and your video drivers to make sure they are the latest.

A couple of further suggestions.

Make sure cpu core parking is switched off (registry setting, google will find it for you).

Disable the E(whatever) cpu sleep states in BIOS.

Both the above result in Windows either slowing the cpu down or in the case of core parking shutting down cores and switching the load to fewer, more heavily loaded, cores then switching cores back on when the active ones run out of steam. Neither are noticable using the office applications, photo processing or even gaming, but can mess up real-time audio or video processing very badly.

Windows was never designed with real-time processing of anything in mind and these power-saving "features" don't help in the slightest.

fireberd
The DPC Latency Checker is invalid for Win 8/8.1/10.  They have a note on their web site and for the last couple of years say they are working on an update but they have never produced it.

Latencymon is better anyway...

fireberd
Latencymon is better, but it can "overload" you with data and sometimes hard to digest it all.

Not really, just go to the drivers tab, sort it in order of dpc and Bob is your uncle. That's the data you need (something the other util isn't very good at). Unfortunately you do need to digest that info if you need to get to the heart of the matter... not much choice..

Oh wow. I just listened to your sample, Steve. How horrible! You have my utmost sympathy.
 
This probably isn't a DPC latency or USB issue. I would have suspected the audio interface, but you've already eliminated that possibility when you experienced the same problem with two interfaces.
 
If it is a hardware problem (not my first guess, though) then there's an outside chance that your CPU is overheating and dropping the clock speed in self-defense. It wouldn't hurt to open the case and give it a thorough cleaning, especially the CPU heatsink and fan (you may have to un-snap the fan from the heatsink), as well as the power supply fan. If you've never done that before you'll be shocked at how much dust can accumulate in there, especially if the computer's sitting on the floor. It's not unusual for the gaps between the heatsink fins to become completely stuffed with dust, cutting its efficiency in half.
 
I assume you already have the motherboard's integrated audio disabled. If not, that's worth a try. It sounds like you're already using your Focusrite for YouTube and movies and such, so you don't need it to be enabled anyway.
 
More likely, this is going to turn out to be a software problem, perhaps a background process or even malware. First, get a copy of Process Explorer if you don't already have it (even if you do have it, it was updated earlier this year so you might want to grab a fresh copy). Run it when everything's going smoothly to make a list of what's normally going on. Procexp has an export feature (Ctl-A) that lets you save all the details into a text file.
 
When the problem next shows itself, run Process Explorer again and export the data so that you can do a detailed comparison between the OK state and the Not-OK state. Look for processes that are consuming a lot of memory or CPU, and process that weren't running when all was working well.