Realtek High Definition Audio causing anyone audio dropouts? Will a sound card help?

You should invest in a higher quality audio interface that provides good ASIO drivers. That will definitely improve performance. As for what to get... that depends on what features you need and how much you want to spend. Cakewalk has an audio hardware guide here on their site, but those are just some of the choices available...
http://www.cakewalk.com/s...reader.aspx/2007013101

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

Thanks for your quick response, Scott. I know I need to get a real audio interface but life keeps getting in the way and making me use the money for more pressing things! LOL   I DO have ASIO4ALL v2 however and it helped me immensely. But do you have any experience with getting rid of dropouts caused by the internal sound setup? Also, if I installed the SB card that I have, would it "take over" the role that the Realtek stuff is playing?

Get an audio interface, they shouldn't cost too much over 100$.

fix problem = decent ASIO based sound card


asio4all is a wrapper = faking asio mode .. and hit / miss for users.. a gamble 

you come on here posting with a decent rig ? yet you don't budget for the most important part..  you could have cut back on some of the other stuff.. 

if you think that's blunt.. you're wasting our time AND your own by not sorting that out.. save up for a bit and buy something decent = your issues regarding that will be gone.. I use a saffire usb 6 on my laptop rig, that didn't exactly break the bank.

Hi titetrax,

A friend used one of those SB Xfi cards. There was lots of latency that he could never get rid of and ended up taking it back and got an Maudio Fast Track.

Your Realtek should work fine for playback, but recording will be a problem because of latency.

On my system thete is a very small amount that i can adjust the asio4all buffers before I start to get drop outs.

The Realtek and SB Xfi are reLly designed for playback. They can record, but they were never designed to do so via Sonar or simular software.

Disable your Realtek in bios before installing the SB.

Also, check to make sure you didnt set the asio4all buffers too much. That will cause dropouts. 

I'd sell one of those hdd's and get a decent audio card :)

Good luck. Hope some of this helps.

Bub

I thought I was losing my mind with the replies that I was getting. "When the **** did I say anything about latency?", I thought to myself! I'm sorry y'all. I meant to say that I'm having these dropouts ALL of the time. Not just while in Sonar X2. And it was happening on ALL three of my bootable drives(one for music, one for games, and one for other stuff) BEFORE I even installed any software. The dropouts only last about a second, and it seems like some scheduled task (update software?) is interrupting the driver or something. I have NO latency when I insert a softsynth and play my M-Audio KeyStudio. 
Now, to those of you who keep saying I need to buy an audio interface, I KNOW! I'd like the Mbox Pro or a RME HDSPe AIO WHEN I can afford it. But until then, I need to fix the problem. When I DO get one, will it replace the Realtek stuff ALL of the time, or just when I work on music? Because I'm tired of hearing the dropout when I'm watching movies or listening to mp3's in iTunes too. Thanks again! (formatting started trippin for some reason!)

titetrax


Thanks for your help but I can't afford to buy ANYTHING right now which is why I came to the forum for advice on how to FIX the problem. I can't be the only person experiencing audio dropouts from the Realtek driver so I thought someone here would have a fix(remove the XXXX driver file, uncheck the xxxx button, etc.). I guess I'll try the ASUS forum since my motherboard is from them. Try to remember in the future that BUYING a new this or that, has probably ALREADY occurred to a person seeking help and OBVIOUSLY wasn't an option. 

It needs to be an option.
No system is stronger than its weakest link. The Realtek is your weak link.
You have made a significant investment in software/hardware, yet ignored a crucial component. The Realtek is not suited to the task. Period.
You cannot haul two tons of bricks in a half ton truck.
You can check the ASUS forum if you want, but there is no fix for the Realtek.

Edit:Crossed posts. You should not be having general dropouts. Are you having problems streaming from your drives, or from the internet?
If internet, is your isp Charter?

Sort your attitude if you want any help - bragging about what you've done doesn't endear you to anyone else, possibly with the exception of your immediate family members.

The issue has been stated quite plainly - you've got a smoking hot pc, probably in excess of a couple of grands worth and you expect it to run on a 20 cent chip?

What did you spend all your royalties on?

Some more losers without anything constructive to say. Now fools want to tell me their musical listening preferences. I also recorded with Don Henley. Got something to say about that too? Must be my lucky day! LOL I just happened to look at another post that explained using an app called Latency Mon to uncover buffer underruns. Now I'm on the right track to figuring out the problem that's causing the dropouts. Do something constructive with your lives instead of trolling support forums and acting like you've got the right to tell someone what they need to get. When someone tells you they can't afford something at the moment, then you either work around that and help them find a solution, or shut the **** up.

Have you tried disabling any antivirus  software? Or firewall? Im pretty sure that the microsoft antimalware service is a known cause of choppiness in the realtek domain, so may be worth investigation. Anyway, you are on the right track using latency mon and although I agree with the general view that a dedicated soundcard is a much better prospect, you shouldn't be getting dropouts with the Realtek and its a solvable issue. 

Bibs

Good news that you are getting closer to solving it, keep us posted. 
I really like win8, its been more reliable for me than win7 was....not a lot, but enough to make the upgrade more than worthwhile.
 I would hesitate to recommend it though as it seems that some folks aren't so happy, but microsoft are handing out updates very quickly so i expect it to get some more fans in the near future.

ps props on Gangsta's Paradise, a true classic track and amazing production

Bibs

Also, if I install the Creative SB X-FI XtremeGamer sound card I have laying around, will that REPLACE the Realtek driver and give me some peace? Thanks in advance for any advice, y'all!  

Please take this response in the manner it was intended (constructive advice):
Trying to record/play pro level audio with the built in Realtek audio interface is akin to recording a world-class vocalist with a $5 mic from Radio Shack.

Assuming the rest of the machine is configured well (low/consistent DPC latency, etc), the Realtek drivers *are* the limiting factor.  ASIO-4-ALL is still using the Realtek's WDM driver... so you're not really circumventing the underlying problem.

Aside from the PC itself, the audio interface is the 2nd most critical component in a rock-solid DAW.
You'll never achieve a rock-solid system using the Realtek for this purpose.  That's what folks are trying to convey.


We all live within some means (no matter how meager or great).
If you're like most long-term musicians, you probably have a piece of gear or two lying around that you could liquidate to raise a small amount of cash.  ie: You could pickup an Audiophile 192 for well under $100... and that would solve the issue.  You'd have quality sound... and (even more important) a rock-solid driver.

If you always have dropouts, even during normal playback with media player, you can try boot some live Linux system (for example knoppix). If you do not have dropouts there it is some driver problem, if you do, nothing inside windows will help.

Try to disable all power saving features inside BIOS (CPU speed jumps, etc.). Also check that you are not overclocking (sometimes implicitly). Disconnect all USB devices you can.

The fact that using DPL you have narrowed the problem to NVidia driver does not exclude the possibility of other real reason.

If you try with XFi, do not forget switch the drivers into Audio mode. XFi can only help if by occasion your Realtek is on the same interrupt with something else and you do not know (or do not want to) change that.

yup.
I'll get me coat.

titetrax

Ever since I built my computer in January, I've had audio dropouts from the Realtek ALC892 8-channel high definition audio codec that came on my motherboard. 

These dropouts occur on all 3 of my bootable drives. 

I doubt your drop outs have much to do with the hard drives... just about any hard drive is fast enough to do lots of DAW work without a drop outs. Your problem is likely not related to the drives.

I'm wondering if one of the driver files is checking for updates or something and THAT'S what's causing the dropouts. 

I doubt that a driver is actually checking for an online update or something, but it is highly likely that some device is checking for something within the OS and simply stalling too long so that as your Realtek's sample buffer runs out the stall is experienced as a drop out.

Do any of you have any experience with stopping these dropouts?

Yes, and it seems as if you have the right idea... you just have to go through the system and turn off any service that is causing an interrupt. It could, literally, be anything. 

Also, if I install the Creative SB X-FI XtremeGamer sound card I have laying around, will that REPLACE the Realtek driver and give me some peace

It will not replace the Realtek, you'll just end up with 2 sound cards installed. They will not run in MME at the same time so you'll have to either run one or the other and set that up for each app that plays sound. The practical option is to go in to device manager and disable the sound card you consider the extra one. That "turns it off" so to speak.

Thanks in advance for any advice, y'all!  

Sometimes a person just wants to ask a question and get an answer to the actual queston. I think I understand where you are coming from.


I hope this helps in some small way.








One aspect of the Realtek drivers is that there is almost nothing you get to tweak... so the idea that tweaking the driver may help is not really applicable.


One thing to keep in mind is that the Realtek is not so bad as to always cause the types of troubles you are having... I have recorded with a Realtek on my laptop for the past 2 days. It had 84ms round trip latency rather than the 6ms on my actual DAW, but I got around that because it did indeed actually work without drop outs.


I point this out to explain that your computer must be unhappy with it's general set up... I doubt that, at this juncture, simply buying a dedicated sound I/O device will fix your problem. Once you do find the problems, wi-fi? Power saving? etc. etc. and fix all that then a nice new sound card will bring you lots of good benefits.


I think you can make the Realtek work OK and I think you should get that happening before you spend much more money on that computer.


I hope that helps as well.






Good luck.






best regards,
mike