stevec
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/21 18:15:28
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Regarding Catalyst, I can't recall if I said it in this thread or not, so I'll say it here: For a DAW, doing the full ATI Catalyst install is *not* recommended. Download the driver file set to a folder first, then use the Install Hardware wizard. When it asks to scan for the file, say No, and just point the wizard to the actual display driver file for the card (Browse and dig down to the sub-folder that contains the valid driver file). If you have already installed all of Catalyst (including Hydravision, which is crapware for a DAW), then it's best to first Uninstall the drivers, and then start over at the top of this paragraph. Well, since this thread is still going... Do you know whether the above applies to any MB/CPU combo? I just recently upgraded to a MSI KN8 (nForce2) / AMD 3000+ 64 machine, and did download and install the whole catalyst shebang. While I'm not seeing anything jump out performance-wise, if it could be better...  Edit: And coincidentally, I am using an SATA drive for audio, which is the main reason I'm in this thread. 
post edited by stevec - 2005/10/21 18:24:58
SteveC https://soundcloud.com/steve-cocchi http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=39163 SONAR Platinum x64, Intel Q9300 (2.5Ghz), Asus P5N-D, Win7 x64 SP1, 8GB RAM, 1TB internal + ESATA + USB Backup HDDs, ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB RAM + dual ViewSonic VA2431wm Monitors; Focusrite 18i6 (ASIO); Komplete 9, Melodyne Studio 4, Ozone 7 Advanced, Rapture Pro, GPO5, Valhalla Plate, MJUC comp, MDynamic EQ, lots of other freebie VST plugins, synths and Kontakt libraries
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soundsubs
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/21 18:19:28
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sorry digipenguin, im glad to see this topic/thread, as its a pretty widespread issue. this is of course a brand new bleeding edge dell im working with now.
the onboard graphics isnt agp or pci-e, its actually on the mobo. didnt know that when i bought it obviously. i will try the acceleration, thats a good idea.
i have an awesome matrox g450, but its agp. so now need either a pci version or the new 650 for pci e, as you said.
one question: you mentioned keeping the audio card off the pci bus if possible. if i get a pci firewire card, doesnt that make the audio card kinda still pci? just wondering if i should spring for something new.
i am still trying things, longing for crisp pure audio.
----------shane
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/21 20:11:12
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ORIGINAL: soundsubs
the onboard graphics isnt agp or pci-e, its actually on the mobo. didnt know that when i bought it obviously. i will try the acceleration, thats a good idea. Onbard graphics still use the AGP or PCIe interface. It's just hardwired in, physically bypassing the whole card slot, so you can't see it. So you still have one or the other, and since you said it was a bleeding-edge Dell, it's most likely PCIe. i have an awesome matrox g450, but its agp. so now need either a pci version or the new 650 for pci e, as you said. You'll be happy to know that Matrox also makes a P650 in PCI classic as well as PCIe. one question: you mentioned keeping the audio card off the pci bus if possible. if i get a pci firewire card, doesnt that make the audio card kinda still pci? Yes, definitely. At least with a PCI video card, you have a way to adjust your PCI latency down so that your audio card has a fighting chance. (Though you may not even need to adjust the PCI latency with a Matrox PCI card.) That said, you'll still most likely need to disable your onboard graphics adapter for it to have a prayer of working.
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Mandelum
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/26 08:34:51
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Well, first of all, thanks a lot losguy, you do a great job in helping people!!! I have exactly the problem you described! Clicks and pops when recording in ASIO, if I turn up the volume for my headphones and have a track armed for recording I can hear the pops too, constant popping, and if I try to record or play something it can get even worse! I have tried with most of hte things suggested in this thread! I have exactly the same MoBo as you losguy, a A7N8X Deluxe(don´t know how to see wich version though). The problem dissapears when I take the SATA drive away. The iRQ thing is confusing, because in windows and PowerStrip, there are no critical IRQ sharing but if you pause when the computer start and check the IRQs from 0 to 15, there seems to be lots of shearing going on, not a shearing between the silicon image and the Audio card tho. I was told on another place that this IRQ table tells the truth, so what should I do? it looks something like this: IRQ USB 1 controller 12 USB EHCI Controller 11 IDE Controller 14 Serial Bus Controller 5 Multimedia Device 12 RAID Controller 11 Network Controller 11 ACPI Controller 9 in windows tho, RAID is on 18 and the audio card on 17. My audio card is a Hoontech AudioTrack DSP24 Value with an extra bracket not using a PCI slot. I changed the audiocards slot position from 5 to 4 as you suggested, and I have no other PCI slots in use. I have updated my BIOS and my Silicon Image controller. I have WinXP Pro SP2. And finally I have tried tweaking PCI Latecys, I have hard to decide if the tweakig changes the popping slitely or if it dosen´t change a thing. At least I can not get the popping to stop. When I press the Apply button in PowerStrip it goes away for a couple of secs, and then retturns(if I have the track armed and headphone volume turned up). One thing I find odd though, my windows recognizes my SATA drive as a SCSI although it works well, I find it odd! It´s a Barruacuda maybe not properly installed because, seagates software DiscWizard didn´t work at all! So I installed it with Win Disk Managment. ¨ I have 1gb ram, AMD 2000+, and have not had any problems with having a 256 sample buffer, and even is I cange the buffer up to 4000 it dosen´t help... I have quite recently ugraded to my audiocards new E-WDM ASIO drivers wich solved many dropput problems, but I am thinking of downgrade, just in case it would help. I am also considering using the new SATA only as a BACKUP and unplug it when I want to make music, but it would be really unpractcal, and I bhought it especially for recording. Worth mentioning is also that I have two other PATA drives. Help in how to really optimize the PCI latecnys would also be greately welcomed, I find it rather difficult to know, what to increase and what to decrease! And do I have to reload my recordig application evry time I change a value? I have experimenting with most values, but I don´t know if I am doing the correct things... I am not in a ethernet but PowerStrip can set the value for a AsusTek Ethernet controller, I guess it´s the internet, what value should it have? I hav tried with 16 and 80 etc... What about DMA, is there some way o change DMA settings for the SATA? In the F.A.Q. of my audiocard they talk something about enabling DMA, but at least my IDE controllers are in the mode use DMA is available, should I maybe change that, to free up DMA bandwith for the SATA. I have no idea what i´m talking about, but you maybe do! My audiocard has the Memory Access checkbox unchecked in PowerStrip, could this be the problem? The default latency values where 32 for everything except the Dislpay device wich had the usual 248, and I am not even a gamer... Sorry for the long post, but I have lots of projects going on, and people who really need my studio now, so I´m really in a hurry finding a solution!!! Thanks a lot again for your great post!! Well, now I may have found the problem!! In Sandras PCI information PCI Bus 1(1/1x PCIClk) IS USED by both the Silicon Image and the audio card, yess, thisseems to be it!! But what should I do, the Sudio Card is already on slot 4, the optimal slot, should I change it to slot 3 or??? Sandra also told me that the motherboard version is 1.xx
post edited by Mandelum - 2005/10/26 09:09:20
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/26 12:35:54
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ORIGINAL: Mandelum
in windows tho, RAID is on 18 and the audio card on 17. This is the one that matters. This is fine, as long as nothing else are on 17 & 18. One thing I find odd though, my windows recognizes my SATA drive as a SCSI although it works well, I find it odd! Weird, but true. For the A7N8X (and many others), SATA looks like a SCSI device. But newer motherboards and BIOS's are changing, and SATA is taking on its own identity as a drive type. Help in how to really optimize the PCI latecnys would also be greately welcomed, I find it rather difficult to know, what to increase and what to decrease! And do I have to reload my recordig application evry time I change a value? I have experimenting with most values, but I don´t know if I am doing the correct things... Mostly, I'd look at lowering the graphics card to around 64, and raising your audio card to somewhere between 100 and 200. I am not in a ethernet but PowerStrip can set the value for a AsusTek Ethernet controller, I guess it´s the internet, what value should it have? I hav tried with 16 and 80 etc... Leave it at the default. (Is it 32?) You can read through this thread to find out how to revert PCI latencies back to default values in PowerStrip without upsetting the other values. What about DMA, is there some way o change DMA settings for the SATA? In the F.A.Q. of my audiocard they talk something about enabling DMA, but at least my IDE controllers are in the mode use DMA is available, should I maybe change that, to free up DMA bandwith for the SATA. I have no idea what i´m talking about, but you maybe do! DMA shuld be set at the highest setting available for all of your drives. IIRC, I think that you can control this in the SiI SATA config utility. My audiocard has the Memory Access checkbox unchecked in PowerStrip, could this be the problem? No. You should probably leave that alone. Well, now I may have found the problem!! In Sandras PCI information PCI Bus 1(1/1x PCIClk) IS USED by both the Silicon Image and the audio card, yess, thisseems to be it!! But what should I do, the Sudio Card is already on slot 4, the optimal slot, should I change it to slot 3 or??? No, this just means that you have multiple devices on PCI bus 1. That's what buses are for, they carry lots of things at once (sometimes many people at once). It's the IRQ that's the real issue. After all of this, it seems that it may be something else. The fact that you get pops just on input monitoring suggests that you either a) have pops in the audio source or b) you don't have a proper wordclock setting somewhere. For a) you want to bypass your audio card and just listen to all of your audio sources directly plugged into the amp/speakers and listen for pops. For b) you need to go into the control panel of your audio card and check the clock source and make sure that it is Internal (assuming that you have no other digital audio sources in your system). Also check your sync sources in SONAR Audio Options. Hope you get it resolved.
post edited by losguy - 2005/10/26 12:46:49
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Mandelum
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/26 20:00:27
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Thanks a lot for the fast reply!
I will check with your latency tip tommorrow!
I don´t think I can change the DMA in the SiI SATA Cofig, if you by that mean the one you should go to by entering Ctrl + S when the computer starts...
You still think I should not test any other PCI slot?
There are not only pops when I record, the noises and clicks also appears when I play something. And the problem totally dissapears when I unplug the SATA, so it can´t really be the audio source.
The clocksetting is internal, yes!
And it can´t be anything with the settings in sonar, because the problem dissapears without changing a thing, if I unplug the drive...
But still I can´t even record on the old drive while I got the SATA plugged. So for me I seem to have only two solutions left, sell my hd or unplug it and use it as backup...
Thanks for your time, i totally appriciate your help! All new ideas are welcome!
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 00:23:54
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ORIGINAL: Mandelum
Thanks a lot for the fast reply!
I will check with your latency tip tommorrow! You're welcome! I don´t think I can change the DMA in the SiI SATA Cofig, if you by that mean the one you should go to by entering Ctrl + S when the computer starts... No, I meant the one you find in Start > Programs. But I may not be remembering that right... it may be where you go in Device Manager > SATA > Properties. You still think I should not test any other PCI slot? Not necessary if the two devices are already on their own IRQ's. There are not only pops when I record, the noises and clicks also appears when I play something. And the problem totally dissapears when I unplug the SATA, so it can´t really be the audio source. ... The clocksetting is internal, yes! ... And it can´t be anything with the settings in sonar, because the problem dissapears without changing a thing, if I unplug the drive... Ah, yes. This part is much clearer now. Yes, it is most likely an unsavory interaction between the SATA controller driver/hardware and your audio card driver/hardware. This is the most likely culprit, especially if the PCI latency tweak doesn't help. This was definitely going on with M-Audio cards. In that case, there was no remedy, because either SiI or M-Audio needed to rewrite their driver, and neither one did (too isolated an issue, I guess, though you wouldn't think so in M-Audio's case). But still I can´t even record on the old drive while I got the SATA plugged. So for me I seem to have only two solutions left, sell my hd or unplug it and use it as backup... A third option would be to go get a SATA PCI interface card with a Promise controller on it, but by then, you'd maybe be better off saving up for a newer A64 MOBO. A fourth option would be to try a different audio card (just not M-Audio, see above).
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Mandelum
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 08:07:50
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No, I meant the one you find in Start > Programs. But I may not be remembering that right... it may be where you go in Device Manager > SATA > Properties. Well I can´t find anything in start > programs and in the device manager I can´t change anything with the SATARaid Controller Your Latency advice, sadly didn´t help! I guess you are right, really sad, I got so happy when you talked about your 44-track scenario, and you did have the same mobo as me, so I thought I could maybel get it solved... how much does a SATA PCI interface cost? are there big differences in quality? do you have to buy a Promise? A new motherbord, deffinately, NO! A new audiocard, maybe, but they aren´t cheap, and I don´t know what I would gain, I had perfect latecys with the one I have, and I don´t need more than 96/24 recording, and I really do not need many inputs... So I guess I will just use the new SATA as a BACKUP, because I need the space and I do not have any PATA inputs left... :(( BTW, when I tried to downgrade my soundcard drivers it helped the problem slitely, but it didn´t solve the problem...
post edited by Mandelum - 2005/10/27 10:03:52
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SteveD
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 10:41:26
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Just want to pop in here to say Losguy rocks. Can I get an Amen? Carlos... Thanks for all the help you provide to everyone. Very much appreciated. 50378 hits and counting!
post edited by SteveD - 2005/10/27 10:52:07
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 12:15:11
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Thanks, Steve. Coming from you, that means a lot. Edit: Wow, just blew by the 50K mark and didn't even notice. I guess the forum server doesn't send you a little "Award Email" like eBay does wen you reach some new level. (Actually, the real secret is that I just paid my son to load the page 50,000 times...  ) Blessings...
post edited by losguy - 2005/10/27 13:29:45
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 13:09:38
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ORIGINAL: Mandelum
Well I can´t find anything in start > programs and in the device manager That might be a utility that you have to install separately. Your Latency advice, sadly didn´t help! Sorry to hear that. I guess you are right, really sad, I got so happy when you talked about your 44-track scenario, and you did have the same mobo as me, so I thought I could maybel get it solved...
how much does a SATA PCI interface cost? are there big differences in quality? do you have to buy a Promise? Because Promise uses different hardware and drivers, it may play better with your soundcard. They may provide utilities to set the SATA controller card's hardware for lower demand on the PCI bus as well. However, there is no guarantee that your soundcard will not still be uncooperative. BTW, when I tried to downgrade my soundcard drivers it helped the problem slitely, but it didn´t solve the problem... This is the strongest indication yet that it is an issue of your soundcard drivers not playing well with your SATA drivers. The hardware could probably be made to cooperate with the proper drivers. I wonder... when you say that you updated your drivers to E-WDM, did you use the drivers from st-audio? Check out this and this (clik "Download" on the left frame). Where you are confusing me is that earlier you said you used ASIO, but these are WDM. The WDM and ASIO drivers are completely different sets of audio device drivers, and SONAR handles them differently. You can access an audio card with either, but SONAR will use only one to talk to a particular card. If you were using these latest drivers but didn't use the WDM in SONAR, maybe you should give this a try, again, with the latest drivers. According to st-audio, after they bought out Hoontech, they rewrote the drivers from the ground up as E-WDM. Oh yeah, if you use WDM, you will want to make sure and profile your soundcard in SONAR Options > Audio (should be done after any change to the soundcard config, and it's easy to forget to do). If you have indeed tried the latest drivers as both WDM and ASIO in SONAR to no avail, then there may be one other option: ASIO4ALL. I have read some great things about this solving all kinds of problems with soundcards, mostly aimed at achieving low latencies, but it could help here (again, assuming that you've already tried WDM in SONAR to no avail). I haven't tried ASIO4ALL myself, hadn't needed to, but may someday because it is interesting to me to see if I can reduce latency without increasing CPU overhead. From what I understand, though, you will want the latest WDM drivers for your card installed. It works with the drivers and does some special things to increase performance. If this works where straight WDM didn't, then you could be famous. A new audiocard, maybe, but they aren´t cheap, and I don´t know what I would gain, I had perfect latecys with the one I have, and I don´t need more than 96/24 recording, and I really do not need many inputs... So I guess I will just use the new SATA as a BACKUP, because I need the space and I do not have any PATA inputs left... :(( Yeah, maybe try a few more things to see if this card can be made to work with your existing SATA hardware. But if you do relegate yoru SATA drive to backup duty, then you should put it into an external USB2/Firewire enclosure. That's where real backup drives belong. Oh yeah... that reminds me... another fallback option for audio is to use an external enclosure for the audio drive through USB2 and Firewire. Do a search of the term "SATA" authored by Freakwitch. He had success Reclaiming SATA for audio with this method. (IIRC, Freak had an M-Audio card and SiI SATA.) Blessings in your efforts... keep in touch...
post edited by losguy - 2005/10/27 13:32:48
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Dirk Diggler
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 16:55:48
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Hey Losguy, big respect for an amazing thread which I’ve been following for a couple of weeks now. I’ve managed to get rid of the pops and cracks in my SATA set up though I keep getting some serious sloppy timing when recording!!? I’ve noticed the CPU meter keeps peaking momentarily every couple of second when recording a track and I think that’s where the timing/MIDIclock also going wrong when syncing to some out board MIDI gear. I’m using two SATA drives for a none Raid configuration (one for project the other for storage) which show up as SCSI on the device manager, I’ve altered latencies with PowerStrip (got rid of those pops n clicks) and installed the Windows KB888111 audio driver update for service pack 1 which helped a little. I used to run everything with ASIO when I just used softsynths in real time but have found WDM a little more stable when recording audio which is annoying cos the timing was rock solid in ASIO mode just with those annoying pop and cracks. The Delta is running at 256 buffers, 128 and I get dropouts, 512 and I get serious recording latency. My fear is the drivers for my M-audio Delta 2496 are not being cooperative with the SiI3114 SATA controller. There are no IRQ conflicts and I’ve disabled any unnecessary devices such as USB controllers. I seem to get slightly better results when increasing the buffers in the main audio page from 2 to 8 but this is by no means perfect and the latency isn’t good for an AMD64 DAW. Its feel like I’m half way there but I’m slowly running out of ideas and I find it hard to believe my AMD64 is running out of steam with recording just two tracks although the CPU peaks are a clue I think. I’m seriously considering a new motherboard at this point. Please help and save what little hair I have left!!  AMD 64 3200 754 socket Abit KV8-Max3, Via K8T800 chipset, SiI3114 SATA onboard controller X2 512mb Corsair TwinX 3200 low latency CAS 2 Maxtor 40G system drive WD 80G + 120G SATA audio drives M-Audio 2496 Matrox 550 dual head gfx
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Dirk Diggler
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/27 20:13:52
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Quick update; Switching back to ASIO with 512 buffers on the soundcard has produced some quite solid results!!! The dreaded CPU spikes are still there and I am worried how this is going to affect a number of plugins running in real time when a project starts to get more complex but I’ll tackle this hurdle when I get to it. I’m not too happy about only getting 11.5sec latency with an AMD64 when using a 512 buffer size but its something I can live with until a new motherboards on the cards unless anyone out there is getting better results with a SiI3114 SATA controller?
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/28 00:20:18
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Yeah, Dirk. If you can find a SATA port on that MOBO that is not going through the SiI then you'll be far better off. If not, then you're one of the unlucky ones who got a first-generation SATA solution on an AMD64 MOBO. Unfortunately, SiI and M-Audio don't mix; it's a known issue.
In that event, I did identify a few possible workarounds in my post to Mandelum above, including ASIO4ALL, or possibly using an external USB2 enclosure for your SATA audio drive. ASIO4ALL worth a try first because it's free. It would be great to know if it actually helps with this sticky issue. Otherwise, the USB2 solution has been tried and works. If you have onboard Firewire on the chipset (not hanging off the PCI bus), then all the better. You can then use a Firewire external enclosure.
Wishing you the best in your efforts...
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oldsneakers
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/28 13:23:10
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Hi losguy. I'm looking for some advice on a motherboard I was thinking of getting. I own two 248 Opteron processers and am trying to find a motherboard to put them in to make a decent DAW. There are only 3 that I know of with an AGP slot. The Tyan Tiger is the most affordable. Here is the logic diagram: http://brindaven.com/tiger.jpg What would be the best setup for peripherials with this board? It looks like just about everything is on the PCI bus. Would it accomplish anything getting a dedicated SATA card? Seems not with it still on the PCI bus. I own a M-Audio 192 sound card and a Matrox AGP G450 video card. Whats the best storage hard drive solution with this board? BTW, the manual for this board does say that it supports Ultra ATA133, not the 100 shown in the diagram. Thanks
post edited by oldsneakers - 2005/10/28 13:41:15
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/28 14:43:28
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Hey sneaker, With that MOBO I would either go straight IDE, or if you go SATA for audio, I'd attempt a Promise controller card or an external USB2.0 or Firewire drive solution for your audio drive like one of these. The Promise controller is not guaranteed to work, but it might. This particular enclosure gives you a choice of FW or USB2. But if you haven't bought your drives yet, your options are open. In fact, you could use an external enclosure with a regular IDE drive.
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oldsneakers
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/28 15:32:27
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Thanks for the advice. Just curious, since that diagram shows the USB2 and Firewire coming off the PCI bus, how do they have an advantage over a SATA PCI card?
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Dirk Diggler
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/28 16:00:35
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ORIGINAL: losguy
Yeah, Dirk. If you can find a SATA port on that MOBO that is not going through the SiI then you'll be far better off. If not, then you're one of the unlucky ones who got a first-generation SATA solution on an AMD64 MOBO. Unfortunately, SiI and M-Audio don't mix; it's a known issue.
In that event, I did identify a few possible workarounds in my post to Mandelum above, including ASIO4ALL, or possibly using an external USB2 enclosure for your SATA audio drive. ASIO4ALL worth a try first because it's free. It would be great to know if it actually helps with this sticky issue. Otherwise, the USB2 solution has been tried and works. If you have onboard Firewire on the chipset (not hanging off the PCI bus), then all the better. You can then use a Firewire external enclosure.
Wishing you the best in your efforts...
Cheers for the advice losguy tho it seems that sadly the SiI3114 controller is all the KV8 has and ASIO4all was worth a try but shows the Delta’s input/outputs as ‘beyond logic’.  Although I can now get some stable(ish) results whilst recording, listening to playback whilst recording is still a big no no with the Delta 2496 which isn’t exactly what I forked out on an AMD64 for.  Is the SiI 3114 any good for audio and is it just the AMD64 equivalent to the SiI3112 that you yourself have used so successfully? It looks good on paper if it wasn’t for the Delta 2496 messing things up.  Getting an external USB SATA controller would almost be as costly as getting rid of my KV8 for something more compatible. I’m now in two minds about getting rid of my current mobo for an MSI KN8 which would mean losing all the Abit KV8’s excellent overclocking features and dual bandwith RAM (for which I bought some Corsair TwinX DDR400 especially) or just upgrading my soundcard (not M-Audio) as I could do with some extra inputs in the long run. Any recommendations?
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/29 00:10:19
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ORIGINAL: oldsneakers
Thanks for the advice. Just curious, since that diagram shows the USB2 and Firewire coming off the PCI bus, how do they have an advantage over a SATA PCI card?
Sorry, that'll teach me to quickly scan a diagram while working on something else! You're right, on that board, there's no advantage since they hang off of the PCI bus. And if their PCI latencies cannot be adjusted, then there may be a disadvantage. As long as the storage is hanging off of the bus and not piped directly into the chipset, there really is no guarantee. It seems that I recall others using that card successfully, but then again they most likely were not using SATA.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/29 00:27:13
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Dirk, according to this VIA K8T800 blurb, the chipset supports SATA directly. And according to the manual for your MOBO, SATA ports 1 and 2 are the ones you want to use. The SiI SATA controller drives SATA ports 3-6, so if you're plugging into any of those ports, you should switch to SATA ports 1 and 2. Do let me know if that helps...
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oldsneakers
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/29 12:40:42
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One last question losquy. I had asked this before on this forum and didn't get a response. The Sonar manual recommends a dedicated drive for storing the WAV files and another drive for the OS and Sonar. Do your recomendations on how to combat the crackling and poping with the various remedies you have given here apply to both drives? Or can I keep the OS and Sonar on a SATA drive on the PCI bus and the Audio stored on an IDE drive and avoid the crackling problems? (this is assumming I can't get the Promise SATA controller to not crackle) Thanks once again.
post edited by oldsneakers - 2005/10/29 12:59:46
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 00:21:39
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sneaker, that's a very good question. Since the OS/apps are presumably being accessed much less than the audio drive, it is possible that the popping would be less using IDE for audio and SATA for OS/apps. But that would voice the title of this thread, and is therefore not even an option and must be ruled out completely. Actually, it may work in theory, but in practice even a single access to the SATA drive could result in a pop since the controller is bursting data as fast as it can and thereby clogging the PCI bus. Even if it only for a relatively short time, if the audio card can't handle it, well, you know the rest.
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oldsneakers
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 08:41:27
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Lol. I thought you were losing it there for a minute. It will take me a while but I am going to try these different configurations and I will report back here what I find. Thanks again.
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soundsubs
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 08:46:03
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just wanted to update this for logging in case someone else runs across it.
the short story: i purchased a new dell poweredge sc430 (intel pentium d-820) with sata drives. this has an onboard graphics card, 2 pci slots and 3 pci express slots. just as a sidenote, this is a great performing system with pretty good stats on the sonartest file. its pretty tough to find much info on this system on the web (mobo, chipset, etc)
i wanted to use a layla 20 bit for it, but i was getting the clicks and pops. reading this whole thread--- i tried everything, including standard pc (which didnt support the dual processor), changing irq's (no help), adjusting latency on the pci bus (no help, even got worse). i upgraded and downgraded drivers (i love echo for keeping drivers up to date for a 5 year old soundcard). i did not try using an ide drive, which may have solved the problem.
the only thing that mattered at all was adjusting screen resolution, when i took it down to 800x600, it seemed to greatly reduce the annoying clicks, but they were still there.
on a whim, i installed an emu 0404 i had laying around, and it worked flawlessly, no clicks or pops no matter what i did.
so i decided to take some advice here and get a pci (not pci express) matrox card. i got this in the mail friday and installed it and updated the drivers, to no avail--- still pops and clicks. so i decided to abandon the layla and just use the emu now until i can gather whether or not i should get some other soundcard for more ins/outs. one of these days, i'll likely pick up a pci-e 1x matrox g550 card, but thats later. im going to get back to making music!
thanks to losguy for all the help here, wish i could have solved this.
---------shane
anyone want to buy a layla?
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Dirk Diggler
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 12:47:54
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ORIGINAL: losguy
Dirk, according to this VIA K8T800 blurb, the chipset supports SATA directly. And according to the manual for your MOBO, SATA ports 1 and 2 are the ones you want to use. The SiI SATA controller drives SATA ports 3-6, so if you're plugging into any of those ports, you should switch to SATA ports 1 and 2. Do let me know if that helps...
I didn’t realise the first two port on my mobo were controlled by Via’s own chipset and not the SiI 3114!  Anywayz I’ve connected the two drives to SATA ports 1 and 2, installed the Via drivers (latest ones from Abit.com) and disabled the SiI SATA 3114 chip in the bios, uninstalled the SiI drivers. I noticed whilst using to monitor mix in on the soundcard that whilst still glitchy was much better than before but sadly the recording pop’s and clicks were still creeping in as well as the sloppy timing. I decided to go the whole hog and create a ‘0’ stripe array with the two SATA drives (80G + 120G meant losing 40G on the second drive tho) using the Via Raid software. Although the RAID was set up successfully I didn’t have anything coming up in ‘my computer’ as another drive which got me a little worried. Using the Computer manager I found the Raid array as one drive but not formatted as a functional drive so on with the format and I soon after had a new drive E showing up next to my main C IDE drive. Changing all the files on Sonar to the new drive and recording revealed the dream I’d been after for ages which was rock solid timing and absolutely none of the dreaded pops or clicks. When recording the CPU meter never went any higher than 30% and even though I’ve found having 512 buffers on the Delta stable, the latency whilst everything is playing together (external MIDI and recorded audio) is so tight they were phasing with each other so that’s my hard drive issue solved YIPEEEEEEEE! The only slight problem now is some little crackles when using the monitor mix on the soundcard whilst recording and listening to the tracks previously recorded.  However none of these noises ever end up on the recording and I’m still experimenting with PowerStrip to iron this out. I suppose at the worst the little crackles are only there when recording and are very subtle so its nothing major at this point. I’ll report any results after I’ve fiddled about a bit. Big thanks losguy for your time and advice. YOU DA MAN!
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 18:58:52
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ORIGINAL: soundsubs
just wanted to update this for logging in case someone else runs across it. Thanks for the update. the short story: i purchased a new dell poweredge sc430 (intel pentium d-820) with sata drives. this has an onboard graphics card It's most likely PCIe onboard, as your chipset is PCIe. i did not try using an ide drive, which may have solved the problem. With PCIe, this is not a guarantee. the only thing that mattered at all was adjusting screen resolution, when i took it down to 800x600, it seemed to greatly reduce the annoying clicks, but they were still there. This is a big clue that your graphics are getting int he way of your audio. on a whim, i installed an emu 0404 i had laying around, and it worked flawlessly, no clicks or pops no matter what i did. This is a remarkable find. It means that the audio hardware and/or driver can be implemented in a way that is robust against Quality of Service dropouts on the CPU device I/O bus, such as those caused by graphics bursts. That, because the audio card is the only thing that you changed. so i decided to take some advice here and get a pci (not pci express) matrox card. i got this in the mail friday and installed it and updated the drivers, to no avail--- still pops and clicks. so i decided to abandon the layla and just use the emu now until i can gather whether or not i should get some other soundcard for more ins/outs. Question: When you had the PCI matrox card in, did you disable the onboard graphics adapter in the BIOS? Does the Dell BIOS allow you to do this? This would have a critical impact on the effectiveness of this (possible) solution. Also, when the Matrox PCI card is in, you will probably need to (still) optimize the PCI latency timers for the PCI graphics and the audio card. thanks to losguy for all the help here, wish i could have solved this. Appreciate your efforts. Hope you can still solve it.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/30 18:59:56
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ORIGINAL: Dirk Diggler
Big thanks losguy for your time and advice.
YOU DA MAN!
You're most welcome! Blessings...
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Nash
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/31 16:10:32
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Hi everyone, new user here. :) Nice to meet you all!
Before I begin, I'd like apologize if my problem has been solved before. My current situation is that I have recently built a new DAW, but quickly found out that I couldn't start recording because it isn't working the way it should.
I have several recording projects this week, starting from tomorrow, and am very desperate for answers and "quick fixes". I'm really afraid that if I don't get my DAW working now, my clients are going to get very upset with me...
I have tried my best to read every post in this thread, starting from page 1, to see if I can find answers, but I got really exhausted when I got to page 3. :/ I've done several searches too; I couldn't really find the answers I need.
So once again, sorry if this has been answered before, but I am really stumped by this problem I have. Okay enough of the introduction. :) So basically, what's my problem?
I'm having problems recording audio to SATA2 disks.
Firstly, here's my setup:
*Pentium 4 640 3.2 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache
*Intel D945PSNLK motherboard, onboard Firewire (Texas Instruments), 8 USB 2.0, onboard LAN, onboard audio (Sigmatel audio codec), PCI-e x16 graphics slot
*1 GB RAM (512 x 2 DDR2 667)
*HIS (some Chinese company) ATI Radeon X700SE PCI-e graphics card
*Two 160 GB Western Digital SATA2 hard disks
*LG DVD-RAM DVD R/W drive
*MOTU 828 MKII audio interface
*Sonar 3.1.1
When I try recording to the SATA2 disks, it drops out immediately. Someone told me to check if the SATA2 controller is sharing resources with anything. I checked my System Info and found that IRQ 19 is assigned to the SATA2 controller, the PCIe bus and a USB 2.0 controller. Could this be the problem? How would I get around this problem, then?
I don't have any other devices/PCI cards connected to my computer other than the ones I listed above. The Firewire is onboard, and so are the SATA2 controllers (?). I really don't know what to do. On top of that, the Intel BIOS software is pretty useless. I have the latest BIOS flash.
A temporary solution I've tried and semi-works, is to stick in an old 40GB IDE hard disk. It would record fine on that, but it's a really old disk and is kind of on its way out, and I really don't want to gamble my music on that disk. Even if the IDE disk is new, it doesn't really solve my problem because the mobo has only 1 IDE channel, and the IDE I stick into the IDE master has to be the ONLY drive on the IDE channel. If I try to put the DVD drive, Sonar will dropout while recording.
So, losguy, how can I get my SATA2 disks to work for recording? I kinda feel that I've wasted money buying two 160 gigs of SATA2 disks, only to find that I can't use them. :/
I'd really appreciate any help on this. :) Thanks in advance!
- Nash
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juca
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/10/31 17:46:44
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Hi Nash:
Although I haven´t a motherboard as the your, I read the Intel specifications for that MB and saw it have four SATA channels directly controlled by the ICHR7. Had you tried to connect the SATA drives in other slots (by example: if you are using slots 1 and 2, try to use slots 3 and 4).
Other point which you can to try is in the BIOS setup. Reboot the machine and enter in the BIOS setup pressing DEL (or F2, I don´t know what the key your system use). Go to the PCI autoconfiguration entry and verify if it´s setted to AUTO. If no, put in the AUTO mode, save the changes and reboot the machine. Make a test and verify if the problem persist.
If I had a similar MB I could to offer a better help, but I haven´t. So, at this moment, this is my modest try of to contribute. Sorry if you already did try this and if my statment isn´t the more appropriate.
Good luck.
****** Juca Nascimento ******
Keyboards/Composer/Arranger
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/11/01 15:09:47
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Hi Nash, ORIGINAL: Nash
I'm having problems recording audio to SATA2 disks. ...
*Intel D945PSNLK motherboard
*MOTU 828 MKII audio interface
...When I try recording to the SATA2 disks, it drops out immediately. ... IRQ 19 is assigned to the SATA2 controller, the PCIe bus and a USB 2.0 controller. Could this be the problem? How would I get around this problem, then? This could be a problem. Getting around it is a little tricky, since the IRQ's are assigned dynamically. I'd second what juca said. Moving to different SATA ports should also change the IRQs for the SATA, since the board does assign different IRQs to the SATA port pairs. You could also first try to free up IRQ's by disabling any unused onboard devices like Serial/Parallel ports, Game port, and onboard audio, or possibly the Firewire and/or certain USB ports. Beyod that, the Technical Spec for this board indicates on page 22 that the SATA interface supports both Legacy and Native mode for SATA. I'm not sure what they mean by this, but the Native mode apparently does away with using IRQs and I/O space, and is also recommended by them for use under Windows XP. I didn't find in the Spec where this mode is selected, but it could be in the BIOS or under an Advanced tab or button in the Device Manager for the device. I don't have any other devices/PCI cards connected to my computer other than the ones I listed above. You didn't indicate what IRQ your (PCI?) audio card is on, and what other devices it shares with, if any. A temporary solution I've tried and semi-works, is to stick in an old 40GB IDE hard disk. It would record fine on that, but it's a really old disk and is kind of on its way out, and I really don't want to gamble my music on that disk. Even if the IDE disk is new, it doesn't really solve my problem because the mobo has only 1 IDE channel, and the IDE I stick into the IDE master has to be the ONLY drive on the IDE channel. If I try to put the DVD drive, Sonar will dropout while recording. As a last resort, you should be able to stick an IDE audio drive as a Slave to your OS/apps drive (Master). But really, this board ought to support SATA audio without any problems. HTH, and good luck...
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