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).

Hi juca,

Thank you SO MUCH! That worked like a charm! I was able to smoothly record 24/96 right away after moving the SATA2 disks to slot 3 and 4! Jeez, I can't believe that all it took was to move the disks around. I was literally pulling my hair the last few sleepless nights trying to get them to work.

Thank you so much, juca. You really saved me, and more importantly, the clients were happy because the session went bug-free. :)

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.

Hi losguy,

So does that mean if I can configure the SATA interface to use Native mode, I can use ports 1 and 2 without problems? Not that it really matters now, because I've fixed the problem by just moving the disks to ports 3 and 4. But I'm just curious. Thanks for the info though; I'll poke around in the BIOS and Device Manager to see what I can find...

You didn't indicate what IRQ your (PCI?) audio card is on, and what other devices it shares with, if any.

My audio card is a MOTU 828 MKII (http://www.motu.com/). It connects to the PC through a Firewire port. I connect the MOTU to the onboard Firewire. I do remember the Firewire controller sharing the IRQ with one device, but I don't think this is much of an issue because MOTU approves Intel motherboards and Firewire ports using the Texas Instruments chipset.

Once again, thanks for the replies, juca and losguy. I'm really happy right now because I finally get to abuse my two 160GB disks...

Hi Nash:
I´m glad you have your problem solved and all was fine in your recording session.
About the other question (Native mode), only your proper experiments can to show if that free the slots 1/2 from sharing IRQs and consequently from the original problem.
Make good music and recordings (bug free ) now.
Greetings.

Hey Mandelum,

Sorry for nbot getting back right away... busy weekend. By the way... your MOBO wouldn't be the A7N8X-E Deluxe would it? The extra "-E" makes a big difference. If you have that one, tghe IRQ map is a minefield. To make the audio card work at all, you have to use your choice of:
PCI Slot 1 or Slot 5, but not both, as long as you disable WiFi in the BIOS
PCI Slot 4, as long as you disable Gigabit LAN in the BIOS
Also:
Don't use PCI Slot 3, unless you disable the onboard SATA in the BIOS
Don't use PCI Slot 2, because it shares with the AGP slot.
If this is your MOBO, then you may want to try one of the above options first.

In any event, you shouldn't have to reformat your SATA drive if you use it with a typical external controller or adapter. That is true, provided that you didn't have the SATA drive(s) set up in a RAID. I'm not familiar with AgeStar as a brand, so you'd have to provide links to specs for me to provide better info. But if the SUB3A-BO is an external enclosure, that should be fine. The cable adaptor may not supply power to the SATA drive, so you might want to watch for that. What you would prefer is an external enclosure that houses a SATA interface internally to connect to the SATA drive, and a USB and/or Firewire interface externally to connect to the computer. I added Firewire because, if it works for your system, it is preferable for audio drives due to lower CPU usage than USB2. Having both on teh enclosure just lets you try both.

At this stage of the game you're probably more likely to have success following the USB2/FW route than with the internal Promise SATA controller PCI card.

Hope that helps!

Hello losguy,

I JUST found this thread, and I had been having this click and pop problem in certain circumstances and had no idea what it was!

I had a question for you, it may have been answered in the previous 18 pages.. if so, let me know and I will search again. There is just so much info here it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.


My current situation is that I have installed:

A7N8X-DX mobo
SATA 250 gig drive
Echo Layla 24 (PCI)
FW PCI card (PCI)
UAD PCI Card (PCI)

So it appears I have the exact situation you brilliantly figured out could cause problems.


Now, I can remove the FW PCI card (and will tonight), and I saw that you mentioned that I should move (cause we have the same mobos) my layla card to PCI slot 4. Where should I move my UAD card? I can't really take it out, as I need it for projects.

Also, I am going to get a RME Fireface 800 sometime this week probably. When I do this, I will need to reinstall the FW PCI card and remove the Layla PCI card. Does this mean I will need to install the FW PCI card into slot 4, so I can plug the RME Fireface into that?

Lastly, are there any cheap successors to the ASUS A7N8X-DX that will avoid this whole bag of beans?

Thanks so much!

-Eric

one other question actually. I own a PCI FW card, and also have the built in fw support on the mobo? Does anyone know which is preferable in the A7N8X-DX?

ORIGINAL: Sonifferous
one other question actually. I own a PCI FW card, and also have the built in fw support on the mobo? Does anyone know which is preferable in the A7N8X-DX?

If it's for the FireFace, why don't you give it a shot with the onboard FW port first? If it works, it'll free up PCI space for you. Otherwise, I'd put the audio card in slot 4, and the Firewire card in slot 1 or 5 (just don't put something in both slots 1 and 5).

As far as upgrades go, rather than just a MOBO swap, I'd wait and save for an AMD64 CPU/MOBO. For example, depending on your budget, you could pick up a Socket 939 MOBO with a San Diego core, then simply swap the CPU for an AMD64 X2 later. (That's my current path, BTW. For reference, see this thread.)

ORIGINAL: Sonifferous
Thanks for much for your reply! This is unbelievable help you're giving to the community here, I can't thank you enough!!!

God bless you too...

Just to clarify some points.
I won't be using both the layla and the fireface. Only one or the other. Currently I have the Layla in there, but I'm hoping to order a fireface TODAY :).

You lucky dawg.

In the layla situation, all I will need plugged into PCI slots would be
a) Layla24
b) UAD card.
Just to confirm, the Layla24 should go into PCI slot 4, and UAD in either slot 1 or 5?

I concur. And if you ever got a second UAD, I'd try putting them into slots 1 and 5 together, because IIRC they can share an interrupt with no problems.

Then in the fireface 800 situation, I'd only actually need one PCI slot (for the UAD) ... So in that case, use the onboard FW for the fireface, and stick the UAD in PCI slot 4?

Just keep your UAD in slot 5, no harm done. And like I said, first try the onboard FW port to see if it will work. You might get lucky. I don't recall if the onboad FW uses the TI chipset or not (I think not). But there is still a chance that it might work. If not, then Plan B is to stick your known-compatible FW card into either slot 2 or slot 4 and go with that. Clear as mud?

Dear all,

I am running an Athlon XP 2500 on a Epox 8rda3+ with two SATA HDDs not RAID configured and an M-Audio delta 44. My mobo has the Sil 3112 as the SATA controller and both in Sonar 4 and Audition i get awful glitches, pops and noise.

I've tried changing latencies, my PC is running in standard mode and i've made all changes i could think off and find around the internet to optimize my system.

My IRQs look like this:

11 NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management
11 Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller
9 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
4 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
3 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
12 C-Media AC97 Audio Device
5 M-Audio Delta 44
10 Realtek RTL8139(A)-based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
10 NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X
7 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
14 Primary IDE Channel
1 PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard (101/102-Key)
6 Standard floppy disk controller
8 System CMOS/real time clock
13 Numeric data processor

My situation hasn't improved by turning off the AC97, floppy and firewire in the BIOS which frees up some IRQs so it's not really a hardware conflict that is causing it.

From reading this and some other threads my only options are putting my audio HD in a separate enclosure with its own controller or getting a SATA controller card. However, if there is anything else i could try before forking out more money without sure results please give me proposals on what to do.

I've been trying to solve this for the last couple of months and the time i should spend playing and composing has been more or less wasted. I even took out the old 4 track and was happy as a duck to make some pop free recordings.

Thanks in advance,

Georg

Thanks losguy, i read the thread, replyed, sent my system nfo etc. Now i'll see what asio4all does for me. I'll write a report when i know what happens :)

/Georg

Georg, this is very encouraging! Please report back when you find out more. If this works for you, it may also work for other M-Audio users in the same boat.

well, thanks everybody! Now everything is working fine with the new USB2 interface, and I can even record onto it, wow! I just warn you, the SATA input is really badly built, mine borke so I had to go and change it... One last question about the USB hub, I have a midi controller wich I tend not too use very frequently in the other port together with the USB2 External drive. But it wont take any bandwith as long as I keep it off, because I never use it while im recording audio, so it shouldn´t be a problem, or does windoew automatically give it andwith even if it is not online?

ORIGINAL: Mandelum
well, thanks everybody! Now everything is working fine with the new USB2 interface, and I can even record onto it, wow!

That's GREAT! Happy music-making to you!

I just warn you, the SATA input is really badly built, mine borke so I had to go and change it...

Yeah, it's really caveat emptor with those cheap drive adapters.

One last question about the USB hub, I have a midi controller wich I tend not too use very frequently in the other port together with the USB2 External drive. But it wont take any bandwith as long as I keep it off, because I never use it while im recording audio, so it shouldn´t be a problem, or does windoew automatically give it andwith even if it is not online?

You'll probably be fine that way, but yes, you can expect audio performance hits if both devices are active. If it were my system, I would try to put the MIDI interface on another USB pair, even if it meant getting a USB hub for my keyboard/mouse/whatever. Those other devices aren't nearly bandwidth-critical as audio. However, as Jim Wright will tell you, MIDI devices are time-critical, and so they really deserve a channel of their own as well.

ORIGINAL: jredfern
Hi Losguy and everyone :-)

Hi, Jim. Welcome to the fray. Aren't we a sorry lot?

I recently "upgraded" to an asus a7n8x-e (my old mobo died, capacitor leakage) and a seagate 200MB SATA drive. Now my audiophile 2496 clicks whenever the SATA is used :(. I've isolated the audiophile on it's own IRQ (IRQ 17). I've disabled every device on the mobo that's not used. I've played with the PCI latency. I've got no other PCI cards in there. Makes no difference.

Right.

Looks like I've got 2 options (aside from ditching my hardware). 1. Buy an external SATA enclosure. 2. Buy a ATA to SATA convertor and put the SATA drive on one of my ATA channels.

These are known working solutions. You could also try ASIO4ALL, but so far it's only known to help the problem, not completely solve it.

Any news from M-Audio at all? Has anyone contacted ASUS about this? Or Silicon Image?

No news from M-Audio that I'm aware of. ASUS probably doesn't give a flip, especially by now. SiI maybe gave a flip once, but that's about it. It looks like M-Audio is the most likely to do anything about it, if at all.

From now on I'll be googling for info about hardware incompatibility before I buy anything

I was saying the same thing when I first encoutered trouble with SATA audio, but it did eventually lead to some useful outcomes. God's plan takes us through some interesting twists and turns, but it all seems to work out in the end (Romans 8:28). It may not be evident to you now, or even soon, but maybe there's something interesting/beneficial/good in all of this for you too.

You can try it... just make sure that the card doesn't have a Silicon Image SiI SATA controller chip on it, or else you'll be right back where you started. Look for a Promise chip (IOW, get a Promise controller card). If it works, this would be a neat, self-contained solution.

This thread gives me hope. I just got Sonar 5 with a new XP that uses an Intel D945Gnt Motherboard and two SATA drives. I can't tell from the MOBO documentation if the SATA Controller is on the PCI bus. But I do have crackling and glitching when playing any audio file. My Gina card has no IRQ conflicts (it's in slot 1). My first thought, if in fact this is an SATA/PCI issue, is to just go out and get Ultra DMA drives. Any thoughts?