losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/08/14 13:33:05
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ORIGINAL: bjornw
I have some interesting news on the matter:
I went and bought an Adaptec 1205SA SATA controller. The sales guy assured me that Adaptec uses their own chipsets, not Silicon Image. So you can imagine me not being too happy when i booted up the computer after installning the card and seeing the Adaptec bios displaying "SiL 3112A all rights reserved".
But I've now had the card installed for one day, stress testing a lot, and not once have I heard any stutters, dropouts or glitches! So it seems to not be the chipset exclusively that is problem. Quite a happy surprise for me.
Thanks for reporting on success, bjorn, that's good to hear. It truly is a pleasant surprise. You are right, I have suspected all along that the drivers were more the culprit than the hardware, as the hardware is supposed to be PCI compliant, and we know that lots of different PCI hardware can coexist peacefully with audio cards. It may very well be that Adaptec wrote/supplied the drivers for that card, and if so, they did a better job with it than SiI did. Anyway, great to know. Thanks again!
post edited by losguy - 2006/08/14 13:46:53
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homerungus
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/08/18 10:32:45
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Just an update on my "clicks" situation. It's not a SATA problem after all, it was the Mackie driver, still on version 1.0. I bought the CEntrance Ideal driver and haven't had one "click" in a 2 day music session. I couldn't go 20 minutes without clicks with the Mackie driver. For anyone who is having the click problem, (I can only speak for the Mackie Onyx Firewire Interface) go and buy this driver now. They also support other hardware and software. Mackie should outsource the building of drivers to people like CEntrance. They really know what they're doing. It would save a lot of money, time and frustration for the end user. It's ridiculous what some people are going through to get rid of this problem, all due to a 500kb piece of software. http://www.centrance.com
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/08/20 10:29:41
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ORIGINAL: homerungus
driver
Great to hear, homer! Chalk another one up to drivers.
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JasonLive
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:::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/20 17:13:17
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First off, great post! I've been having the exact same problem with SATA on my motherboard (ASUS P4P800 Deluxe)- clicks and pops started happening when I installed my 3rd HD (SATA Seagate 320gig). Despite all this awesome info., I've been unable to resolve the issue. Even with my other posts- here, I think I should simply replace my moherboard- >>>DOES anyone know which motherboard works really well when SATA drives are used for audio?<<< I will buy it !!! THANKS for any help you can give! here are my specs: P4 3.0 ghz ASUS P4P800 Deluxe mobo 2 gigs DDR ram ECHO MIAmidi soundcard
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juca
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RE: :::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/21 06:52:52
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Hi Jason:
I have an P4P800-E Deluxe MB and TWO SATA HDs. The OS and programs are in a IDE 7200 rpm Maxtor HD and the two SATA HDs are sitting in the chipset controlled ports.
The system is very stable and free of glitches, clicks, pops, etc.
Are you using the SATA HDs at the chipset controlled ports?
Greetings.
****** Juca Nascimento ******
Keyboards/Composer/Arranger
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JasonLive
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RE: :::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/21 23:44:28
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ORIGINAL: juca
Hi Jason:
I have an P4P800-E Deluxe MB and TWO SATA HDs. The OS and programs are in a IDE 7200 rpm Maxtor HD and the two SATA HDs are sitting in the chipset controlled ports.
The system is very stable and free of glitches, clicks, pops, etc.
Are you using the SATA HDs at the chipset controlled ports?
Greetings.
Thanks so much for writing. I was running with 2 HDs originally (I didn't have any major pops or clicks). It was when I installed my 3rd drive that I started having this problem. You'll have to pardon my limited PC knowledge, but how can I tell of I'm using the SATA HDs at the chipset controlled ports? Thanks again! ps. by the way, I visited your website, and heard some of the audio samples. Really great sounding work!
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juca
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RE: :::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/22 07:20:57
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Hi Jason: ORIGINAL: JasonLive
Thanks so much for writing. I was running with 2 HDs originally (I didn't have any major pops or clicks). It was when I installed my 3rd drive that I started having this problem. If your HDs are all SATA (3), then you´re using two connected in the ports directly controlled by the chipset, which is the better solution for avoid the PCI bus overload, and one connected in one port which is controlled by the Promise controller and run over the PCI bus (no ideal for audio systems). You'll have to pardon my limited PC knowledge, but how can I tell of I'm using the SATA HDs at the chipset controlled ports?
Thanks again! The SATA ports which are directly controlled by the chipset are the two ones you see in the upper part of your motherboard (assuming you are looking for it with the processor at the upper side). These are the ports which not use the PCI bus and are the good ones for audio systems. I can to suggest you get an SATA to IDE adapter, install it in the SATA HD which hold your Operating System and program files and put that HD in the IDE port. Put the two other SATA HDs in the chipset controlled ports, make a test and verify if the problems will be gone. Please post the result, so other people can get help with your experience. ps. by the way, I visited your website, and heard some of the audio samples. Really great sounding work!
Thank you for visiting my website and for your kind words. Greetings.
****** Juca Nascimento ******
Keyboards/Composer/Arranger
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stratcat33511
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RE: :::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/22 12:12:25
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Sorry wrong thread!
post edited by stratcat33511 - 2006/08/22 12:25:02
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JasonLive
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RE: :::WHICH MOBO?:::
2006/08/23 01:40:43
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If your HDs are all SATA (3), then you´re using two connected in the ports directly controlled by the chipset, which is the better solution for avoid the PCI bus overload, and one connected in one port which is controlled by the Promise controller and run over the PCI bus (no ideal for audio systems).
The SATA ports which are directly controlled by the chipset are the two ones you see in the upper part of your motherboard (assuming you are looking for it with the processor at the upper side). These are the ports which not use the PCI bus and are the good ones for audio systems.
I can to suggest you get an SATA to IDE adapter, install it in the SATA HD which hold your Operating System and program files and put that HD in the IDE port. Put the two other SATA HDs in the chipset controlled ports, make a test and verify if the problems will be gone. Please post the result, so other people can get help with your experience.
Hello Juca, At the moment, I'm running 1 IDE & 2 SATA drives. Both SATA drives are connected to the port directly controlled by the chipset (this should be right beside the CPU). Maybe it's an electromagnetic problem. I do have the MIA midi soundcard, which converts the audio directly plugged in to the computer. Still... the problem began right after I installed the 3rd HD) I will try to run different tests; it's so hard to narrow down the exact problem. I appreciate your help a lot!- I MUST solve this, and I'll definitely post it when its done. Best regards,
post edited by JasonLive - 2006/08/23 07:49:36
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Jon M
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/08/23 18:38:02
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ORIGINAL: homerungus
Just an update on my "clicks" situation. It's not a SATA problem after all, it was the Mackie driver, still on version 1.0.
I bought the CEntrance Ideal driver and haven't had one "click" in a 2 day music session. I couldn't go 20 minutes without clicks with the Mackie driver. For anyone who is having the click problem, (I can only speak for the Mackie Onyx Firewire Interface) go and buy this driver now. They also support other hardware and software.
Mackie should outsource the building of drivers to people like CEntrance. They really know what they're doing. It would save a lot of money, time and frustration for the end user. It's ridiculous what some people are going through to get rid of this problem, all due to a 500kb piece of software.
http://www.centrance.com
Hello all, I work for CEntrance. Thanks for the kind words. If you or any one else here has any questions regarding the Universal Driver, Latency Test Utility, or Ideal Driver feel free to post them here or send me a PM. I will respond as soon as possible.
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olerud
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/08/23 20:26:36
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$5300.00 For Sandra. And I am looking at $55.00 American for Sonar 6 upgrade.
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Hunter
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/14 15:49:51
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Interesting reading. Having just bought a SATA drive, I am in the same situation: Athlon Xp2800+ Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Maudio Audiophile 2496 WDC Sata drive However, running the latest PCI Latency Tool 3, I can't even see the settings for the SiI 3112 controller, as it does not appear in the list. Any idea why that might be? I'd like to at least have a go at fixing this terrible crackling without resorting to spending more money... 
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/14 16:35:07
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It may show up under a different name. You can also confirm that you are addressing the right device in the PCI Latency Tool by matching up PCI Bus and Device numbers that you get from Device Manager.
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Hunter
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 12:46:02
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ORIGINAL: losguy
It may show up under a different name. You can also confirm that you are addressing the right device in the PCI Latency Tool by matching up PCI Bus and Device numbers that you get from Device Manager.
Thanks for the reply. I admit I need to find the time to go through all this thread again but in the meantime here is a screenshot showing how the SiL isn't coming up in PCI tool: 
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sfripp
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 12:54:16
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Wow...Has this thread been going for years? I remember being scared away from SATA drives in the beginning because of the headaches. Now I'm using 3xSATAII's...they're fantastic! 
E6600 Core2Duo, 2gigC4 corsair, Asus P5B, LynxII, 3xWD250Gig SATAII BFD, Dimension Pro, Z3Ta
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tok2burn
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 13:17:36
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Losguy,
Thanks for your INFO. SciSoft Sandra is an excellent tool.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 14:16:36
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ORIGINAL: Hunter
Thanks for the reply. I admit I need to find the time to go through all this thread again but in the meantime here is a screenshot showing how the SiL isn't coming up in PCI tool... Wow, Hunter, that screenshot paints a strange situation indeed. The tool must not be finding the SATA controller device, though it is obviously registered with Windows PCI (Bus 1, Dev 11, Fun 0). Did you try running an independent disgnostic tool like SiSoft SANDRA to find out if the SATA controller device is at least visible to other tools? You may also try a different PCI latency tool.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 14:26:32
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ORIGINAL: sfripp
Wow...Has this thread been going for years? ... I remember being scared away from SATA drives in the beginning because of the headaches. ... Now I'm using 3xSATAII's...they're fantastic! Hi Shaun, yes, it has been YEARS. My top post was on 01/27/2004, which also coincides with my first post ever on a Cakewalk forum. Times change. The ASUS A7N8X Deluxe MOBO that started this thread is now a school /gaming PC for my son, and is about to be handed down to my younger kids. And for the most part, chipsets have come of age with handling of SATA drives. Strange, but I doubt that audio performance was the top consideration there. More than likely, it was streamlining the low-level integration consistent with IDE drives. The realtime performance probably just came along for the ride. Thank God for that. PCIe has also come along, making parameters like PCI Latency obsolete. But some things are also timeless. Undersanding how realtime data flows through a computer is always helpful, especially when problems arise. And, as you can see, folks still are doing audio on MOBOs with SiI and Promise SATA controllers. God bless.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 14:28:11
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ORIGINAL: tok2burn
Thanks for your INFO. SciSoft Sandra is an excellent tool.
Glad you found it helpful, Chuck. Keep those castanets snapping!
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larrydon
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/24 20:34:19
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Excellent work losguy..
I have spent MANY hours tracking down similar issues with my setup..
I tried PCI Latency Tool3 today and noticed it doesn't even list a display adapter (I was looking to lower the typical 200+ setting there - but it's not there..)
Very strange..
Anyone have any experience with this?
PS once I get back to that daw I will give a more descriptive list of what IS there - although what I saw looked well balanced at ~64 each..
TIA for any thoughts..
LD
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Hunter
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/09/25 15:32:00
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ORIGINAL: losguy
ORIGINAL: Hunter
Thanks for the reply. I admit I need to find the time to go through all this thread again but in the meantime here is a screenshot showing how the SiL isn't coming up in PCI tool...
Wow, Hunter, that screenshot paints a strange situation indeed. The tool must not be finding the SATA controller device, though it is obviously registered with Windows PCI (Bus 1, Dev 11, Fun 0).
Did you try running an independent disgnostic tool like SiSoft SANDRA to find out if the SATA controller device is at least visible to other tools? You may also try a different PCI latency tool.
Just going to give sandra a spin. I must admit I didn't realise how old my mobo was until I read this thread! Maybe I'll treat to myself to a new system some day. I'll let you know how I get on, thanks for everything so far
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rjay
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/10/10 08:56:47
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I seem to have a really old version of PCI Latency Tool (1.02) ... where can I get the latest ??
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/10/10 17:22:53
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tok2burn
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/10/10 18:46:12
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FYI, real Flamencos don't use castanets....:-) ORIGINAL: losguy
ORIGINAL: tok2burn
Thanks for your INFO. SciSoft Sandra is an excellent tool.
Glad you found it helpful, Chuck. Keep those castanets snapping!
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FretWizz
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/10/10 18:54:24
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ORIGINAL: larrydon
tried PCI Latency Tool3 today and noticed it
doesn't even list a display adapter (I was looking
to lower the typical 200+ setting there - but it's not there..)
Very strange..
Anyone have any experience with this? PCI Latency Tool doesn't see my Matrox Millenium G450. It saw the previous card I had (nVidia) .... but not the G450.....
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/10/10 18:59:47
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Weird that it can't see it. It would seem that all hardware should report the information at a pretty low level, but I must admit I don't recall what the PCI spec says about that. If it's just a device code that indexes into a device table, then it would be the software's responsibility to maintain that device table.
A for-pay product ;ole PowerStrip may do a more reliable job with that.
You can also try DoubleDawg. It's also for-pay, but cheaper than PowerStrip. It has a free demo version too.
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FredrikGroth76
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/11/14 07:50:04
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Losguy + others,
I'm building a new DAW right now which is also my first SATA system. It is based on the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe board. My question: is it likely that I will run into any SATA/PCI latency related problems, or are all those problems dead and gone with more recent hardware? Thanks.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/11/14 09:56:42
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ORIGINAL: FredrikGroth76
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Please dig up a link to ASUS website for the pdf manual on that board. Also, tell me what chipset it uses. That will help answer your question. In addition, you may want to do a search on these forums for that model MOBO... often, someone posts their system specs in their sig, and you can strike up a back-and-forth with them.
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FredrikGroth76
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/11/15 04:52:28
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Thanks Losguy! The chipset is Intel 975X. Link to the mobo on ASUS's site: HERE Direct link to the manual: HERE
post edited by FredrikGroth76 - 2006/11/15 05:10:06
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2006/11/15 11:52:23
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Hi Fredrik, thanks for the links. Intel 975 chipset... if it's good enough for Scott@ADK ( link), it's good enough for me. The board looks nice overall: heatpipes on the chipset, and onboard TI Firewire. Again, nice. You'll want to stick with the SATA controller integrated onto the 975/ICH7R chipset. See page 2-33 of the manual. That corresponds to three SATA ports: SATA1, SATA3, and SATA4. It looks like if you use all three ports (i.e. you install three SATA drives) that you can get RAID level 5 built in. That impressed me... this is the first MOBO I've see that supports it. (OTOH, maybe I haven't been watching lately!) This might be worth looking into, especially if the ICH7R hardware is supporting the low-level RAID5 CRC/striping operations. Even if not, a quad-core CPU would make up for a small CPU hit. This could be pretty cool for hardware geeks. At first blush, you'll want to stay off the other tacked-on SATA controllers, including the Jmicron controller (port SATA_RAID1) and the SiI/ASUS_EZ_BAKCKUP controller (ports EZ_RAID1, EZ_RAID2). See pages 2-34, 2-35 of the manual. In fact, disabling these devices in the BIOS will free up some critical hardware IRQ assignments. See page 2-23 of the manual. PCI slots 2 & 3 each share an IRQ with the tacked-on controllers, as does USB controller 2. This also means that you'll want to use the ICH7R IDE port for your IDE devices, port PRI_IDE. Note also that PCI slot 1 shares an IRQ with the onboard TI Firewire. One caution: If your plan to install a Core 2 CPU, you need to make sure and get the latest BIOS already installed. ASUS says that some boards still may have the eariler BIOS, in which case it will not boot, and you'd have to install a pre-Core proc to do the needed BIOS update. Read about it here. You can sidestep this issue if you purchase the MOBO with the CPU installed from a VAR like Monarch. They'll put the CPU on and test it to make sure that the BIOS is updated and running properly before they ship. Alternatively, if the vendor can assure you that the BIOS is rev 0604 or later, then you're set. Have fun, and go with God!
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