Sonar 8 / DELL Studio 1747 I7 laptop : audio drop outs / DPC / IRQ issues?

Hi everyone!

I've (sadly) spent most of my week-end trying to figure out and correct some dropouts / DPC related problems with my new DELL STUDIO 1747 core I7 laptop... tough call (for me, at least).

I first started to talk about this in this other forum thread regarding the DPC issue. Feel free to check it out...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1935436&mpage=1

But now, I feel like I need a thread of my own, as I am not sure anymore if my problem is indeed DPC-related. I am hoping to help here other DELL customers... if any....

To summarize, I've downloaded all the latest BIOS and device drivers, tweaked WIN 7 64 bit pro, disabled devices, antivirus, restore points, indexing and so forth.

Even after all the tests I made (described below) I can still hear occasional light audio dropouts. These problems can appear as far as about 45 minutes into multitrack "live" recording ... (NOT good...)

My DPC latency will have occasionnal peaks at around 1500us. I even had one at around 5000us. My average value is 300us.

I have also experienced one MAJOR FULL-STOP DROPOUT while only playing back my multi-track session (input monitoring DISABLED and NO plugins activated...)


So, now I am still mostly clueless... I think now that I will need to change the IRQ's of the laptop, but I do not know yet how to do so. Can anybody give me some tips??

Please read below my "notes" and summaries... not very good of a prose, but I aimed it more to be like a point-by-point list. I even have screen captures of my device manager if those could help...

Thanks for reading...

DELL STUDIO 1747 (core i7/ Win 7 64 bits / 4 gigs DDR3 1333/ ATI RADEON 4650 1gb)

UPDATES / CONFIGURATION done before the test with audio softwares:
Latest BIOS, device drivers downloaded and installed.
FIREWIRE EXPRESS CARD = STARTECH EC13942 (TI chipset)
Audio devices used for testing: M-audio PROFIRE LIGHTBRIDGE ; PLANTRONIC USB audio device / headset
/ mic and the internal IDT audio devices


WINDOWS 7'S DEVICE MANAGER DETAILS (For IRQ conflicts and the likes...)


Here are details of the DELL STUDIO 1747's settings in Win 7:

___________
in DEVICE MANAGER (VIEW devices BY CONNECTIONS)

- SATA AHCI controller (3B2F)
ATA channel 0 and channel 1 = 2 internal Hard Drives
ATA channel 4 = Blue ray drive

- PCI express root port 2 (3B44)
Dell wireless 1520 wireless-N wlan mini card (DISABLED)

-PCI EXPRESS root port 4 (3B48)
1394 OHCI compliant host controller (DISABLED)
02MICRO integrated MS/MSPRO/xD Controller (Disabled)
SDA Standard compliant SD Host controller. (DISABLED)

-PCI EXPRESS root port 5 (3B4A) = Texas instrument 1394 OHCI compliant host controller


USB enhanced host controller (3B3C) = integrated webcam (DISABLED)


USB enhanced host controller (3B34) =  Generic USB hub (THE 2 EXTERNAL USB PORTS ON THE RIGHT OF THE
LAPTOP... it shows my two USB keys on the same channel...)


- PCI EXPRESS ROOT PORT 1 (D138)
ATI MOBILYTY RADEON HD 4650 (ENABLED) and ATI HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO DEVICE (DISABLED)

__________

in DEVICE MANAGER (VIEW RESSOURCES BY type)

- IRQs

about 110 lines of ISA (value here) MICROSOFT ACPI-compliant system


for the (PCI) 0x00000010 (16) value it shows 5 lines of data. I understand this is IRQ channel #16.

The 5 lines are:

SMbus controller (3b30)
thermal subsystem (3B32)
USB enhanced host controller (3B3C) = Integrated webcam (disabled)
PCI express root port 1 (3B42) = isn't the ATI RADEON CHIPSET supposed to show here?? (see above)
PCI EXPRESS root port 5 (3B4A) = Texas instrument 1394 OHCI compliant host controller

... so should I understand that IRQ 16 is assigned to ALL of the demanding components on the laptop?

those being the video chipset, the firewire EXPRESS CARD port, a USB host ?? Looks BAD to me...

for the (PCI) 0x00000011 (17) a HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO CONTROLLER is assigned with PCI express root

port 2 (3B44) = Dell wireless 1520 wireless-N wlan mini card (DISABLED)


for the (PCI) 0x00000016 (22) a second high definition audio controller is assigned.



So I am now tempted to modify the IRQ settings if possible. Anybody knows how to do that in a

laptop?





General settings changes:

1) On Win 7, there is NO difference in DPC latency reports between having windows adjusted for best

PERFORMANCE or for best APPEARANCE. DPC reports in both cases are between 220us and 400us... even

the peaks around 850us are still showing up.

First thought: my problem seems NOT related to the dataflows through windows...

2) Reducing my screen's color resolution from 24 bits to 16 bits had no impact in reducing the DPC


One funny thing: I had Windows re-run the performance information and tools scan, to see if my

tweaks made my computer perform better. I had it do its scan while SONAR was still running in the

background (input monitoring enabled) while I was listening to a CD played on my other rig (but

listened thru SONAR on the Dell studio 17 laptop... NO clicks, NO pops, nothing... AND THE DPC

LATENCY REPORT EVEN GOT UNDER 80us WHILE THE PERFORMANCE TOOL WAS SCANNING... WHAT THE HECK???

_____________________________




SONAR 8.0 (DEMO) test files is:

24 tracks of recording (INPUT MONITOR ACTIVATED unless indicated otherwise)
1 instrument track with SQUARE 1 soft synth...

all audio testing performed at 16 bits 44.1 kHz resolution.

SONAR SETTINGS
asio driver
64 bit double precision audio engine NOT enabled
NO dithering
Share drivers with other softs NOT enabled
multiprocessing engine / MMCSS / PLAY EFFECT TAILS activated
fades on start / stop at 4 milliseconds
2.9 msec latency
read caching enabled and at 256 kb


__________________
Using internal audio device ( IDT high definition CODEC..)


WDM drivers @ 10 msec buffer

Results = DPC latency (average) 218us / peak AND one BIG peak / dropout at 9765us



AT LEAST i did not hear any audio crackles when ONLY selecting a track in the track view, wich is

happening using my USB or FIREWIRE devices...

______________________



FIREWIRE AUDIO (Maudio profire lightbridge / STARTECH EC13942 expresscard:

DPC reports around 300 us, peak AROUND 866US - 1450us


Best performanced achieved with the m-audio profire lightbridge using these settings:

 
128 samples buffer (configured using the M-Audio control panel)




I experienced big AUDIO INPUT MONITORING dropouts during recording (a silence) but the audio files

were not corrupted and played back fine afterwards...

These "silent" dropouts seems to be hapenning around every 11 minutes ...

Also, I experienced one MAJOR ALL STOP (Playback only, Input Monitoring disabled) 13 minutes into

the project... after that dropout, I tried to launch playback again. I could here the song OK and

the master VU meters were working correctly, but no VU meters were working in the TRACK view...

Also, the DPC utility reports massive DPC amounts after closing SONAR... and sticks there!! (14600us

and + DPC...OUCH!)

____________________
USB AUDIO:

PLANTRONIC USB audio device / headseat / mic :
MME 32 bits, sonar's 64 bits engine OFF,= average DPC 200us and peaks at 1088 us...
14 msec buffer /

Results = constant clicks and pops...


using WASAPI:

64 bits engine OFF,
14 msec buffer /

Results =
clicks and pops starts about 1 minute into playback / recording
CLicks and pops also appearing for about 2 minutes even when only the INPUT MONITORING on tracks is

activated (no playback or recording activity needed to hear the problems. Clicks disapear after some

time only to reappear about 3 minutes later..

average DPC 200us and peaks between 438 and 1010 us at all times...

_____________________________

Off to bed now... thanks for any help!

try turning your wireless/network off. see if this still happens?

 
"Dell wireless 1520 wireless-N wlan mini card (DISABLED)"
 
To the OP: Based on the threads I mentioned seeing on the Dell Community website, I would say the issue is still DPC latency with the Studio series of laptops, which seem to have a low-level system architecture problem. Althougn it's a little surprising that a 10ms buffer is not helping, as others have pointed out, the average DPC latency is not that critical; it's the peaks and the variability that get you.
 
The only thing that jumped out at me in your setup that was slightly unusual is having read caching enabled. This is usually not necessary, and I wouldn't leave it that way if it didn't help. I/O bufferng and read/write cahing are two different things. You'll still have the 256kB I/O buffers working when caching is disabled.
 
 

Even if the wireless was disabled in Windows, I had not disabled it in the BIOS. Yesterday, I disabled 2 settings regarding WLAN and it seems to me that it helped...

By the way, DELL upgrade their BIOS for this laptop 2 times within the last 8 weeks, and it seemed to have helped a little. I also discovered that there was still something running in McAffe that I had not seen, and that must have been one of the major elements of my problems.

Now, with the latest BIOS update installed (a couple of days old only...) , lots of services disabled, core parking tweak attempts (but still unsuccessful) it looks like I can finally hope that it's going to work. DPC latency now shos an average of 247us with an absolute maximum of 527us.

I'm now recording multiple 32 tracks, 2 hours long test sessions to be absolutly shure nothing goes wrong.

When it'll be about 10 successfull passes, i'll feel like I can rely to this system for live recording gigs... this is because I have still not figured out why I experienced a FULL STOP DROPOUT a couple of times...

I'll keep you posted...

What the F*** is going on with this thing? Was it caused by core parking or what??

 
After that much time with that many tracks, I'd suspect a disk access glitch rather then processing issue. Maybe increase your disk I/O buffers.
 
 
 

yummay


Hi everyone!

I've (sadly) spent most of my week-end trying to figure out and correct some dropouts / DPC related problems with my new DELL STUDIO 1747 core I7 laptop... tough call (for me, at least).

I first started to talk about this in this other forum thread regarding the DPC issue. Feel free to check it out...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1935436&mpage=1

But now, I feel like I need a thread of my own, as I am not sure anymore if my problem is indeed DPC-related. I am hoping to help here other DELL customers... if any....

To summarize, I've downloaded all the latest BIOS and device drivers, tweaked WIN 7 64 bit pro, disabled devices, antivirus, restore points, indexing and so forth.

Even after all the tests I made (described below) I can still hear occasional light audio dropouts. These problems can appear as far as about 45 minutes into multitrack "live" recording ... (NOT good...)

My DPC latency will have occasionnal peaks at around 1500us. I even had one at around 5000us. My average value is 300us.

I have also experienced one MAJOR FULL-STOP DROPOUT while only playing back my multi-track session (input monitoring DISABLED and NO plugins activated...)


So, now I am still mostly clueless... I think now that I will need to change the IRQ's of the laptop, but I do not know yet how to do so. Can anybody give me some tips??

Please read below my "notes" and summaries... not very good of a prose, but I aimed it more to be like a point-by-point list. I even have screen captures of my device manager if those could help...

Thanks for reading...

DELL STUDIO 1747 (core i7/ Win 7 64 bits / 4 gigs DDR3 1333/ ATI RADEON 4650 1gb)

UPDATES / CONFIGURATION done before the test with audio softwares:
Latest BIOS, device drivers downloaded and installed.
FIREWIRE EXPRESS CARD = STARTECH EC13942 (TI chipset)
Audio devices used for testing: M-audio PROFIRE LIGHTBRIDGE ; PLANTRONIC USB audio device / headset
/ mic and the internal IDT audio devices


WINDOWS 7'S DEVICE MANAGER DETAILS (For IRQ conflicts and the likes...)


Here are details of the DELL STUDIO 1747's settings in Win 7:

___________
in DEVICE MANAGER (VIEW devices BY CONNECTIONS)

- SATA AHCI controller (3B2F)
ATA channel 0 and channel 1 = 2 internal Hard Drives
ATA channel 4 = Blue ray drive

- PCI express root port 2 (3B44)
Dell wireless 1520 wireless-N wlan mini card (DISABLED)

-PCI EXPRESS root port 4 (3B48)
1394 OHCI compliant host controller (DISABLED)
02MICRO integrated MS/MSPRO/xD Controller (Disabled)
SDA Standard compliant SD Host controller. (DISABLED)

-PCI EXPRESS root port 5 (3B4A) = Texas instrument 1394 OHCI compliant host controller


USB enhanced host controller (3B3C) = integrated webcam (DISABLED)


USB enhanced host controller (3B34) =  Generic USB hub (THE 2 EXTERNAL USB PORTS ON THE RIGHT OF THE
LAPTOP... it shows my two USB keys on the same channel...)


- PCI EXPRESS ROOT PORT 1 (D138)
ATI MOBILYTY RADEON HD 4650 (ENABLED) and ATI HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO DEVICE (DISABLED)

__________

in DEVICE MANAGER (VIEW RESSOURCES BY type)

- IRQs

about 110 lines of ISA (value here) MICROSOFT ACPI-compliant system


for the (PCI) 0x00000010 (16) value it shows 5 lines of data. I understand this is IRQ channel #16.

The 5 lines are:

SMbus controller (3b30)
thermal subsystem (3B32)
USB enhanced host controller (3B3C) = Integrated webcam (disabled)
PCI express root port 1 (3B42) = isn't the ATI RADEON CHIPSET supposed to show here?? (see above)
PCI EXPRESS root port 5 (3B4A) = Texas instrument 1394 OHCI compliant host controller

... so should I understand that IRQ 16 is assigned to ALL of the demanding components on the laptop?

those being the video chipset, the firewire EXPRESS CARD port, a USB host ?? Looks BAD to me...

for the (PCI) 0x00000011 (17) a HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO CONTROLLER is assigned with PCI express root

port 2 (3B44) = Dell wireless 1520 wireless-N wlan mini card (DISABLED)


for the (PCI) 0x00000016 (22) a second high definition audio controller is assigned.



So I am now tempted to modify the IRQ settings if possible. Anybody knows how to do that in a

laptop?





General settings changes:

1) On Win 7, there is NO difference in DPC latency reports between having windows adjusted for best

PERFORMANCE or for best APPEARANCE. DPC reports in both cases are between 220us and 400us... even

the peaks around 850us are still showing up.

First thought: my problem seems NOT related to the dataflows through windows...

2) Reducing my screen's color resolution from 24 bits to 16 bits had no impact in reducing the DPC


One funny thing: I had Windows re-run the performance information and tools scan, to see if my

tweaks made my computer perform better. I had it do its scan while SONAR was still running in the

background (input monitoring enabled) while I was listening to a CD played on my other rig (but

listened thru SONAR on the Dell studio 17 laptop... NO clicks, NO pops, nothing... AND THE DPC

LATENCY REPORT EVEN GOT UNDER 80us WHILE THE PERFORMANCE TOOL WAS SCANNING... WHAT THE HECK???

_____________________________




SONAR 8.0 (DEMO) test files is:

24 tracks of recording (INPUT MONITOR ACTIVATED unless indicated otherwise)
1 instrument track with SQUARE 1 soft synth...

all audio testing performed at 16 bits 44.1 kHz resolution.

SONAR SETTINGS
asio driver
64 bit double precision audio engine NOT enabled
NO dithering
Share drivers with other softs NOT enabled
multiprocessing engine / MMCSS / PLAY EFFECT TAILS activated
fades on start / stop at 4 milliseconds
2.9 msec latency
read caching enabled and at 256 kb


__________________
Using internal audio device ( IDT high definition CODEC..)


WDM drivers @ 10 msec buffer

Results = DPC latency (average) 218us / peak AND one BIG peak / dropout at 9765us



AT LEAST i did not hear any audio crackles when ONLY selecting a track in the track view, wich is

happening using my USB or FIREWIRE devices...

______________________



FIREWIRE AUDIO (Maudio profire lightbridge / STARTECH EC13942 expresscard:

DPC reports around 300 us, peak AROUND 866US - 1450us


Best performanced achieved with the m-audio profire lightbridge using these settings:


128 samples buffer (configured using the M-Audio control panel)




I experienced big AUDIO INPUT MONITORING dropouts during recording (a silence) but the audio files

were not corrupted and played back fine afterwards...

These "silent" dropouts seems to be hapenning around every 11 minutes ...

Also, I experienced one MAJOR ALL STOP (Playback only, Input Monitoring disabled) 13 minutes into

the project... after that dropout, I tried to launch playback again. I could here the song OK and

the master VU meters were working correctly, but no VU meters were working in the TRACK view...

Also, the DPC utility reports massive DPC amounts after closing SONAR... and sticks there!! (14600us

and + DPC...OUCH!)

____________________
USB AUDIO:

PLANTRONIC USB audio device / headseat / mic :
MME 32 bits, sonar's 64 bits engine OFF,= average DPC 200us and peaks at 1088 us...
14 msec buffer /

Results = constant clicks and pops...


using WASAPI:

64 bits engine OFF,
14 msec buffer /

Results =
clicks and pops starts about 1 minute into playback / recording
CLicks and pops also appearing for about 2 minutes even when only the INPUT MONITORING on tracks is

activated (no playback or recording activity needed to hear the problems. Clicks disapear after some

time only to reappear about 3 minutes later..

average DPC 200us and peaks between 438 and 1010 us at all times...

_____________________________

Off to bed now... thanks for any help!

 

Did you ever get this resolved?  I just bought a Dell I7 studio 1458, and I am getting very intermittent full blow drop outs.  I use this laptop to perform solo gigs, I am not recording just playing projects live and it drops out.  I have all peripherals disabled in device manager IE: Wireless, Lan, Bluetooth ect.. I also have latency set to highest setting.  DPC checker does not show any problems or issues.  I have heard that the I7 boost could be the problem, I am going to disable this in Bios and see if it helps.  Has is one experiencing this issue.   Please help...
Sonar 8.5 x64
Windows 7 x64
Edirol UA 101