Sonar 8.5 and Windows 7 troubles

I just upgraded from XP to windows 7 64 bit, I installed sonar 8.5 PE and nothing else.  I haven't even installed my plugins, synths or anything.  Here's my problem:  Sometimes the audio is corrupted, to better describe it,  sometimes when I hit play there's a weird digital distortion, but it happens a random times with no rhyme or reason.   Also it seems there are other problems, because already I tried to insert some plugins on a track and the program shut down.  I already disabled the onboard sound.  My audio interface is the M-Audio projectmix.   Any ideas?  I wish I could be more specific, but I really have no idea where to beggin with this.

Here are my specs:

Windows 7 64 bit
Gigabite mother board
intel quad Q9550
2 gigs of corsair ram
3 SATA hard drives
M-audio projectmix interface

I notice that you are on a gigabyte board. It is a known issue with these boards that digital artifacts can appear in recorded audio. To eliminate this go into the BIOS and disable the C1 stepping and try that. I also had to do this, as well as disabling C3/C6/C7 setting and all my audio glitch problems disappeared.

Hope this helps.

If you do a quick search on gearslutz or soundonsound forums there are quite a few peeps with audio problems and recent gigabyte boards. Once C1 stepping has been disabled quite a number found it cured their problem. On a different note, why would you want C1 enabled on a DAW? Surely you want the maximum available power all the time without leaving it to windows to decide when you want it.

biodiode


If you do a quick search on gearslutz or soundonsound forums there are quite a few peeps with audio problems and recent gigabyte boards. Once C1 stepping has been disabled quite a number found it cured their problem. On a different note, why would you want C1 enabled on a DAW? Surely you want the maximum available power all the time without leaving it to windows to decide when you want it.

I don't have a gigabyte mobo, but what the hell is "C1"? (Forgive me, I'm not a computer geek in any sense of the term)...

Pappa - The C1E state is a CPU power-saving function in system halt state. When enabled the CPU core frequency and voltage will be reduced during system halt state to decrease power consumption. In other words if you are not doing much ie: surfing the web, it throttles back the CPU.

lobito - You will find this setting under Advanced CPU Features. If this cures it slightly but not totally try also disabling the "C3/C6/C7" setting as well. Don't worry this last one is just one setting for all 3 features and not individual. :)

You will definitely need to run the legacy W7 64bit firewire driver... it can be a little hit or miss but the only real option for firewire interfaces... it's not perfect and is the weak link in my system unfortunately.. but it does get you crackle free.

Disclaimer: this is of course assuming you aren't already running the legacy driver.

Take it from somebody who owns a Gigabyte board, get rid of anything like CPUEIsT, HPET etc in the BIOS. Disable them and it will clean up a lot of your issues. These things have been found to cause massive DPC latency spikes.

emwhy


Take it from somebody who owns a Gigabyte board, get rid of anything like CPUEIsT, HPET etc in the BIOS. Disable them and it will clean up a lot of your issues. These things have been found to cause massive DPC latency spikes.

Thanks I'll give that a twirl.

chrisharbin

I hate to say it but it could be a ram issue.

I agree.  My guess is it's your biggest, if not only issue.  You should have AT LEAST 4GB.  That's the minimum addressing space of a 64 bit processor operating in 64 bit mode.  If it doesn't see enough physical ram to satisfy the need, it will use virtual memory to make up the difference.  Since ram is way faster than even a SATA hard drive, there's a huge performance hit right off the bat.   I'd be willing to bet your upgrade will go a long way toward solving your problem.