X3e/Concrete Limiter: Clicking CL's blue power button makes scratchy noise. Confirm?

Just posting this to see if this might be a potential bug for Alex's list or if there is a solution.
 
The other day I:
 
Updated Windows7 Pro (it had been a looong time). I did not do any of the Optional Updates in case that matters.
 
Installed the X3e patch.
 
Installed the Concrete Limiter which I had just bought.
 
Problem: The CL works fine but I am getting a scritchy scratchy noise when pressing the blue power button on the module. Non of my other modules do this. There is no other erratic behavior to indicate a resource issue.
 
System:
ASUS P8z68-V Pro Gen3
i7 2600k
16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
7200rpm SATA drives
Win 7 Pro 64 bit
Focusrite Scarlett 18i6
 
Thanks.

Hmm... maybe it'll be one of those things that magically disappears next time I boot up. Thanks for checking it out.
 
However the fact you get a click on ALL your PC modules is a little worrisome. I've NEVER had that unless I was totally maxing out my resources... and that would usually lead to a drop out or some other nastiness. I'm assuming you've reported this. Noise when a/b'ing is REALLY bad for objective listening which is why I find this CL problem perplexing. It is a distraction to the ears and can lead to misguided mixing decisions... IMO anyway.
 
The following is a long story but you may find it interesting, Alex. The tl;dr version is after updating Windows but BEFORE installing the X3e patch I started getting dropouts and it turned out something reset my hard drives read/write buffers to the default 256.
 
Long version....
 
Here's another weird thing that happened that day. This project has gotten rather large and at a couple points I had to up my read/write buffers to avoid persistent dropouts. As I said that day I updated Windows (it had been about a year) as well as X3.
 
I had made a restore point before starting all this and wanted to test the effects of these updates as I did them. After I did the Windows updates and started trying to play back my project BOOM... dropout after a few seconds. Uh oh. I started playback again and it kept playing normally so I started doing stuff I know can lead to dropouts like jumping the Now Time during playback to another position, riding PC module controls hard and fast, dragging things around really erratically, etc... I was definitely getting a lot of dropouts, especially when jumping the Now Time around (which doesn't happen if I have my buffers high enough).
 
Naturally I figured it had something to do with the Windows updates and that maybe there was a conflict with X3c and the new Windows patches and perhaps updated to X3e would fix it so I installed the patch. After testing it the same way I did before I was still getting the dropouts (but admittedly it was a little harder to force the dropouts so the patch did seem to make things a little better).
 
So I tossed the Performance Module into the Control Bar and started my little tests again and sure enough the disk icon flashed red before one of the dropouts (took a couple tries because sometimes the dropouts occur before the Perf Mod actually can register a disk overload so anyone trying to find out whether your hard drive buffers are too low keep that in mind... do the tests for a while even if the first few times it stays yellow).
 
I opened Preferences and checked my buffers and they had been reset to 256 (IIRC they had been double that and at one point before I cleaned up the project and archived a ton of things I actually had them over 1000).
 
Weird... at first I figured the X3e patch had reset them but that doesn't make any sense because the dropouts started occurring BEFORE I had implemented the patch but AFTER I had done the Windows updates. I don't understand how that is possible and I wish I had checked my buffers before installing X3e to see if they had indeed been reset by the Win updates but there you have it.
 
I turned the read/write settings up to 512 and everything worked like they did before. Freaky stuff.

As I said I have never had any clicks or pops in that regards or with pretty much anything in general unless a) I was running some WAY to high gain type effects (like things were being overloaded), b) I was maxing out my system resources and the crackles were the result of... well the crackles that happen when you push your system too hard or c) I had not set my Sonar Preferences to apply a slight fade in/out when stopping/starting playback which doesn't really relate to tat particular issue... but if you do not have those settings tweak I do recommend it. It is an ear/annoyance saver and just maybe it will help with that issue.
 
Cheers.

Are you playing back when you turn on the CL? 
 
 
Edit: Just tried it to confirm for me. No click or any other noise and I can't recall a sound when ever using the CL.

John
Are you playing back when you turn on the CL? 
 
 
Edit: Just tried it to confirm for me. No click or any other noise and I can't recall a sound when ever using the CL.

Hiya, John. How ya doin'? Thanks for checking and yes it's while playback is running. Like I said it's an a/b'ing issue. For this particular plug I guess it's not a HUGE deal unless I'm only using it really lightly and need to hear a nuance but I reported it in Alex' thread and he asked for a new thread. Still scritchy scratchys bug me and reminds me of the old days on my XP system when it seemed like everything did that. Drives me nuts.
 

CakeAlexS
Thanks I'll check it out. What's that setting in preferences? I'll do the test again if it's different (I'm running full scandisk right now so I'm out of action).

I've been procrastinating since my weatherstripping failure earlier but I'll fire up the rig to test this out again and I'll find the setting. I think it's under recording/playback. I don't see how it could effect the PC modules but it is a really nice option.
 

Leadfoot
Maybe you need to spray some contact cleaner on it? Sorry... I know that wasn't helpful.

Lol... and that's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Fortunately it's not ear blastingly loud.
 
And one Helpful vote goes to LF. lol

tKx5050
There was an 1.1 update/patch to CL soon after it came out. Might check that your account doesn't have two versions. Don't know how they sell it now.

Interesting. There were two entries for the CL in my account after I purchased it. I can't recall exactly what happened but IIRC both had download links but one of the entry's dl link caused an error. After about ten minutes my s/n and reg codes showed up on the other one and that's the one I dl'd and installed.
 
That may be it... maybe. Firing up the rig now to see if perhaps the problem disappeared. If no one else is experiencing this though then I may have other issues... and perhaps I am on the wrong version.
 
Thanks for the heads up. Cheers.

Really good point I also have the 101 update. It came out not long after CL was offered. It is an important update. 

Okay... this just got about a million times weirder and it has reminded me of another "bug" that has been annoying the hell out of me for ages... but I'll leave that bug for last.
 
First off I AM on the 1.0.1 release so that's good (thanks for pointing that out though).
 
So I'm using my Pre Master for this test. I feed everything into this and treat it like my master except do my whole mix processing there, instead of the master. Well I inserted the CL and started clicking away at the power button. I was getting a little glitch but not the scritchy scratchy. It was more of a skip like my latency settings were too low so I opened the Scarlett panel and changed them. That totally screwed up Sonar and gave me like heavy digital distortion munchkin playback (changing the ASIO buffer from the panel with Sonar open has always caused problems so I usually close Sonar before doing it but never had the munchkin thing before).
 
Anyway I close Sonar and reopened and tried again with the lowered ASIO buffer setting. I started clicking the power button on the CL and it was still giving me that little skip (but not the scritchy scratchy). So I wanted to test out Alex's thing to see if the other modules would make noise when clicking the power button and they DID!!! I had never had that before and I was totally flipping out!
 
THEN I realized the Prochannel Strip's MAIN POWER BUTTON wasn't even ON!!! Those glitches were happening with the PC COMPLETELY TURNED OFF!!! When I turned the PC strip back on... get this... when I would click on the power buttons of the OTHER modules that had just been making noise with the strip OFF (Quad Curve, Console Emu, CA2A, etc...) they no longer made ANY noise when clicking their power buttons! WTF?! So I tried the Concrete Limiter's power button and the scritchy scratchy noise came BACK (when it was a skip noise with the whole strip turned off) except there was a new sound like an old cassette deck being turned on/stopped in a weird way (like the tape noise of it being played back ultra fast or something). SO I think MAYBE that has something to do with an instance of the tape sim I introduced somewhere else in the chain the last time I worked on the project.
 
Wow. Crazy. I'll have to do some more tests and go back to a version without the Tape Sim. This may actually be a TS problem.
 
Could that thing actually mimic the sound of a bad start/stop of physical tape? Because that is a really dumb thing to emulate. lol

Beepster
I use a fancy trackball on my DAW and the scrollwheel is screwed up and doesn't actually scroll anymore.

Have you tried cleaning the scrollwheel?

Open the device up and look for stuff wrapped around the wheel, I have never used contact cleaner in a pointing device.