I am getting some of the strangest sounds coming out of my speakers! I've been using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 for ages. (Firewire). Then, about the time I loaded X2a, the world fell apart. It completely forgot/deleted all my settings and it took a bunch of effort just to get a sound out. Note; I don't really believe it's responsible for what you're about to hear but I was pist enough about X2a destroying my settings that I had to bring it up. http://forum.cakewalk.com...px?forumID=5&pop=true# I think something else is going on here, but I have no clue what. Since this happens on youtube vids and occasionally on mp3s, it's probably settings or hardware related. I have looked high and low and tried many different fixes. I thought, as a last resort I'd let the pros hear it, hoping maybe someone might have a clue. Sure would appreciate your opinions. (Be prepared for some really-ugly noise as you get into this short mp3. http://www.reverbnation.c...wagon-wheel-distortion

As far as X2 goes, making sure that ASIO is selected as the Driver Mode on the Playback and Recording tab of the preferences is the only X2 setting I can think of that would cause problems like this if set incorrectly.  As you said, since these problems occur with regular windows playback, it is probably not an X2 issue.  

What version of Saffire MixControl are you using?

Have you optimized Windows' settings for audio performance?  Here is an article outlining this:


http://www.focusrite.com/...en/article.php?id=1071


Have you checked your DPC latency?  Here is a tool: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Run the latency checker while playing back audio.  If you see any yellow or red bars, there are DPC issues going on.  


If you still having trouble please contact Focusrite tech support via this link:


http://us.focusrite.com/contact-support

I had checked DPC Latency b4 and found it to spike off the charts. Spikes as high as 16,000 to 20,000 are common. Some of the spikes occur even when there is no audio playing! ?? Near as I can tell, it sounds like it's potentially an IRQ conflict which I have yet to discover. I guess I continue to disable devices and check performance again. I contacted Focusrite yesterday but haven't heard back yet. Yes' I'm using Asio Drivers, but it doesn't seem like I have the level of controls I had pre-Focusrite. I'm using Mix-Control 3.0. I had been as high as 3.1 but I blew it away and started over, hoping to find a conflict with one of the revs. Found another Latency monitor called latmon.exe. It goes beyond DPC latency by showing offending processes, etc. Both systems say my system sucks for streaming. (Why all of a sudden?) Yes, I had performed all the performance enhancements some time ago. Back to checking the latmon report...

I suggest that you use Saffire MixControl 3.1 as I doubt that MixControl is the problem here.  To confirm, disable the Pro  24 in device manager and check the DPC latency again.  If you still have spikes, it has nothing to do with MixControl.

LatencyMon is a great for the fact that it shows the highest source of latency.  This will help you greatly in hunting down the offending devices.  I like to use both programs; I find that the visual representation in DPC latency checker is more intuitive.

DPC latency can be a pain to sort out, but the good news is that it usually can be resolved.

Hi Matt, this might not be the time or place but do you guys have win8 drivers for saffire liquid 56 yet? I am looking at this unit in conjunction with your mkII dynamic.

Saffire MixControl 3.1 supports Windows 8.

Thanks matt

My son bought a $1.500 Dell Laptop and in the end he could not get rid of the DPC spikes. If anyone could have figured it out it would have been him. He even partitioned his drive and installed Linex, Then even OSX. Audio would just not work. His conclusion-  With Laptops sometimes it's just embedded in the BIOS. Bad combo of components. He bought a $500 Acer that works perfectly. 

As some of you knew, the Firewire controller was not the problem. Since I eliminated some fat in the processes and disabled certain drivers, the DCP Latency graph doesn't look nearly as bad. BUT, it's still bad enough to cause snaps, pops and occasional partial dropouts. By that, I mean the sound goes away for about a second, but X2a keeps tracking. I called my local PC fix-it guys and they think it could possibly be something corrupt in a windows system file. The files that continually give me a DPC headache are ndis.sys, tcpip.sys and mf01000.sys. When I kill the network, the only bad player left is mf01000.sys. In that case, the DPC value max is around 300 to 400, as opposed to as high as 20,000 when this first started. I'm on the hunt now to see if a windows (r) repair might be of use. Alternatively, I wonder if doing a non-distructive upgrade to WIndows 8 might fix the issue... Any hints?

Seems like mf01000.sys is a culprit. What is it? If it is a low-level network driver, then tcpip.sys and ndis.sys would be victims, not causes. One possibility could be your network cable -- is it securely connected at both ends? When you kill your networking, are you doing it at the bios level, i.e. disabling your network card? A few network interfaces behave badly when cables are not connected and when they first connect.