New system : Distortion only - Any experiences anyone ?

[arvind]

Hi Peter,

Maybe its time if you started a new topic on the ideal configuration of a PC to get the best SQ from XXHE. I'm sure this question would be in the mind of many of us in the forum & also for newcomers. I for one am looking at replacing my existing Laptop but I don't have a clear idea of what I should be looking for.

Arvind

[ed linssen]

Hi all - Can I ask for some help in here ?

I mentioned it in between the lines elsewhere, but my new system turned out to be a fiasco;

Motherboard : Asus P7P55D-E Evo (s1156 socket)
Processor : Intel Core i7-870, 2.93GHz.
All SATA drives configured as IDE (no AHCI).
OS on a OCZ Vertex-2 90GB.

This small set brings nothing but distortion. The best what may happen is that I have4-5 minutes of normal sound (which still sounds wrong to me), and then slowly the distortion starts. It's small ticks in the beginning, but it is a matter of waiting until completely no music is audible anymore.
Whatever Q settings do not matter a thing, as does the sound engine;
The strange thing is : this happens the same with KS Adaptive mode which checks the buffers, and no error comes from that. So, somewhere deep down things seem to get out of sync, while the OS doesn't know about it (buffer checking).
Oh, Split File Size influences largely, but never brings a solution.

Disk light flickers each 1 second, and as far as I can see it doesn't come from some OS settings. Notice that the exact same OS (disk) put in my old system, doesn't exhibit this, nor is there distortion.
W7 or Vista no difference (clean installs). With and without Tweaked to Dead.

I am not going to ask you what this can be, nor am I able to try suggestions (the PC is out of order now, and all is in the old system again), BUT, someone may have experienced the exact same. Also, I recall a post/topic somewhere told about a similar thing, but don't know where to look for or how to find it.

So, the most characteristic is the vinyl-like ticks it starts with, which grow more and more and more, eventually ending up in distortion only.
Once the distortion is there, it is clearly noticeable that e.g. a moving graph from TaskManager incurs for the distortion (gggk gggk gggk).

I tried and switched etc. all I could think of, but it all doesn't matter a single bit. The only thing I did not try (I didn't see how to do it) is changing the FSB/Clock ratio which is set to 22, and which seems high to me (more normal would be 9 ? -> I just don't know).

It feels like PCI bus related.

If anyone even had the slightest problem which looks like this, please let me now !
Thanks for your possible help !
Peter


PS: Actually for me it is a bummer only, and not much of a problem; I will trade the lot for something completely different, and 99% sure the problem will have gone. The importance is though, it may happen to you the same. So I rather "know" what causes this, and how to solve it.

Hi Peter,

While playing a file and after shutting off DCPLAT I experienced a very fuzzy distorted sound! Could not cure the pain by restarting XXHE.
After rebooting my system, problem was gone. Maybe you were checking latency  with the same program?
Maybe it helps...

Ed

[PeterSt]

Hey Ed, thanks for the good hint. But I didn't.
But, did you know this program creates a service itself ? haha.
I am not sure what it takes to indeed have this service there, but 100% sure I found it at some stage. Maybe it was on XP (I say this, because later I couldn't find it anymore after using DCPLAT, while this (running !) service I found was after several reboots without using it).

Thanks,
Peter

[PeterSt]

I am not sure it was ever mentioned in this topic that my problem was solved, but it was (and is).

By now I encountered 2 other persons of which I thought they may suffer from the same I did. I gave them the below list of BIOS settings which may be involved, and for both persons it helped.
Depending on your motherboard the entries are there or not.

It is of no use to try these settings one by one, because it is no single setting that causes / solves this. If you like it, you can do it the other way around. First apply all these, and next remove them one by one. But, be careful, because the least severe case of it will exhibit only slight ticks after 4 minutes into playback, and you will not even notice it unless it's piano-alone or so.


C1E support - Disabled.
MAX CPUID Value Limit - Disabled.
Intel Virtualization Tech - Disabled.
Hyperthreading - Disabed.
A20M - Disabled.
Intel C-State Tech - Disabled.
Note : Memory Remap Feature : Enabled (is default).
Realtek LAN (1 & 2) - Disabled.
Marvell 9123 Boot Rom - disabled.
On Board USB 3.0 Controller - Disabled.
Intel VT-d (see above, Virutal Tech) - Disabled).
Note : ACPI 2.0 - Disabled (default)
Note : ACPI APIC support - Enabled (default)
Note : EuP Ready - Disabled (default)
Asus Express Gate - Disabled.

[Telstar]

Intel Virtualization Tech - Disabled.
Note : ACPI 2.0 - Disabled (default)

Not sure if disabling the above two was a good thing. Does your computer sleeps without ACPI?
Virtualization is used in (horror) WMP, so it MAY be used to our advantage for audio

just my two c.

[KUOYAO]

Hi Peter,

I too experience similar playback problem.  Music will continuously clicked.  It went away when I raised Q1 from 0 to 1.  Not sure if this is related to your problem. 

However, I still get a single "click" in between the time an old track ends and a new one starts. This new problem only started with version 4-0.

[PeterSt]

Kuo-Yao, thank you. The clicks from now in between tracks are known (and just a bug). I think it is written in the release notes of 0.9z-4-0 (or in the link it refers to in there).

[KUOYAO]

I confess I didn't read the notes  . Anyways, this version sound quite good so I put up it that little annoyance.