New system : Distortion only - Any experiences anyone ?

[PeterSt]

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.

[Nick]

Peter,

I had something that sounds similar when I was using my Transit card with a PCI USB card in a Gigabyte mobo Pentium 4 PC. All would play well (well before the KS engine) then I would have sense that something subtle was wrong with the sound (loss of resolution, timing closed in image and loss of base lines), occasionally I would get a few ticks as well then suddenly lots of distortion, quite loud masking the music. I had to stop playback power cycle the Transit and restart to get music back but a reboot was the best solution, as the music would break down more oftern after the first time. Some times I could play for hours without a problem and it did improve with some general OS speed tuning but never went away. It was frustrating, I put it down to a sync problem as well but despite trying never got to the bottom of it. As it only cropped up occasionally for me I lived with it and then bought a new mobo with quad core and new memory. The problem disappeared and the same PCI usb card worked fine in the new setup so the problem was probably mobo related.

This is a shame I hope you find a fix, I took a look at the mobo you chose and it looks very promising.

Nick.

[PeterSt]

Thank you for the heads up Nick.

Peter

[Marcin_gps]

Peter, I can't wait until you manage to run your new setup. My idea of best sound from PC has just changed 180 degrees and I wonder - how much is to be gained with really fast CPU/PC. Do you think there is a a boundary and having faster than e.g. top core i7 CPU won't bring further improvements? You're the only one who is able to answer this, because no-one know how complex is XXHE and what are 'the requirements'?

[Nick]

Peter,

I just remembered, don't know if this will help you but the distorsion onset was be linked to the display on my old PC. The distorsion would oftern be accompanied by horizontal static on screen starting exactly when the sound changed. I remember looking at drivers, IRQ etc etc but no luck for me. Just in case it points you in a good direction.

Regards,

Nick.

[PeterSt]

Hi Marcin,

The only thing I can say at this moment is

a. Yes, my PC runs glitch free at last;
b. I don't know what it is yet, and in order to find out I have to reactivate stuff one by one (like USB3.0, FireWire, C1 );
c. My cpu runs at 100% all the time (which is not what did the trick);
d. I don't recognize my own sound anymore.

Bass is superb, cymbals sound longer, and the highs ... might even be too silky now. It slipped my mind to try W7 again (but I didn't).

Referring to your question in the other topic : I bought a modern video card with modern drivers (and installed them), hoping it would be that, but it wasn't. But ony the beauty of the Coverart makes the sound better, as it seems (joking).

Anyway, 4 cores active, no hyperthreading, Ratio at 9. (which all didn't cause it to run, but may create the sound I have at this moment).
Just super fragile (beautiful) sound.

When I know what caused the distortion I will "tune up" again (90% or so is disabled now), but right now I'm only glad it works, plus the bonus of better sound. Really really better.

Peter


PS: Nick, thank you. But watching whatever monitoring program indeed made "hiccup" that at the exact same time. That's why the new video card. I still don't know whether the refresh of the screen caused the sound to distort or the other way around (so to say), but killing the monitor program involved, kept on distorting at the same frequency (so, probably that other way around). But at the last BIOS changes I only changed 4 or 5 things, so it will be easy now to find out what it caused, and I sure will let it know.

[Telstar]

c. My cpu runs at 100% all the time (which is not what did the trick);

Uninstall ANY asus utility that you may have put.

[PeterSt]

I am sorry. I meant "at 100% clock frequency" ! And this is not because I shut down the control over it. It's something else I've shut down.

[Telstar]

I am sorry. I meant "at 100% clock frequency" ! And this is not because I shut down the control over it. It's something else I've shut down.

ahh. mhh but check what you have installed from the asus cd. Really:)

[Marcin_gps]

Peter, did you compare playing on 2 cores vs. 4 cores? I'd unlock my 2 spare cores, but the Cantatis go crazy if I do this and hangs after few seconds of playback  I don't know if it's just my PC or these are really cr*py drivers - I can't change any hardware setting without reinstalling OS. Luckly for me, I can change CPU frequency, so now I'm running my Phenom at 3.6GHz, unfortunatelly I had to use fan, because it got to hot - I have a copper heatsink, which doesn't work great in a passive configuration, eventhough it's the best on the market - http://www.techpowerup.com/71605/Thermalright_Ultra_120_Cu_Limited_Edition_up_for_Grabs_Next_Month.html

To sum up - is there any benefit for XXHE from more cores? I could get a 6 core Phenom

[PeterSt]

Hi Marcin,

No, I didn't check that for SQ at this moment.
All I know is that at least 4 cores will be used for the conversions (explicitly). I don't know what happens if more cores are there; they may be used too (but not explicitly addressed).

Actually the Hyperthreading is more interesting (like the i7 can do that per core), BUT, this is to test by me - mainly because you'll actually loose processing power for one thread (like the playback thread); It's just divided by two.

On another note ... I can now use those 8 "cores" (thus, including Hyperthreading) for addressing and testing 8 cores explicitly.

Btw, I must be careful never coming round to finishing 0.9z-3.

Peter

[Josef]

Not sure if it's related but there have been, in fact, many problems reported with Intel i3/5/7 processors related to incompatibility between new intel chipsets with certain USB 1.1 equipment used by DJs - some people ended up going back to Core Duo and others bought newer models of equipment (presumably USB 2-based).
You can read the whole thread here (is very long): http://www.serato.com/forum/discussion/258955

Curiously, nobody seems to have verified a fix posted by user ashare80 near the end of that thread - Here it is copied verbatim if you are lazy to read the whole thing

I've used both an sl-1 and a ttm57 for a week now on my i7 windows 7 laptop with no problems by turning off "speedstep" and "usb emulation" in the bios under "advanced" as well as turning off the "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" in the device manager under the "power management" tab of each usb root hub properties.

*Note*
Make sure you also change the "power plan" settings to reflect the changes in the device manager. To do this click the battery then More power options->Change plan settings->Change advanced power settings->USB settings->USB selective suspend settings->Disabled

I've realized by simply un-checking this option in the device manager does not keep the settings after rebooting because the "power plan" settings must be changed to keep it from reverting back when it loads.

[PeterSt]

Well, I can't put my finger on what actually causes it. I've been rebooting for 8 hours in a row now, and I'm fedup with it.

It seems a combination of things, which also are "speed" related. So, what seems to be involved is (and with these settings all is ok) :

- Either Firefire support or USB3.0 support (or both); (now both Off)
- Possibly normal (Legacy) USB support; (now Off)
- Hardware Prefetching; (now On)
- CPU Speed; (now Max (no overclocking))
- C1E support; (Now Off)
- Possiby PCI Memory Remapping; (now Off)

This morning I started off with no Firewire and USB3.0 support, FSB-CPU ratio of 9 (FSB at 133MHz), Thermal Function off, and all worked (like yesterday). So, thinking it should be either of these settings I couldn't let it go wrong, until I started to tweak things I already tweaked yesterday because re-applying the formerly mentioned didn't help to let it go wrong. IOW, I must have re-applied stuff in another sequence than I shut them down yesterday (which went in groups), and really, 8 hours later I still have no clue. This is also because many things matter, and one may cause 30% of the problem, another 40% and a last 30% again (see above list, which all individually for sure influence for the better when shut off, but each individual doesn't help enough).

I have been on the route of "general too high speed" for a while, but afterwards couldn't proove that either (now running at full system specs, while yesterday I certainly did not).
The hardware prefetching is a most obvious (destroying when On) one, but right now it *is* on, without problems.

Again, you should say that turning each of the list above to On will unveil the mystery. But it takes hours again easily, because the lightest form of it will present the problem after over 4 minutes, *and* you'd have to play Chopin or something, because the lightest ticks are not audible with Michael Jackson. Ah, I didn't even tell that, but the distortion goes along with the volume of the music. So, when Mr Chopin slams the piano it may be there, but when he tickles it, nothing happens. Not in that lightest form.
Btw, with the worst form the music distorts heavily right from the start, but only if the tracks have to be converted first (Start Playback during Conversion is Off). The distortion of this form can happen after 5-10 seconds also. And you know what ?

This latter is just a known problem to many, and in the end for (I think) all that could be tweaked out by XX settings. But in the *very* end it looks like it is a "lower level" problem, and starts in the motherboard somewhere.


Peter


PS: Josef, thank you. I applied those settings already. But I shut down Legacy USB support also, to be sure.
Also : The problems from that thread are not new to i7 etc; it was right from the Q (uad) Intel processors; all Pro audio software had problems.

[PeterSt]

One more thing which may come handy for others at some stage :

I think I mentioned that disk light showing a flicker each second;
Well, I tested it in Safe Mode; no I/Os are there at all (when at last after (reboot/) 5-10 minutes all died out), but that flicker remains.
It must be something the mobo is doing. I don't know.


PS: Sound seems great to me ! A wealthyness of clarity, and -somehow- an enormous amount of hall in the room (not because of sound pressure; just at low level playing).

[AUDIODIDAKT]

One more thing which may come handy for others at some stage :

I think I mentioned that disk light showing a flicker each second;
Well, I tested it in Safe Mode; no I/Os are there at all (when at last after (reboot/) 5-10 minutes all died out), but that flicker remains.
It must be something the mobo is doing. I don't know.


PS: Sound seems great to me ! A wealthyness of clarity, and -somehow- an enormous amount of hall in the room (not because of sound pressure; just at low level playing).

I have that flickering light each second too !

Sound is also the same as you discribe................

Roy