Topic: RME RayDAT Intermittant Playback Pops and Clicks
Hey all,
This is a real strange one - and I'm at the end of my tether with it. I recently reinstalled my O/S - everything is exactly the same as it was before my install (albeit less junk and obsolete programs), but now I am getting occasional pops and clicks when I use Skype (and occasionally during desktop audio playback in Foobar2000, Windows Media Player etc, and during ASIO playback in Adobe Audition - though this is much less frequent, and less likely to happen). The interferance is similar to what you would experience if the buiffer size is set too low in your interface, but it does not happen at frequent intervals - it sounds more like a cable being moved about).
I am not able to predict when the pops and clicks will happen, or replicate it without continually calling the "Echo / Sound Test Service" in Skype repeatedly until it starts (I've tried it about 20 times today to no avail). The strange thing is that when I experience pops and clicks during a skype call, I can get rid of them by playing some music in Foobar2000 - even if I keep the volume at 0. The pops and clicks will start again when I pause / stop the music, or when the song is switching. In this instance it's as if it only happens when Foorbar is below a certain gain threshold.
The interferance occurs in both the left and right channels.
These pops and clicks don't seem to affect recording in programs like XSplit, OBS or Audition. I have not been able to test in a proper DAW environment - I only have Adobe Audition at the moment - I've done a bit of recording when the issues occur, and played it back when they are not occuring, and the noise is not there.
It's not happened at all today, but I guarantee it will start again at some point.
I have the following setup:
* Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit (6.3, Build 9600) (9600.winblue_ltsb.150928-1002)
* NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
* Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.5GHz
* 32GB DDR5 RAM
* ASRock Extreme6 X99 Motherboard
* RME HDSPe RayDAT
* Digimax FS x 2 (SMUX) - only one is plugged in atm though
* Corsair mouse / keyboard
* Logitech C920 Webcam
I have not changed any hardware since the reinstall.
I've done the following to try and rectify the issue:
* Reinstalled the following drivers:
- Motherboard INF
- Network card
- USB Drivers
- NVIDIA GTX Drivers (using DriverSweeper + a clean install of the latest version)
* Disabled CPU throttling in Windows power management settings (and all other power management features like sleep, hybernate etc)
* Disabled C1E, C6 and SpeedStep in UEFI BIOS
* Ran CPUz to confirm my CPU isn't being throttled - though it fluxuates between 3699Mhz and 1199Mhz. I have definitely disabled all CPU throttling on my mobo and in windows, though
* Tried every buffer size (I can usually work with a 128 buffer no problems)
* Tried every possible combination of Hammerfall DSP settings
* Set my pagefile to a solid value of 8192 on my SSD (fastest drive I have)
* Monitored with LancencyMon
- The vast majority of the time, it reports "Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts"
- I was told to change my CPU throttling at one point, but this has not changed anything.
- I seem to have a ridiculously high pagefault resolution time. See the paste below for more details.
* Disabled all non essential hardware devices in UEFI BIOS (on board sound, second network card, firewire port etc)
* Disabled all non essential windows services
* Swapped the input and output optical cables with each other (and given them the "magic blow"). I have tried all other settings with the clock source set to "Internal", so its unlikely to be an ADAT / interface issue anyway.
* Error checked and defragmented my SATA drives, and trimmed my SSD
* Ran DIGICHECK Bit Statistics & Noise, but tbh I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at there. The bits sometimes go red when the issue is occurring (and every time I start a skype call), but I don't really know what that means.
* Tried downgrading the RME Hammerfall drivers to an older version (that was installed my my previous build) - driver_hdsp_win_405
* Tried changing all WDM settings in Windows Sound Settings.
Basically, everything except reinstall the O/S again. I have a niggle in the back of my mind about that, though - I initially tried to upgrade to Win 10, but unfortunately Win 10 does not support my 4K monitor, so I had to reinstall Win 8.1 again. I did this from fresh btw (HDD format). I'd downloaded the Win 10 drivers for my motherboard, and accidentally installed some of them (only the INF drivers I think) in Win 8.1. When I realised this, I downgraded them all to Win 8.1 versions. I'm thinking there may be some "newer" Win 10 drivers still left on my machine - though all the downgrades seemed to succeed OK.
Any help would be appreciated, and thanks in advance.
Link to my dxdiag and LatencyMon stats on my dropbox: