• Registered: 2018-06-06
  • Posts: 13

Topic: UFX+ disconnection issue

Hello, I am experiencing a strange problem with my UFX+. Occasionally, Totalmix FX will disconnect from the interface. Audio still works fine, but the totalmix program stops controlling the interface for a bit and then reconnects. It seems to happen intermittently. Any idea what could cause this?

  • Registered: 2018-06-06
  • Posts: 13

Re: UFX+ disconnection issue

OK so it seems the problem has gone away with a different usb port. Interesting though because the audio wasn't being interrupted as I would expect it to with a usb problem, and there weren't any usb errors reported.

3 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2018-06-12 07:12:49)

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 12,886

Re: UFX+ disconnection issue

Refer to handbook chapter 39.3. Maybe you used an USB port coming from a not supported USB3 chipset.
In the RME driver settings Dialog you have a diagnose function to identify transmission errors.

BTW .. very nice experience I made with Sonnet cards and FL1100 chipset.
Sonnet USB3-PRO-4PM-E, https://www.sonnettech.com/product/alle … 3pcie.html

This card here is extremely nice because:
1- it has 4 FL1100 USB3 chips on board, one dedicated for each port
2- excellent driver for Win7, under Win10 it shall be automatically become recognized
3- the driver uses a more efficient way, MSI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_S … Interrupts

Since using this card I can connect two UFX+ and an ADI-2 Pro without issues. When usign the USB3 port from my Intel Chipset (C612) I had sometimes issues in combination with more USB devices, like bluetooth adapter, USB3 Hub, etc.
All these problems are gone with this card.

The card requires a x4 PCIe slot.
There is a cheaper model with only one FL chip shared between the 4 ports, this requires only a x1 PCIe port.

If your issues are solved now, then its good. I only wanted to make you aware of, that by using such a card you can fully isolate your card from the rest of the USB infrastructure for ultra stability.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2018-06-06
  • Posts: 13

Re: UFX+ disconnection issue

Okay, thanks for the advice. I am currently in the process of upgrading my computer to a system with an 8700k and the ASUS Prime Z370-A Mainboard. I was going to use the UFX+ over thunderbolt with the EX3 Card and Startech adapter. Do you think that the Sonnet usb card would offer better performance than thunderbolt?

I would have assumed that thunderbolt would be better, but on my current system (GA Z97x UD7 TH, 4790k), USB3 actually performs a bit better than thunderbolt. This is why I am asking so many questions.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 12,886

Re: UFX+ disconnection issue

You can read some RTT cmparisons in the Excel inside of this article
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/

The advantage of the Thunderbolt connection could be slightly less CPU consumption, but tbh, the RME USB drivers are IMHO so good that this can be neglected. If you look that you can playback big projects at 32 samples ASIO buffersize with USB3, without audio loss: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … cks-de-en/

The MADIface USB3 driver has the advantage, that you can access different types of devices at once with this one ASIO driver, which is quite nice: UFX+/UFX II, MADIface XT/Pro/USB, OctaMic XTC, ADI-2 Pro/AE/FS/DAC, Digiface USB/Dante
So if you load this one and connect i.e.: two UFX+ and one ADI-2 Pro, then you can directly access each channel.
Note: the devices need to be clock synched and need to use the same ASIO buffer size, so that this will work good.

The thunderbolt driver, which I personally never tried, has the advantage, that this is directly connected to PCIe.
And the driver has still the pitch functionality in the driver settings dialog, which is with the USB3 transfer mode not possible anymore.

When comparing USB3 and thunderbolt from RTT (see the excel), you will notice the difference is tiny. Try it out.
For me it turned out that its nice and practical, that I can access both, UFX+ and ADI-2 Pro directly via one ASIO driver.
And the Sonnet card with the MSI based driver seems to work perfect. No impact no matter what USB devices I connect to the USB ports coming from chipset. There was some impact when I didnt use the Sonnet card.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13