• jner
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Topic: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Recently I've noticed sporadic crackling sounds when using Babyface Pro on my Windows 10 computer.
I've run LatencyMon and the result is that most of the time my system is OK, but once in awhile there is this peak in ISR and DPC.
For DPC it's mvs91xx.sys - Marvell magni Windows Driver (version 1.2.0.1041) with execution time about 10000 us.
For ISR it's storport.sys - Microsoft Storage Port Driver with execution time about 1000us.
There are no errors reported by the RME settings GUI

Here are some system information:
OS version:                                        Windows 10, 10.0, version 2009, build: 19042 (x64)
Motherboard:                                     ASUS PRIME Z490-A
CPU:                                                  GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz
RAM:                                                  65437 MB total
GPU:                                                  NVidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super v 461.72 drivers
Babyface Driver:                                 1.210,
Babyface HW rev:                               129
Antivirus SW:                                      Kaspserky Internet Security (update to latest version did not help)

BIOS is v 1003 (should be latest non-beta), using default settings, except manual OC (with no OC), and AuraLED=OFF

So far I've tried the following without any luck:
* Increase buffer size
* Decrease screen resolution (I'm running 4K scaled 120%)
* Disconnect all other USB devices (even tried disconnecting mouse and keyboard)

Any ideas how to proceed in tracking down the problem?

  • waedi
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Seems to be a Windows problem.
Can you monitor the music in Digicheck ?
Is the crackling visible there ?
Can you hear the crackling on the headphone out ?
And on the analog out 1/2 (if connected to speakers) aswell ?

What I would do for a test :
Disconnect the computer from internet, switch off Kaspersky, in the BIOS disable onboard audio.
Reboot and listen...?

M1-Sequoia, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue

3 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-03-06 20:21:13)

  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

jner wrote:

For DPC it's mvs91xx.sys - Marvell magni Windows Driver (version 1.2.0.1041) with execution time about 10000 us.
For ISR it's storport.sys - Microsoft Storage Port Driver with execution time about 1000us.

Both is significantly too much. Those drivers block the CPU core for too long.
If audio related processes are being scheduled to such a CPU core, then audio drops occurr.

BTW: the windows process scheduler can't do anything against it, because drivers (those deferred procedure calls)
run at highest priorities and can only detach themself from the CPU where they are running on.

You need to find a better running driver that is better programmed according the usual driver programming conventions not to grab a CPU core for too long time.

Contact Asus or Marvell directly and explain to them the issue, maybe they know and can direct you to a better driver.
Otherwise you have to do trial and error.

I would make a backup / disk image with Macrium reflect, before fiddeling around in the system ....
Then you can restore at any time quickly.
But then you need the commercial version of Macrium.
Ask your friends / family. If you buy 2, then you get 4 licenses then the cost for everybody is only little more than €30.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • mkok
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

So that pc should be fine. The one thing I see that can cause problems is the nvidia graphics. I have an ASUS z390 rog strix gaming e motherboard and use the intel onboard graphics. I run full 4K at 100% with no impact at all. I did also use a nvidia 1030 which showed up on the latency checker but was still ok. The onboard video gives me a tighter picture over device port to my monitor. Cpu is i9 9900k but I don’t think that would make a difference and I only have 32gig ram.

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.
  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

mkok wrote:

So that pc should be fine. The one thing I see that can cause problems is the nvidia graphics. I have an ASUS z390 rog strix gaming e motherboard and use the intel onboard graphics. I run full 4K at 100% with no impact at all. I did also use a nvidia 1030 which showed up on the latency checker but was still ok. The onboard video gives me a tighter picture over device port to my monitor. Cpu is i9 9900k but I don’t think that would make a difference and I only have 32gig ram.

Excuse me, but have you not seen the high runtime of the two drivers?
It is exactly these two drivers that occupy CPU cores for too long ...

Yes, it could be that later perhaps the nVidia also proves to be problematic after the other driver problems are fixed.

But wouldn't it be better, to work on the most obvious problems first before looking elsewhere ? I also use nVidia cards and have not had any problems with the cards so far.

I would suggest to work on the main problems first and once they are fixed to see where something might still be wrong.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Crackle is present on headphone as well as analog 1/2 output.

It seems to be related to disk access because if I use ASIO drivers in JRiver Media Center there is always some crackling at the end of songs just before the next one in the playlist is to start. Also, in Cubase there is crackling just before the start of upcoming audio clips. Both of the drivers I mentioned previously are disk related which also suggests the relationship to disk access.

I ran a trial version of Dumo driver update software (which isn't able to download the new drivers) and it shows that the latest available Marvell driver should be version 1.2.0.1049 compared to the currently installed version 1.2.0.1041. I have no idea if updating the driver may help but I cannot find it either on the Asus or Marvell web site. There are a lot of other references if I Google for it but I'm not fond of installing drivers from non-official sources.

7 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-03-06 22:13:31)

  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

> Crackle is present on headphone as well as analog 1/2 output.
> It seems to be related to disk access...

Sure, look at your measurement ... 10ms DPC latency is a lot !

> It seems to be related to disk access

You did already a nice job and identified DPCs that run for too long.

> I ran a trial version of Dumo driver update software

Tbh .. I do not trust such automatic driver update software.
In a bad case of luck it updates too many drivers and this could cause other problems.

You identified already issues with two drivers.
Therefore you should really concentrate on fixing them by performing a manual driver installation.
This could either be a driver upgrade or also a downgrade.

I made myself the experience that some driver versions can have nasty bugs, latest is not always greatest...
So if you do not want to have the job to find a better driver for Marvell SATA controller, etc ..
Then I would still suggest you ask Asus and Marvell support whether they know a driver version without these issues.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Question, how exactly did you perform this LatencyMon measurement ?
I would like to know under what circumstances these high numbers for DPC latency came up.

Not sure whether you know, that LatencyMon creates a typical DAW load during measurement.
Therefore you should not create any load yourself on your computer.
Boot freshly, login, wait for processes to terminate. Start LatencyMon and do not move the mouse.

Next important thing, did you run the tests with Windows Energy Profile "High performance" ?
If not then high latency values are no wonder.

Did you check already in the BIOS, whether any energy saving options have been disabled ?
- C-/P-/T-States need to be disabled in BIOS or if there is no disable set C-States to C0/C1.
- Also disable Enhanced Halt State (C1E).

You can keep EIST and TURBO enabled.

Next thing to do is to disable CPU core parking using this tool: https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/
Its enabled by default and introduces a certain latency that is not wanted.

For audio recording and playback we need an agile system with reduced internal latencys..

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • mkok
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Oops sorry missed the results. Agreed deal with the drivers identified

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.
  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

I was not aware about the LatencyMon way of working. I have now run the check with a newly booted computer without any other load (except automatically started software like anti-virus)
I already had High Performance Set.
The result is that as long as I don't do anything max DPC is about 500us (different drivers from one run to another) , and max ISR about 200us (DirectX Kernel Driver). I let it run for about 15 minutes.
But as soon as I do any disk access the result is as before with the Marvell driver peaking at 10ms.

About the BIOS settings I'm not sure how I shall configure then since the only setting I found of the ones you're listing is 'CPU C-states' and it can only be set to Auto, Enabled or Disabled. It does not say anything about C0/C1. Explanation in the BIOS configurator is:
'Enable/Disable CPU Power Management. Allows CPU to go to C states when it's not 100% utilized.' Shall I set it to Disabled?

11 Reply by MC

  • MC
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Before you tinker in the BIOS (which might not help anyway) please make sure you did set the current energy profile to High Performance in Windows.

Your disk access issues are so obvious I can't believe ASUS isn't aware of it, nor that this hasn't already been discussed in some forum somewhere. So before you tweak your system kaputt do a thorough search first.

Also you did not disclose what kind of disk that is and how it is connected to the motherboard.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

MC wrote:

please make sure you did set the current energy profile to High Performance in Windows.

Even better:

Go to Power & Sleep settings - Additional Power Settings (on the right) - set it to Ultimate Performance

Use this guide or similar to get it to show up https://www.howtogeek.com/368781/how-to … indows-10/

In regards to the BIOS, most guides I've been through suggest disabling all speed stepping and all that core parking, V-core etc in the bios, also check up on all driver updates But I mean ALL. Not that the latest drivers are always best, but some may be archaic - I found some recently on mine that where from 2006 yikes - and disable usb sleep stuff, make sure usb and other things are at 100-100% power, all that good stuff - but I am of no authority to make any claims as to what will help you out, in fact, I may create my own post with DPC issues, since I'm getting pagefaults I dunno why, and some inevitable directx, gpu driver and microsoft stuff that's pesky to get rid of hmm (not that I'm having any major issues with clicks or pops, but I've seen much cleaner systems so would like to get that going or maybe do a clean windows install XD)

REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              2.886905
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.000953
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.000953

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   941
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              80.456710
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ndis.sys - Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), Microsoft

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.035253
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         ndis.sys - Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), Microsoft

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          0.124189

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   55811
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0

REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count:                 explorer.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults                       251
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          232
Number of processes hit:                              5





Best Regards from Denmark smile

  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Thanks for the tips. I'm trying to test the simplest things first so have not tried everything yet.
I did set power settings to ultimate, but without any change. Also tried playing some audio files (using JRiver Media Center) from different disk drives, but the clicks are still there.

I have 6 SATA drives:
System drive is a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, about half full.
Main data disk is a Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB, about 100GB free, i.e. almost full
Additional data disks:
WDC WD4003FZEX-00Z4SA0, almost full
WDC WD6001FZWX-00A2VA0, almost full
WDC WD80EFAX-68KNBN0, plenty of space left
WDC WD4003FZEX-00Z4SA0, almost full

I tried to find discussions about similar problems (Marvell latency related) but surprisingly there where not a lot. Solutions in the discussions I found where like: free up space on your disks (could fit my disk situation) or clean you computer (remove dust inside, theory being that some component was not working as i should).

Some other observations I've made:
* If I try to play audio files from foobar2000 instead of JRiver Media Center (both are using RME ASIO driver with same buffer settings) there is no problem with clicks, nor does LatencyMon shows any Marvell execution time peaks.
* Sometimes 'Highest measured interrupt to process latency' peaks without any corresponding ISR or DPC peak.
* I cannot find anywhere that my motherboard is using a Marvell SATA controller, only Intel controller. So why is it using a Marvell driver?

  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Just tried to uninstall the Marvell driver using Device Manager. After uninstall, but before computer reboot, the clicks are gone. Then, after reboot, the Marvell driver is back and so are the clicks.

  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

I checked the ASUS webpage, whether I can identify any Marvell related Sata driver for your mainboard, but
-> found nothing

I checked your mainboards manual, whether I find there an indication for Marvell related hardware / chips on mainboard
-> found nothing

Its not clear to me, why this Marvell driver is being reinstalled on reboot, if you have no marvell controller in your board.

BTW .. the only SATA driver that I found on ASUS support page for your mainboard /  Win10 is this one:
"Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology Driver Software V17.9.4.1017 For Windows 10 64bit."

But this driver you should not install, use it only if you want to build a RAID (where I think it is still common sense, that a RAID of SSD is only good for benchmarks, but doesn't bring any advantage for application performance).

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Checked the list of installed software in "Add or Remove Programs" and the Marvell drivers are listed there. After uninstall and reboot they are gone also in the device driver list. Also uninstalled NVIDIA HD Audio drivers for good measure. Now the number of clicks are less, but not completely gone. Sometimes the 'Highest measured interrupt to process latency' still peaks without any obvious ISR or DPC peak.

In my latest measurement highest ISR is now dxgkrnl.sys (about 500us) and highest DPC is nvlddmkm.sys (about 700us).

17 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-03-07 11:49:38)

  • ramses
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

Who did the Windows installation ? Was this a preinstalled system ?

In terms of nVidia, maybe worth a try to install the Studio driver which has not so frequent changes and has the focus on stability, image processing and image quality, not to support the latest game features.. It has been upgraded by nVidia last recently.
But for playing Cyberpunk 2070 I went back to use the normal driver, currently: 461.40

In the past I had one issue with nVidia drivers, everything was slow. So I wouldn't exclude that sometimes they introduce versions, that are not beneficial for all systems. Maybe worth a try to contact their hotline whether they know what might work best for your system in terms of DPC / driver latencies ...

By opening such cases at nVidia I would also hope, that their testing focuses not only on highest frame rates and stability but also on "tolerable" DPC latencies.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

The Windows installation was done by me. Can't recall that I have installed Marvell drivers (or why) by apparently I have.
I have changed nvidia drivers to studio version. I'll see if there is any difference.

  • jner
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Re: Sporadic crackling with Babyface Pro

I'm reusing my old thread about problems with clicks.
While I seem to have solved the biggest issues I had there is still some clicks where the LatencyMon shows that something is introducing latency but don't show exactly what it is. I think I have tracked it down to WavesLocalServer, which is installed together with Waves plugins. If I kill it from the task manager the clicking is gone. Problem is the server restarts every time I use Waves plugins.
Anyone having this issue?
I plan to contact Waves about this.