Topic: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

First of all I want to say that I have already contacted the RME assistance and I am waiting for an answer to the problems I am having in connecting my Babyface Pro fs to my laptop. I am writing this post in case the resolution of the problem (hopefully) can be useful for somebody else, and also in case the problems I am experiencing have an easy/obvious fix (Windows 10/Babyface settings?) that right now I am totally missing.

The problem:
I managed to install the drivers successfully, install the last firmware and also Totalmix. The trouble is that when I disconnect the unit and reconnect it again the BF is not recognised properly anymore, in Windows 10 audio device manager I can see that the BF keeps going back and forth between the Realtek internal audio device of my laptop, "flickering" at high frequency between the various outputs and this doesn't allow any audio device setting. When this happens my CPU goes crazy and overheats, so I need to disconnect the unit quickly.

If I restart Windows 10 keeping the unit connected then when Windows is on again everything is fine and I can select the output device in the audio device manager with no problems, the signal is great and I have full control of the unit. But if I disconnect it and reconnect it again, the flickering problem happens again. If instead of restarting Windows I shut it down, the unit lose the power and when Windows is on again the same flickering problem occurs.

The unit has no problems whatsover in standalone mode and with my Desktop PC. So I am really baffled and I am pretty sure I am missing something obvious here, a kind of setting in either Windows or the BF that is causing the problem.

Any suggestions?

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Have you pushed the usb cable fully in on the bfp? It can feel fully in yet is t as it goes in quite far. I fell fowl to this a couple of times. Otherwise I haven’t seen the problem you mention on windows 10 or win 11.

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

I wish it could be that easy, yes the USB cable is fully in, also as I mentioned, the BF works perfectely fine with my desktop PC, also I tried it this morning with a very poor laptop of a friend and works like a charm...this is driving me crazy smile. thank you for the tip

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Have you tried a different USB port? Are you using a usb hub? Probably obvious questions again lol.

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Yep tried that too and also intentionally tried a USB hub...hopefully next week somebody from the RME assistance, I bought the unit specifically to be used with a laptop which is also brand new! Everything would have worked as mobile setup

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

The problem seems to be caused by the detestable Windows 10 Playback default device automatic plug and play function, the Recording list of devices seems to be fine. Also it is so weird, in my Cakewalk and Ableton DAW I can select the BF and use it with no problems even at low latency. If it was just for the Windows sounds I wouldn't care, the problem is that CPU goes very high and at some point I think for safety it shuts down the Windows Sounds service.

7 (edited by Pie' 2022-02-06 00:44:30)

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Update, temporary work around:
I found out that if I force to shut down the following Windows audio service and then restart it again it solves the problem, at least until I disconnect the device or I change the default device again then the problem starts again.

Service Host: Local Service (Network Restricted)
                        Windows Audio

In case somebody bumps into the same problem, here is the temporary work around procedure: Just open Services (type it in windows search), click on the "Windows Audio" service and on the left hand side stop it, wait a few seconds and restart it again.

8

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

This problem seems either a power issue (not enough current from USB, you could check using an external power supply for the BF), or an older Windows installation with polluted registry. In that case you should see the svchost.exe blocking one CPU core for some time.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

MC wrote:

This problem seems either a power issue (not enough current from USB, you could check using an external power supply for the BF), or an older Windows installation with polluted registry. In that case you should see the svchost.exe blocking one CPU core for some time.


Hi, the laptop is literally brand new and high specs, it arrived at the same time as the BF, I tried already the external power supply trick but the problem persists...and yes the svchost.exe related to Windows Audio service put a heavy load on the CPU, more precisely looking at the CPU resource monitor is the process "Realtek HD Audio Universal Service" that seems to cause that.

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Ok finally problem solved!

I disabled the "Realtek Audio Universal Service" and now the BF connects and works perfectly fine. My realtek internal audio card still works fine, so disabling this service didn't stop the internal audio card. I think this service is related to sorround and other effects which I really don't need, I don't want to update the drivers for this service using the massive file from Realtek website, which is also from 2017, and open another can of worms, I had enough of troublshooting these problems, so I disabled the "Realtek Audio Universal" service and I'll continue to live happy with it.

Instructions for people that might have the same problem:
Open Services (type it in windows search) find the service "Realtek Audio Universal Service" right click on it, go to properties and in the General tab, from the drop down list under Startup Type select Disabled. When Windows 10 will restart this service won't run and if you had my same problem this will fix it.

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Glad you fixed it. There’s nearly always something lurking in windows! I’ve never used a laptop for audio but the laptops I have bought have always been bloated with things I don’t want, meaning I have to spend a fair bit of time removing and disabling them.

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.

12 (edited by ramses 2022-02-06 09:38:15)

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

mkok wrote:

Glad you fixed it. There’s nearly always something lurking in windows! I’ve never used a laptop for audio but the laptops I have bought have always been bloated with things I don’t want, meaning I have to spend a fair bit of time removing and disabling them.

A good strategy is to always perform a clean Windows installation because factory installations can be very bad.
And then to install only the real necessary driver for the hardware which is not yet covered by the Windows installation (check device manager):
- chipset
- graphic
- LAN
- USB
- WLAN / Bluetooth
- Sound
- Mousepad
and to leave out any add-on tool for e.g.: updating BIOS / chipset / drivers / WLAN management / additional tools for sound like in this case / blower control / ...
After the installation of each driver I check latency with LatencyMon to find out whether I got a bad driver or not.
These tools are quite often badly coded and can even decrease GUI performance and increase also DPC of your system significantly. I had this issue with an otherwise very good Lenovo Laptop of a friend.
It was at that time, where you had small 32GB SSDs built-in as accelerator for Hibernation and Harddisk accesses.
And even this has not been done correctly from the preinstallation from factory. They left out the disk acceleration which is quite important if you have a harddisk and no SSD built-in.
The overall problem with factory installation was, that the performance was so bad, that the mouse cursor only move reluctantly on the screen and the performance was like big shit.
After a proper reinstallation and some tuning for audio (which is beneficial as well for a normal office laptop) everything was fine and the device runs now since about 6y without any issue, I only had to perform a few upgrades here and there (antivirus, macrium reflect).
Finally I made my friend a present and replaced the HD by a SSD because I feared that the HD might fail at some time and now the system became even a little faster.

Tip: before you reinstall make some notes about the installed driver / HW.
For some notebooks you will find sometimes two or three different drivers depending on when the laptop was buillt and what parts were available. This makes it easiser to you to pick the proper drivers and everything goes faster / more smoothly.

If you have a laptop with two disks/SSDs then create a partition for Windows and all applications, sound libs.
User data / project data to another disk / partition.
The prepared folders for "Own files", "Own Music" I move to the saparate disk/partition by opening the properties, to get them out of your profile folder c:\users\loginname\XYZ

This makes it easier to restore a backup from last week with a disk imaging tool like Macrium reflect.

Then all your user data stays in "save harbor" on separate disk / partition.
If there is anything wrong after an upgrade or whatever then you can more easily recover so that also your Windows Registry stays very clean.

As I do not change much in my applications I only have to be careful with my Firefox bookmarks and to export them before doing such a recovery of my Windows installation, otherwise I get the status of bookmarks of the last day/week.
After restoring the system I re-import and all is fine.

If you organize your system well you can perform restores to the last known good working Windows backup within less than 10-15 minutes. Additionally useful here Macrium Reflects feature: "rapid delta restore".
It only writes back those disk blocks that need to be changed, therefore the recovery is ultra fast even on big TB SSDs. Usually its only a little that becomes changed on the Windows partition after an upgrade ...

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

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

It was really painful to pinpoint the problem especially because the Realtek internal audio interface was completely different from the "Realtek Audio Universal Service". At the beginning I disabled the internal audio interface to see if there was any problem there, but this didn't solve anything, then the comment from MC made me think and I went to investigate in System Configuration what was actually causing the CPU to go crazy (while the internal Realtek audio card was deactivated) and there I found that the "Realtek Audio Universal Service" was overloading the CPU, so I deactivated the service and reactivated the Realtek audio card and that solved everything. Retrospectively it seems now obvious what I should have done, but I am not an IT/Windows guy, I rather enjoy playing and recording music!

14 (edited by WendellRivera 2023-04-05 12:08:53)

Re: Babyface Pro fs Windows 10 laptop connection problem

Sometimes laptops will automatically turn off USB devices to save power, which could be causing the flickering issue you're experiencing. One thing you could try is checking your power settings in Windows 10. You can adjust these settings in the Control Panel under Power Options.
If you have any issues or questions related to the Windows operating system, you can always find helpful advice and discussions on the Windows subreddit on reddit buy windows. There are plenty of knowledgeable and friendly people on that subreddit who are happy to offer their insights and assistance with any Windows-related problems you may be facing.