1 Topic by woodnut (edited by woodnut 2022-07-06 15:32:30)

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Topic: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Hello folks,

I've spent the past week trying to eradicate dropouts, errors and glitches with my new UFX ii and am really starting to chase my tail at this point so am hoping for some advice or pointers where to focus my efforts.

There's a question I was hoping to clear up initially before providing detail on my setup and what I have tried so far.

In the USB diagnosis window the errors are always in between the two brackets |   |   These errors coincide with bleeps and drop outs in the recorded audio. For these specific errors (USB Transport errors?)  are they more likely to occur at lower latency settings than higher latency settings? 







Detail : -
 

- I have been testing by leaving four tracks recording in Reaper, with the USB diagnosis dialogue box open, set to 32 samples.
  Sometimes It runs with zero errors for 45 mins or so, sometimes there are a few errors after ten minutes and occassionally                                         
hundreds of errors.

- I have the UFX ii connected to a Sonnet Technologies USB3-4PM-E Allegro PCI-e Card (4-Port, Allegro Type A USB 3.2 4-PORT) which uses the FL1100 chipset.

- I reinstalled windows 10 on my PC. This appeared to help alot as prior to this I was getting alot more errors and the FIFO error warning where the connection is completly lost.

- PC is an i7 8700K, 6 Core, 12 Thread, 3.7GHz - 32Gb RAM, with Intel Chipset, an MSI Z370-A PRO, Intel Z370 motherboard

- Background Services prioritised as advised in many optimisation guides for Windows 10.

- On board sound disabled along with WIFI, virus software, windows defender, one drive.

- I am using a Lindy Cromo 1m USB from the UFXii and that is going into a 5 metre active repeater
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LA56WDM/ … 11_TE_dp_1

- I have tested with a discrete Radeon graphics card as well as the onboard UHD Graphics 630 card.

- I leave latency monitor open while doing the recording tests to see if it catches anything that coincides with the errors but it always reports that the system appears to be able to hanndle real time audio.

- High perfromance power plan selected.

- sleeps states for USB and hard drives disabled along with screen saver.

- Latest graphics, chipset and motherboard bios installed

- Latest RME drivers installed. Also uninstalled and reinstalled just in case the installation was corrupt.




Many thanks for any suggestions.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,690

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Have you tried other ports? The UFX II doesn't need USB 3.0...
Does this only happen at 32 samples?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thank you for the reply.

I am getting errors at 64 samples also. I haven't tested any higher than 64 samples.
My last test just now was at 32 samples, I got 11 errors after 40 minutes but there were 0 errors after 30 minutes.

When I first got the UFXii  I tried it with all the ports on my motherboard but did not see any difference so I searched this forum and saw the Sonnet PCI USB cards were generally recommended on some threads.

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Is there any guidance that you can provide on what that middle number means in the USB dialog box?
Is there a small and limited number of factors that can affect this error or is there lots of possible causes?

  • Registered: 2022-02-20
  • Posts: 36

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

woodnut wrote:

Is there any guidance that you can provide on what that middle number means in the USB dialog box?
Is there a small and limited number of factors that can affect this error or is there lots of possible causes?

Any numbers other than zero are bad, not sure what they mean but that's largely irrelevant.

I had problems with my UFX+ under Windows a while ago, it turned out to be C-States https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=35166

I wouldn't rule out something weird going on with the USB repeater though.. Are there errors without it?

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thanks, yes I read that thread previously. I've spent alot of time going through this forum in the last week or so. I think I  must have read most of the threads on here where other people have had problems with the USB connection. I had no idea these problems were as common as they appear to be. Laughable now as I thought I was moving from an old, unsupported and sometimes flakey method (firewire) to something more modern supported and stable and its been a disaster so far.

I have disabled C states in the bios.

I had it running error free for over an hour with the repeater and thought it was all ok. Perhaps I need to go back to square one with the PC back next to the UFX and a short USB cable.

I completly understand that any numbers in that window are bad news. Some guidance would be really helpful here however as it may be that certain numbers can only be caused by certain factors.

It might well be the case that any issue can cause an error number anywhere on that dialog box, but from my point of view I don't know because I can't find that information anywhere.

I make a change and sometimes get an error free test recording for around an hour, I think I've solved it and then I start getting errors again. The whole thing does not feel stable or reliable at all and there is very little guidance I can find to help me focus my efforts.

This reminds me of when I got my FF800 in 2007, my first RME product, only to find it wasn't working well with my PC. In that instance I found out on these forums about the need for a PC with a TI chipset. It solved all issues but unlike that situation, there appears to be little information that is leading me anywhere. My PC appears to be performing well, has the right chipset and I am spending every evening chasing my tail and looking at that  | 0 |  in the dialogue box hoping it doesn't change.

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

My understanding is that it does not matter which CRC error counter increases.
It boils down to the fact, that you have a transport error.

This can be solved in different ways ...

1. ensure that cabling is well and according to specs, USB2 max 5m, USB3 max 3m
2. connect the UFX II to a dedicated USB controller, easiest to achieve with a dedicated USB card

I would avoid use of hubs for a recording interface, its IMHO always better to connect it as the one and only device behind an USB controller. Therefore I would connect only the UFX II to the Sonnet card suggested below.

Regarding a separate USB card
a) Makes no sense to get an USB2 card (only few available on the market)
b) in theory all USB3 cards are backward compatible to USB2, certain pins on an USB3 plug are reserved for USB2

I personally would invest into a USB3 card which is known to support UFX+ well and these are cards with e.g. FL1100 USB3 chipset. The Sonnet card with such an FL1100 USB3 controller has also the advantage to be supported by Win10 and that it uses a driver that uses the more efficient MSI, messaged signalled interrupts.

You only need a PCIe x1 socket for such a card, preferrably a PCIe socket on your mainboard with PCIe lanes coming from the chipset. You mainboard manual should contain a block diagram which tells you which socket have PCIe lanes coming from CPU and which come from Chipset.

The sonnet card with FL1100 chips is this one:
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/alle … 4port.html

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • vinark
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Well, close to the pc, with a port directly connected to the motherboard and a short cable, should be step one. If that does not work 100%, try another port or another cable or change things in the bios.
In device manager you can change the view to "device on connection" in the views menu. There you can see if the UFX is shared or not.
Remember power management should be on high performance always, all usb and pcie power saving disabled. On my laptop I use throttlestop to make sure the cpu runs at a fixed boost speed. My desktop is very old and does not need it, I could set that in the bios.
But!!! start with the short cable.
Also usb issues are not always there, but my desk as my laptop worked right away with my Babyface pro fs, but that one is lighter on the usb the yours.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thank you very much for your replies.

My power management options have been optimised for both throttling and also the USB ports.

The Sonnet card I bought is this one
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/alle … 4port.html
tech specs state chipset is Fresco Logic FL1100EX.

Thanks for the suggestion to check which is the best PCi slot, this is something new for me to try.

I'm actually back now to suspecting the 5m repeater cable. Unfortunately my PC is around 4 metres from te UFX and there is no way around this. I can bring it out for testing but it can't stay next to the UFXii.  When I tested a few cables I seemed to start getting issues over and above 3 metre cables.

I am going to pull the PC out of the cupboard and start again with a short cable. It is strange that with the repeater cable I sometimes have it working fine for above an hour which is what made me think the cable was OK.
I just tested the repeater with an older laptop on win 7 and got errors, I switched to a shorter cable and have now have 30 mins and counting of zero errors at 32 samples latency. Maybe its too early to say absolutely its the repeater cable.

Are there any specific repeaters or hubs that are known to work well so that I can run the PC 4-5 metres away form the UFX ii?

I'm looking at a Lindy 5m USB active repeater on amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-Slimline … amp;sr=8-6

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Running a 3 metre USB cable to my old win 7 laptop, 45 mins zero errors at 32 samples latency.

I moved my PC so that the same cable could be connected and started getting errors within about 15 minutes at 32 samples. At 64 samples, even worse, many erorrs, eventually ending in a FIFO error and complete breakdown of the connection.

A brand new PC, taking a blind chance at whether or not it will actually work is not an option,
so back around the circles I go.

I certainly wish I had seen some of the threads I have been reading, before I splashed out on the UFXii blindly assuming that USB simply works. I had no idea that this could become so difficult.

My windows 7 laptop is nowhere near as capable as my PC, it even had WIFI on yet seems to be running fine at 32 samples.

My PC has a clean install of windows 10, freshly updated. Various optimisations attempted and services / drivers deactivated yet I cannot reliably record four tracks at 24 bit 44.1k.

Is it feasible that windows 7 on my PC might run without these issues?

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Again, for USB2 the standard allows 5m up to the cheapest cable.
Not sure whether you can get a 4m cable.
Then use 5m but use a quality cable.
For USB3 you can get e.g. from Lindy Premium cables with good plugs and 3x shielding.

For USB2 the bandwidth requirements are not that high, thus 5m are allowed.
Nevertheless also here I would choose the more expensive cables from Lindy, if they have also a premium product for USB2.

And if you got already a Sonnet card, well then connect the UFX II as the only device to there, so that it is really isolated behind this USB controller. I think all 4 ports go to one single USB controller with this card.

Also take care, depending on which mainboard you have ....
Could be the case that maybe only the x16 sockets for 1-3 GPUs are conneted with PCIe lanes coming from CPU.
YOu need to check that the bandwidth of the graphic card in your system is not reduced from x16 to x8 if in this case a few PCIe lanes are dynamically "stolen" depening on whether you use this slot or not.
Some people use the PC also as gaming PC and in this case only half of the BW / # of PCIe lanes (x8 instead of x16) is bad for the gaming performance.

Tools like CPZ-z or GPU-z can tell you, with how many PCIe lanes your GPU is currently connected. whether x16 or x8.

If you have a typical recording PC you might have no GPU or only a small one which doesn't need so many lanes.

I only want to tell you this so that you have complete information for what you might need to look as well.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • vinark
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Try running prime95 for a few hours, if you get errors there it is the PC that is not stable. Or run memtest for a few rounds (have to start from an usb stick from the bios for that).
And tell us what kind of PC please, details!

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Are you sure prime is useful in this case ? Prime completely loads all CPU, this is an isolated stress test to check whether e.g.
- your cooling is ok or
- whether the hardware is faulty
- whether the kernel/system panics / gets a blue screen under maximum load / heat of components.

But the systems seems to be stable by general means.

The particular question is where the CRC failures are coming from and I think this is not related to a maximal load.
Also a DRAM test might not be useful, because the customer didn't have bluescreens.

Even if the PC would have issues with a prime stress tests for 1-2h .. (maybe because of cooling problem under max load) it could still run stable under a normal DAW load where not all cores/threads are permanently under 100% CPU load over a long time.

I think some people even claimed that removing energy saving (C-States) in bios fixed also CRC errors. But I am not 100% certain whether too high DPC could maybe also impact data transfer over USB ..

To sum up .. I personally think we need a clean design / configuration according to best practices for DAW workstations not stress testing an installation.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thanks for the additional information.

In my latest tests, I am using a Lindy Cromo 3 metre USB cable. Its their premium line from what I can tell. I think this is probably the USB 2 version of the cable that you are thinking of.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FMZZD6B? … 1&th=1

The Lindy Cromo USB 2 version is double shielded not like the Lindy USB 3 Cromo which I see is triple shielded.
Am I correct in thinking that the USB 3 version of this cable will not fit in the UFXii, the connector looks different on the USB 3 version vs the USB 2 version that I have? I ask in case the triple shielding might help vs double shielding.
However, given that the UFXii is not working with my PC and a premium 3 metre USB cable, it seems that the issue is not the cable.

I was not having much luck with any other cables I have that are over 4 to 5 metres.

The UFX ii is the only device connected to the Sonnet PCI Card.

Looking at my motherboard manual the map seems to indicate that all the smaller PCI slots go to the chipset however one of the larger ones where my graphics card is, goes through the CPU. I need to check which slot my Radeon card is in.

I did however do a test with my on board graphics card disabled and then a test with my Radeon card disabled and could not discern any change to the issues.

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thanks again for the additional suggestions.

PC is an i7 8700K, 6 Core, 12 Thread, 3.7GHz - 32Gb RAM, with Intel Chipset, an MSI Z370-A PRO, Intel Z370 motherboard

3 metre Lindy premium USB cable connected to the sonnet PCI USB card with nothing else connected to that card.

I uninstalled the windows 10 updates as performance seemed to be worse since the updates. I then was able to capture one hour at 32 samples without  any errors. After one hour though the errors started rolling in again. I started again and upped the buffer to 64 samples and got errors within 15 minutes. There just doesn't appear to be any repeatable steps influencing when it works or not.


I will try prime95 and see what happens, thanks for the suggestion.

  • vinark
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

What I notice is that you mention 1 hour of troublefree operation again. After a cold boot, do you always have an hour of good performance?

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

17 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2022-07-07 16:59:19)

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Your device might have a heat problem, but this I would check under normal load.
You can see it in tools like CPU-Z by observing whether CPU clock stays stable or will be reduced.

If you run prime then you only see that you have a extremely high workload which leaves no room for executing other applications. Its only to a) stress test components, b) see whether cooling is sufficient even under extrem load and that system clock stays stable.

But with a normal workload even a higher DAW load you will not ever reach such extreme load like with prime.

So it doesn't help you in any way to find out whats not working with a DAW load.

You need to run your DAW load and if you get then issues you need to observe whats the difference now
e.g. to look at / check
DPC latency (-> run LatencyMon on top), CPU load/temperature, CPU clock (has it been reduced because of heat),
observe whether background jobs are running, etc.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2007-05-09
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Thanks again for your replies.

Under normal loads the CPU clocks all show at solid stable rates when monitoring with CPU-z

I tried Prime95, only for half an hour and of course the CPU temps did go higher than normal but the test did not return any errors. I don't believe that I am getting issues due to heat / ineffective cooling.

I checked on the graphics PCI card slot in the manual and the slot I had installed the Radeon card in is shown as PCIe 3.0 x4 (PCH lanes) slot. I have now moved this to the PCIe 3.0 x16 (CPU lanes) slot and am testing again at 32 samples. OK so far at 15 minutes and counting. Again I have latency monitor open, the highest reported DPC routine appears to have dropped lower than usual, maybe I'm just being too hopeful that this was the problem.

It is hard to say if I am getting better results just after first boot for the first hour or not. I've done so many tests now along with reboots upon FIFO errors that I'm losing track of what is actually having an effect and what is purely incidental.

  • Registered: 2022-02-20
  • Posts: 36

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

I agree that the timeframe is a bit suspcious - sounds like some scheduled task/download that's interfering perhaps.

Another thing to try - start Process Monitor https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysint … ds/procmon after you boot. Click the 'Save' icon to save a snapshot of the current process stack to a file, say 'Old'. Keep Process Monitor open until you see errors, then click 'Save' to say 'New'

Compare those two files by events during their trace, e.g. Tools->Process Activity Summary and see if anything stands out, or indeed if a common process is launched at that time when errors occur Tools->Process Tree

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Yesterday after moving the graphics card to a PCi slot with more lanes the highest reported DPC routine reported in latency monitor did drop a reasonable amount. I got half an hour of zero error test recording and had to go out. I was hopeful this might have been it.

This morning however, I started getting errors thick and fast. Upon a reboot I tried again and got FIFO error before I had even clocked any time of error free operation. 

This seems to be how it goes. You think you have solved it and the next time you try its error city. Firewire was a dream compared to this.

I did spot on latency monitor that MsMpEng.exe generated alot of page faults. I believe this is windows defender which I can;t seem to disable entirely. Since updating windows 10 O&O ShutUp10 can't keep it from running. I tried disabling it via regedit and windows but a google search shows that this program runs if it detects that you don;t have any protection running.
I don't think this was the case on the original windows 10 installation that I had when formatted the harddrive and reinstalled win10.

Thanks for the suggestion of process monitor. I have installed this and will try this.

My latest test is moving back to the motherboard USB ports, albeit the mouse and keyboard are there.
There would also be synths connected but I could always get another USB PCI card to keep UFX from competing for bandwidth with other devices.

Next I may try starting again and reinstalling win 10 and keeping it on that version that is installed through my win10 USB recovery key.

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Firewire wasn't any better either .. it also depended on good pc/mainboard and having a working firewire chipset.
One of the key reasons why I finally move from a consumer to a server board.

With my older system and the old UFX with USB and FW it even turned out that on this system USB worked better than firewire.

You can have good luck of bad luck, always .. even if it worked it can fail later because of
- new hw / drivers
- windows update

After migration from windows 7 to windows 10 it took me about 2y to iron out the latest spontaneous audio glitches caused by powersaving on my new nVidia graphic card.
Audio glitches were not related to DPC latencies so could not be spotted / identified with LatencyMon.
Also the system load was very low.

It was pure occasion that I found the solution in a thread on Steinberg forum where I gathered information that nVidia graphic cards also have energy saving functions. Initially nVidia provided a tool to disable this, but nVidia later entirely removed this tool. Now you have to trust a 3rd party tool from a russian developer. After a long time this fixed my last issues on my Windows 10 system with new GPU..

If you want to save time and avoid such issues then you need to get a turnkey pc for daw work.

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

22 Reply by woodnut (edited by woodnut 2022-07-08 12:31:02)

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

For firewire at least there were recommended chipsets that worked. I followed this information and it worked for me.
My firewire setups across several computers were a dream compared to this. There seems to be very little information about what will work here with USB. Reading other threads here similar to mine, I can see users who have moved from firewire to USB and to their surprise found a computer that ran fine with firewire suddenly was suddenly fraught with problems when using a USB interface.

Even if I had the budget for a new computer which I don't, what would be the magic combination of components that will allow a USB port to work correctly with my UFXii ?  It really looks like a shot in the dark. As you say, good luck is needed.


Given that I can sometimes get an hour without issues, do you think it is safe to rule out the cable at this point? Latest tests are with a 3 metre premium Lindy cable. My feeling is that the cable is not the issue.


I also feel that latency due to other processes is not the issue. Nothing is ever showing in Latency monitor which only ever reports that the system appears to be good for real time audio.


I am attempting one more fresh install of win10. This time I will try to stop it updating as I feel it was at its best prior to letting it update. At that time I was using the repeater cable which may well have been causing a problem.

It did look like performance had improved since moving the graphics card (thanks for that advice).

23 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2022-07-08 15:06:41)

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

An USB/FW chipset recommendation alone doesn't do the trick, neither for firewire nor for USB.
I mentioned turnkey systems, because there can be other pitfalls, not only one issue alone, but also a combination of things.
Mainboard design, BIOS/settings, drivers and driver versions, Windows settings, ...
Check the RME manual, usually USB ports from Intel / AMD chipset will work, BIOS updates might be needed.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2022-02-20
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

ramses wrote:

An USB/FW chipset recommendation alone doesn't do the trick, neither for firewire nor for USB.
I mentioned turnkey systems, because there can be other pitfalls, not only one issue alone, but also a combination of things.
Mainboard design, BIOS/settings, drivers and driver versions, Windows settings, ...
Check the RME manual, usually USB ports from Intel / AMD chipset will work, BIOS updates might be needed.

I noticed in the UFX II manual there's no mention of compatible USB chipsets (in contrast with UFX+), likely because USB 2 has been working reliably for quite some time, and USB 3 has a history of sketchy performance.

I think OP is very unlucky to be running into these issues with USB 2. As you said, it might be a combination of things.

@woodnut: I would personally do a fresh install of Windows (back up old system drive, then wipe and reinstall) but ensure you install the latest updates - skipping updates can cause a bunch of issues, and it could be that you're just running with an unpredicable application environment. Make sure you have drivers you need, and a reasonably up to date BIOS too. I can see on your MB page it lists some USB compatibility updates https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/z370-a-pro/support#bios

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Yes with USB2 there are less or no issues with chipset, but even on my quite nice system I had to notice that you can get instabilities the more USB devices you connect to your system.
The issues went away after isolating the recording interfaces to a separate USB3 card with even 4 USB3 FL1100 chips (card is not being produced anymore). Then I could again run 2x UFX+ and 1x ADI-2 Pro without issues.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2007-05-09
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Hello folks,

to confirm, I did get the latest Bios updates, chipset etc for my Mobo and CPU.

I recently took a few days off from the many hours of testing and reading around these problems as it was becoming very frustrating.

I thought I would post an update as perhaps some of this may prove useful to someone in the future facing the same issues. Searching for similar threads I see there are others who have come from a perfectly functioning firewire RME setup to a very flakey RME USB setup with the same computer.

I suspected I had moved backwards since allowing Windows 10 to update from version 1909 which is the version my USB recovery and installation key installs so I formatted and started again. This time disabling windows updates to try and freeze the system at that version of windows 10.


I was then able to run test recordings without errors, running successful tests at 1-2 hours.

I then reinstalled installed my plugins and finally my Radeon Graphics card which was previously using the standard windows display driver meaning it could only run one monitor at a time.

The UFX ii seems to be functioning OK however I did have an issue on Friday where it suddenly flashed up with 217 errors and mutliple noises in the recording I was making. Upon reset it was then fine.

On this occasion I booted the computer and then plugged the USB cable in for the UFXii. I wondered if this may have had some sort of negative effect vs booting with the UFXii already connected.

Outside of that I guess it could be the Graphics card dedicated drivers.

27 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2022-07-18 11:56:36)

  • ramses
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Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

> Searching for similar threads I see there are others who have come from a perfectly functioning firewire RME setup
> to a very flakey RME USB setup with the same computer.

Sorry, this can't be generalized this way. Every PC is different. Firewire is not good and USB is not bad in general.
In fact it depends on severeal factors and even with firewire you could have very bad luck, even when using TI chipset as e.g. the XOI2200A FW400 communication chip was broken. It didn't react properly to interrupts, but sadly had been implemented at that time by many vendors offering e.g. Firewire add-on cards.

Even with a good working Firewire chipset I had issues with my older computer that some combination of sample rate and ASIO buffersize did not run 100% perfect. When I did the same series of checks (to check every combination of sample rate and ASIO buffersize) it turned out that USB has zero issues compared to Firewire, where some combinations caused issues (tested with UFX which had USB2 and FW400).

Again, every PC is a little different and besides different controllers you have also to consider certain influences from other PC components. Bus timings, overclocking or not, mainboard design, BIOS settings, etc ...
When working with audio data / applications which have "near real-time" demands its never so easy compared to other appplications, games or benchmarks where it is usually / generally not time critical, when exactly data has been processed.

Thats why companies still exist to deliver turnkey solutions for audio, video or even certified solutions for certain solutions.
So that you can save time and efforts by getting a tested solution. Many people have not so many or no problems, but you never know to which group of people you will finally belong. Every case is different.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2022-07-14
  • Posts: 13

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

woodnut wrote:

Hello folks,

to confirm, I did get the latest Bios updates, chipset etc for my Mobo and CPU.

I recently took a few days off from the many hours of testing and reading around these problems as it was becoming very frustrating.

I thought I would post an update as perhaps some of this may prove useful to someone in the future facing the same issues. Searching for similar threads I see there are others who have come from a perfectly functioning firewire RME setup to a very flakey RME USB setup with the same computer.

I suspected I had moved backwards since allowing Windows 10 to update from version 1909 which is the version my USB recovery and installation key installs so I formatted and started again. This time disabling windows updates to try and freeze the system at that version of windows 10.


I was then able to run test recordings without errors, running successful tests at 1-2 hours.

I then reinstalled installed my plugins and finally my Radeon Graphics card which was previously using the standard windows display driver meaning it could only run one monitor at a time.

The UFX ii seems to be functioning OK however I did have an issue on Friday where it suddenly flashed up with 217 errors and mutliple noises in the recording I was making. Upon reset it was then fine.

On this occasion I booted the computer and then plugged the USB cable in for the UFXii. I wondered if this may have had some sort of negative effect vs booting with the UFXii already connected.

Outside of that I guess it could be the Graphics card dedicated drivers.

Hello,

Long story short, I had a similar problem, crackling and some kind of hiss when I turned on my external HDD with my Focusrite Driver.

Do you have an antivirus program installed or have you installed one in the past?

My problem was caused by some inactive, Non PNP drivers from Kaspersky Antivirus. After uninstalling and switching from Focusrite to Rme the problem was solved!

I also uninstalled all inactive drivers. Such as old printer drivers, keyboards, phones etc.
(>Device Manager, >show hidden devices, >all gray ones are inactive!)

Cleaning up the device manager also gave my PC a significant performance boost.

Just be careful what you delete, if you're unsure don't delete!! You must not delete all gray / inactive devices!!

Best

UFXII, KH310a, Rokit5, Distressor, KT76, BAE1073, Xpressor, Karacter, Drawmer DL241, SPL Charisma

29 Reply by woodnut (edited by woodnut 2022-07-21 09:54:24)

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Hi there thanks for the suggestions.

I must have been lucky with Firewire, using this on five or six computers without issue over the last 15 years or so.

Most of the testing that I have been doing has been done with no other USB devices connected apart from mouse and keyboard which are connected to the motherboard USB ports, UFXii is on a sonnet PCI USB card on its own.

WIFI and WAN is disabled as is antivirus / windows defender and firewall. There has never been any antivirus software installed on this machine apart from what comes with Windows 10.

I have used O&Oshutup10 to disable pretty much everything on the list.

I have disabled a few obvious items in device manager such as the firewire card and the onboard soundcard.
It is very difficult to test as I have believed that I've solved it many times only to then hit issues.

I think it is the best it has been currently, apart from a bad hiccup on one session but a reset seemed to solve that. Its notable that I had forgotten to plug the USB cable in on that occassion until after bootup, perhaps that makes a difference?

On the previous attempt, prior to the most recent reinstall of Win 10, I had disabled many services in line with various guides but it did not help. Where the system is at the moment, only a handful of the most obvious and recommended optimisations have been done.

I am a little unsure about that tickbox for MMCSS. I saw a thread here saying that ticking it can give the driver a lower priority in some cases. I have tried both ways and it is difficult to tell either way which is the best option. I am using Reaper.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 12,861

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

Regarding MMCSS see this very good posting from Timur Born
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 98#p136398

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

31 Reply by woodnut (edited by woodnut 2022-08-19 11:33:38)

  • Registered: 2007-05-09
  • Posts: 58

Re: UFX II USB Errors & Dropouts

I wanted to provide an update here as I believe that I will not be the last to experience such issues and some of this information may help someone else in the future.

As posted above, I was still getting some errors although they had been reduced and I started to suspect the graphics card drivers (Radeon R7 240). I uninstalled the dedicated drivers and rolled back to the basic intel drivers which meant I could only run one monitor from this card.

I have not had much time to run the UFX ii since my last posts but I have now successfully (zero errors) got through 3 sessions of recording all lasting several hours.)

it is probably a bit early to declare victory but I am hopeful that this has finally solved the issues.
At this point I think the key problems have been the need to reinstall Win 10, moving the graphics card to the x16 Pci slot (it was in the x8 slot), uninstalling the dedicated Radeon graphics card drivers and possibly the addition of a dedcated USB port for the UFX ii on a sonnet PCI USB card that is not used by any other USB device.

I am on an out of date version of Win10 due to the reinstall (1909 I think) and have disabled updates for the time as I don't want to disrupt anything.