What do I do, then? I have several different usb 3.0 ports on my machine. I have tried 2 out of 4 of them. I will continue to test but this just seems like a major problem, the type that usually doesn’t go away… It’s a really nice motherboard from Asus and I have all the up to date firmware and drivers installed. Cables came with the ufx iii. I tried both usb 3.0 cables in the package.

Any suggestions? The features of this box are exactly what I need. No other interfaces says if can do exactly what this one can do. I banked my whole studio crossover on this interface working for me.

Should I get a different motherboard for the computer? Is there a list of compatible working motherboards for RME units?

The issue is I have 16 channels of ADDA’s on MADI, 2 out on AES to my dac, 2 in on AES from my ADC. So I need a “hub” like this unit to bring everything into the computer.

Hi Ramses, thanks for the message. I researched the Sonnet Usb 3.0 card you speak about. Would it be ok to use the cheaper $50 one they still make as long as I only plug the ufx into it to keep it isolated? I see they made a more expensive one $150 which seems to have separation between the 4 usb ports on their own controllers. Is one better than the other for this problem, as long as I only plan to plug the ufx into it? Or can I get away with using this cheaper one here? Will this one work ok?

Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 PCIe 4-Port (Mac and Windows Compatible) https://a.co/d/f8OJ4aF

I ask because it seems you can still buy the more expensive one with isolated ports, but I would rather save $100 if I can use the cheaper $50 card linked here.

4 posts so far and you still haven't revealed if that is an Intel or AMD system, nor the exact model of the motherboard and the used graphics card.

From the specs:

Intel® Z370 Chipset :
ASMedia® USB 3.1 Gen 2 controller

ASMedia chips have been problematic in the past, and this board (or the chipset) seems to be from around 2017 or so, this could well be part of the issue.

This card: https://www.sonnettech.com/product/alle … 4port.html

> If I install a Sonnett Allegro usb 3.0 pci-e adapter card, will that replace the problematic ASMedia usb controller?

Of course, because you mount such a PCIe card to your computer's PCIe sockets on the mainboard.
These PCIe sockets are connected with PCIe lanes coming either
- directly from CPU (preferred) or
- from the chipset (which is then further connected with multiple lanes to the CPU).

Look into your mainboards manual and check which of your PCIe sockets are connected with your CPUs PCIe lanes.
This is the best socket to take.

Normally, this should solve the issue and then there is no need to change the mainboard.

If the issues should persist, then audio drops could also be related to
- bad drivers (DPC latencies)
- graphic card related (energy saving on the nVidia card), powermizer tool might help

> I bought the Allegro USB 3.0 regular card (not Pro version,

The Pro version of the Allegro card with FL1100 chip is not available anymore.
You need to get the non-Pro version to get the recommended FL1100 chip.
Newer ASMedia USB3 chips could also run better, than the older versions.
But to be on the very safe side, get the recommended chipsets as you can find in the manual.
And with the Sonnect cards everybody made good experience up to now including myself.

Which MADIface driver version are you using? Maybe try the latest, it fixes several issues after re-write which as necessary due to change @Steinberg/Microsoft (forgot details, was posted in forum):
https://www.rme-audio.de/downloads/driv … _09818.zip

I, personally, can use 32 samples @44.1 and even 48 samples @96 kHz with a big "artificial" project, just for performance test. 400 tracks, 2 VST per track and a few in the sum, in total ~804 VSTs. Playback without any problems.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … cks-de-en/
My PC is 9y old, got a few HW upgrades, but its still based on Intel Xeon 6-core CPU .. not more.

Powermizer Switch is from a Russian dev, look in this forum (extended forum search) for threads with my name ("ramses") and the search term "powermizer" then you find postings which include the link to the tool.

Audio drops can now happen because of other things .. Energy Saving in the BIOS (C-States, etc), Win Power Profile, too high DPC latencies (bad drivers).

nVidia driver settings needs no special settings, maybe only
- Energy Managment: prefer max performance
- Threaded Optimization ON
I have these settings from a thread on cubase forum.
In contrast to the recommendations on Cubase Forum do NOT set vertical synchonization to OFF (DO NOT DO).
Because it helps NOTHING but putting a severe GPU load to your GPU when using applications with Vector Graphic.
Then the GPU works on highest load to achieve frame per second rates over maybe 450 .. although your monitor might only be capable to display 60 fps. So do yourself a favour, keep it on default settings to let the 3D Application decide whats needed.

I just thought I would recap this topic to let anyone who may find the post know (potentially years from now, as I routinely do with topics!) that I solved it with the help of forum members and RME support.

Basically, in summary, I bought the UFX III not knowing that some USB controllers and ports are incompatible with RME gear. I had a motherboard that had a ASMedia chipset (incomatible). I bought a Allegro USB 3 card and that still didn't work correctly on that motherboard for various reasons.

Anyway, I pulled the motherboard out and totally rebuilt my computer. I have an 8th gen Intel CPU that didn't need to be replaced (i7 8700K great CPU!) so I found a compatible Intel 1151 socket motherboard on eBay that had a Intel (supported) USB 3.0 controller & chipset. I still have the Allegro card and used that in a PCI-e slot. The motherboard I chose was the Gigabyte z390 Elite which has lots of expansion slots and an Intel USB 3.0 chipset.

I can now happily report that the UFX III works completely perfectly on my system! I am so happy that this works. This interface fit my studio like a glove as far as technical digital and analog i/o requirements, which were very specific to my studio.

I have tested it for 2 days; I recorded some test tracks, listened to many records while cleaning & organizing my studio or browsing the web, and even left the system on idling for many hours while I was out and I have had zero errors reported and I have heard zero dropouts or audio glitches during that time as well.

Rock & roll baby!

Also, now I have 30 inputs and 30 outputs here on analog, MADI, and AES (the system can do 188 channels 94 in and 94 out!) on USB! I can't believe this all works so smoothly on USB. But it does. Amazing work RME.

My MADI and AES converters are working perfectly. The system is clocked via the AES ADC on BNC cables and mirrored to all the other units with one of the MADI pieces, terminating at the UFX. The clocking setup is totally solid.

Some things that I did to make sure the system stays stable: Via Device Manager, USB controllers are not allowed to disconnect or "sleep" to save power. All power management settings are maximized including the Nvidia card & drivers I have. And yes, I have an Nvidia 2080 Ultra GPU which is known to cause problems with RME gear, but it seems to be working fine and not causing any problems. I can seem to use either hte USB 3.0 Intel built in ports on my motherboard or the Allegro Sonnet USB 3.0 card, too.

Weirdly the Sonnet Allegro card method seems to take the UFX a little bit of time to be recognized, no more than 2 minutes and most of the time under 1 minute before it pops up in Windows. I asked RME support about this and they said it's normal. Once recognized the UFX is stable and can be switched on/off and is recognized again quickly. With the Intel USB 3.0 ports on the motherboard, on the other hand, the UFX is recognized in USB 3.0 mode instantly. I want to keep the UFX separated from other USB 3.0 stuff, so the choices are either to use the USB 3.0 Intel ports only for the UFX and put any other USB 3.0 stuff (drives, dongles etc.) into the Allegro card, or just put up with the slightly delayed response time of the Allegro card for the unit on startup.

Also, UFX always worked perfectly on USB 2 on my Windows machine to being with, I just wanted the USB 3.0 features because I have MADI gear. And on my Mac, USB 3.0 was always working perfectly to begin with. It was only with USB 3.0 on Windows (which is my main studio computer) that I had problems initially. Everything is now solved for USB 3.0 on Windows here.

Thank you guys! Amazing piece of gear, the UFX III. I am thrilled to own one.

All best,
Matt

Interesting. Thank you for sharing. Do you have any tips as to how to get my device recognition time speed down to where you are at on my Allegro card? It does get recognized super fast on the Intel built in ports, but on the Sonnet card it takes 1 to 2 minutes.

This is the motherboard I am using: Gigabyte Aorus z390 Elite. The Sonnet USB 3 card is plugged into PCI-e 1_1 port (the first PCI-ex1 port, there are 4, there are also PCI-e 1x16 and PCI-e 1X4 slots on this board. I am using PCI-e 1X16 for GPU and PCI-e 1_2 for Sonnet firewire card. So I have 3 PCI-e cards installed in total.

I have 2x NVME m.2 drives installed as well. Does not seem to affect anything according to this graph on page 16 of the manual.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_z390-aorus-elite_v3_e.pdf

OK! Will do. The BIOS is actually updated already. Thanks so much for your time.

Matt