Today, I was using the PC all day, everything is fine. I soft reboot the PC. Open the browser to a youtube video and get blasted by the white noise at full volume from the right channel, at night. In panic, I deactivate the EQ on the mains in Totalmix. Everything is back to normal.
Something is seriously wrong or buggy with the EQ in Totalmix and/or Babyface Pro FS.
The EQ is on all the time in Totalmix, I use it as a corrective EQ for the speakers.
Most of the time there is no problem. Sometimes I get messed up sound on windows startup (sounds like the EQ gains are exaggerated). I fix it the same way, by turning the EQ off and on again. On rare occasion, I get the white noise, but when it hits, it's maddening.
Please RME, try to find a fix!

Interesting, we get the noise almost on the same day after a few months, and this happened before. What the heck is going on. Bit flips from solar activity or some paranormal activity.
Jokes aside, it's a serious issue.

What about getting Win Update around the same date? Or any other SW update? Cannot that be source of problem?

I have Win and BF Pro FS, but no 'blasts', but I make Win Updates manually and always restart Win after that.

Regarding "up to RME to fix the issue". Some problems are machine or installation specific, which only show up on certain computers or installations. It seems that only a few people have this issue. This makes it much harder if not impossible to find any issue.

I would try to find out if there is a certain sequence of steps that reliably triggers the issue because it might allow RME to recreate and fix something.

Prerequisites:
1. I would always use the optional Power Supply to exclude any issue caused by USB power.
2. If possible, I would connect the BBF Pro directly to the computer/laptop and the other devices via hub.
2. I would make a backup of Windows installation with Macrium Reflect Home to have a disk image to which you can always come back if needed. Do not forget to save data separately on your Boot drive c: and in your Windows profile before restoring such a disk image of the boot disk.

If it is known how often the issue usually occurs, then I would try to find out if it really has to do with sleep and turn it off in the power settings first. Then observe this for a couple of days.

Shutting down the computer properly and restarting is not such a big deal if you make a longer break.
Windows Super fetch and the preloading of drivers and frequently used programs enable a quick start nowadays.

If the energy consumption is too high for you when you are not doing anything on the PC, then simply install the Process Lasso Pro. It offers the IDLE saver feature to automatically activate the energy-saving profile after a configurable time interval and reactivate the standard energy profile you have defined as soon as you are back at the computer.
Additionally, you can also configure Energy Profile per application, if the DAW needs a special Energy Profile.
If you do not want to purchase it, then set it manually or use 8GadgetPack and use a Gadget for it.
Or simply leave it as it is.

I would then check whether Superfetch is connected to your problems. I remember cases in the past where it solved problems when drivers and programs were restarted and initialized “cleanly” every time the computer was started. I also remember something like a "recommendation" to disable it for recording applications.

Do not change too many things at once, otherwise you don't know afterward, what solved the issue.

Another idea: get a 2nd disk internal or USB3 disk (best SSD) and perform a clean / vanilla installation of Windows with a minimum set of drivers and without any tools from mainboard manufacturer for things like blower control or BIOS and driver updates. These tools are often bad programmed and impact DPC latency and performance negatively.
By this, you can find out, whether the issue persists after a clean installation.
I have in my system always a 2nd SSD installed to be able to perform a clean installation and dual boot at any time for such purposes.

Another option: send the BBF Pro in for service and look whether RME can find something. Pre-align about costs with RME support via e-mail. I think if there is an error, this will be free of charge. If RME has efforts but can't find anything then it might cost something. Align with them on that.

Either you do this directly or you want to spend some work on your own upfront first, see my suggestions above.

EDIT: especially preinstallations from Laptop vendors are often only of poor quality. A vanilla Windows installation often helps in many ways.

Additional ideas:
- do you have another computer near to try the Babyface on a different system?
- do you have a vendor near which is experienced in building computer systems for audio processing?
Maybe they can check the BBF Pro on one of their devices or loan you a system for a week.
Then you can find out whether the BBF Pro runs on another system which is "proven" in terms of audio processing.
If the error does not show up then, then the issue is very much likely related to your system.

You could also ask your dealer if he could exchange / replace the interface.
Then perhaps a vanilla windows installation on a 2nd disk as I suggested?
Did you install Windows yourself, or was it preinstalled?

If desktop PC, I would test another setup and isolate the BBF Pro FS behind a dedicated USB3 card.

Either this proven card with FL1100 USB3 chipset, PCIe 2.0 x1
https://preisvergleich.heise.de/sonnet- … 48037.html

or alternatively, one with ASMedia ASM3142, which also works fine with e.g. UFX+ or UFX III in several cards. This card needs a PCIe 2.0 x2 socket.
https://preisvergleich.heise.de/qnap-2x … 83656.html

The USB3 cards are fully backward compatible to USB2 and are using drivers with more efficient working MSI (message signalled interrupts).

You have even another alternative.
Do not put the computer into sleep and wait for 6-12 months to see whether this is really related to sleep.

Hmm, IF the USB controller on the mobo is at fault, maybe this is the solution. The Sonnet Allegro looks good. Thanks.
I suppose these are proven to work flawlessly with RME cards, right?

What? USB cards get coil whine these days? That is an instant pass. I got my PC as quiet as I could, the last thing I need is coil whine.

Alright, I might have to buy that card anyway. I copied some files to an external HDD connected to the PC via USB 3, while some music was playing in Foobar2000 and I got some glitches in the sound coming from the BF Pro FS. In the fireface USB settings windows, under Buffer size there are errors: 0/84. I guess these are buffer underruns? It seems the USB controller on the mobo is weak.

Is this the one? It has only 1 choil and I don't see anywhere the FL1100 USB3 chipset mentioned. Should I buy this one?

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00GRGCV2G?lin … uage=de_DE

In this case, what will the USB card help with?
As far as I understand they work better than the ones built into the motherboard.
I guess it doesn't just mean better power to the audio interface.

I also have another USB audio interface of another brand connected to the same computer, which does not cause problems.

And do you have that other interface connected to the same USB socket of computer? Different sockets may behave way differently. And the same socket may behave differently based on which devices are plugged to the "neighbour" ones that are serviced by the same USB controller.

That is why it is better to have dedicated card and use just one USB socket on that card.... As Ramses has already suggested few times.

Nice video and finding. Funny, I use very similar EQ settings on the speakers and phones.

Every time I start the PC, before I turn on the speakers, I turn off and turn on the EQ in totalmix, so that I eliminate the chance to get blasted away.

Attenuators and controller knobs have nothing to do with the white noise problem and are not a solution. I have attenuators by the way. This seems like an issue with the EQ. I hope RME sees that video.

Strange, maybe it is hardware fault that occures here and there. But it does not have necesarily be BF. It may be SSD, RAM, whatever.

What about trying to make a new TM snapshot? @MC would know better, but it seems to me that wrong filter values are written to DSP of right monitor channel. Or maybe the complete filter code (I do not know, how exactly TM sets effects in BF). And I am not even sure if filter code runs on BF, part of BF effects code runs in TM right on computer.

Thank you for all the feedback, the videos and your patience. In v 207 we went through the whole FPGA to improve timings, but it seems that was not the solution. This time, in v 208, we reworked the whole initialization and power up sequencing, especially for the EQ. Hope is that our improvements also tackle the issue. Please try!

Windows FUT Download:
https://www.rme-audio.de/downloads/fut_usb_bf_v208.zip

Thanks Matthias!
I will install, I hope this solves the problem and we can work with our favorite interfaces in peace.

Today I installed the Sonnet USB3 card. Let's see if the isolation behind a dedicated USB controller will resolve this issue.

Well, the dedicated USB controller did not resolve this issue. Today I got the distorted EQ sound from the right channel. Switching off/on the EQ resolved it, like always.

Thanks to MC, he was so kind to replace my unit. After a week, today, I got my replacement. I plug it in, start playback and EQ distortion in right channel (exaggerated bass, resetting the EQ resolved it). I couldn't believe it. Brand new unit, issue on the first try. Firmware was 318 so I updated now to the latest 320. I suppose this is the ESS version of the Pro FS, because my old unit had Firmware 208. Anyway, I expect white noise blast any day now. I don't know what is going on...

I don't have another PC to try it out and it happens rarely. The fact that it happened on the first try is unusual.
I'm using it with a dedicated USB controller, I guess that would rule out an issue with the mobo (ASUS Prime Z790-P). Could be power supply (Seasonic Focus GX ATX 3.0) or even CPU (Intel 14700K). Who knows. Probably I need to replace the whole PC which is not an option right now.

Did you also try listen thru different headphone / loudspeakers ?

The PC loads the last state of the BF, or not? Stand alone there is no eq? So that might be the way the PC is involved? But not the cause per se, might still be a firmware or driver issue.
I follow this thread cause I have a BF pro fs too. But I rarely use the eq, in anaway not at startup, if at all it is for listening to a track (for pleasure not work) that needs some eq to enjoy.

One more thing: during the distorted EQ, in TM, the main right channel was clipping, it showed the red dot and "OVR". Then I moved the fader down until the clipping stopped, it was around -40dB. So, it seems to me that the EQ is initialized with one or more bands +40dB. But when the white noise happens, it could be that the EQ init goes totally wrong. As soon as the EQ is turned off, the white noise stops. You can see it in the video from memopro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tFgYCqqZMU