We are based in the UK and have the older PCI MADI card running 3.02. We have a problem whereby there are occasional bursts of white noise and clicking at about 0db, when using many VST synths/effects in any sequencer on any MADI channel. We never get this problem when playing back audio from disk, it is only various VST synths. The noise actually shows on the sequencer VU meters so I am not sure whether this is indicates a problem with the soundcard or not. I have tried various installs of XP SP1, XP SP2 and even XP64 and the problem is always there so that would seem to rule out a lot. Also, in the previous PC we owned there was similar problems: the only common hardware between the two was the MADI card.  However, both PC's had multicore CPU's and turning off the VST/host's multiprocessor features helped but didn't completely fix it.

We now run an ASUS P5P800SE // Intel D940 // Corsair TWINX2048-3200PT RAM system, with Sonar 6.2.1 and some of the bad VST synths include Kontakt 2, Altiverb & Ivory (all are latest versions). We have applied the Microsoft patch KB896256, tested the memory, swapped cards into different slots, turned off non-essential things (USB, network, etc.), updated drivers for everything, added extra cooling, all to no avail. The CPU/motherboard combination is a well-known one which should not IMHO be the cause of problems.