• tonus
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Topic: Stuttering FF800 XP sp2 - can't work out why...

Hello peoples,

After having no issues with two FF800's for 2 years I'm now getting intermittent brief audio stuttering
every few minutes and it's driving me bonkers! (Especially whilst recording good audio takes)

I'm on Cubase 5.5.0, XP sp2 Intel Quad Q6600 4GB RAM. I'm actually only using the one FF800 at the
moment as the other has developed a fault. I'm connected to the PC FW800 cable to a Lacie 800 card
Texas Inst compliant, Belkin FW800 cable (have tried swapping ports and cables). I've also tried using a
FW400 cable to the FW400 port on my main board.
I've got the latest XP driver and firmware... have tried rolling back to driver 2.999 - no joy.

Weird one this... I didn't ever have a single glitch - the first time I remember hearing it was when I was
experimenting using my i7 Intel Windows 7 sampler machine as a 64bit Cubase sequencer... I updated to the latest
driver for Win 7 and also Firmware... the sound I got every now and then was like a 16th of a second of
audio repeating and stuttering 5 or 6 times lasting about half a second.
When I got back onto my XP machine to start sequencing again for a project the stuttering continued -
sometimes nothing for an hour, then when it begins, every 20secs to a minute to 2-3 minutes.

Please if someone can help me with this issue I'd be most grateful - at the moment it's ruining guitar
takes, printing mixes etc... arrg! 've had a search on this forum but no luck. All I can think is that it's the
firmware in the unit as that'd be one of the only things that would translate from machine to machine...


Many thanks,

Tony

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,776

Re: Stuttering FF800 XP sp2 - can't work out why...

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1704



Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • tonus
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Re: Stuttering FF800 XP sp2 - can't work out why...

Hi Daniel,

Have tried running this app, while Cubase running and my Fireface 800 active.
The DPC Latency Checker saying that I should be able to stream audio without dropouts...

I'm pretty sure this isn't a Cubase 5 or CPU strain problem, as I've had the stuttering while simply auditioning audio in the 'Import Audio File' window... and also had a really long period of absolutely immaculate use of two of these FF800's together for a couple of years.

Any thoughts anyone? It's been driving me bonkers for months now and I'm busy in the studio having to live with it!

Many thanks


Tony

4 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,599

Re: Stuttering FF800 XP sp2 - can't work out why...

Tecnically your machine comes to a halt for the time of stuttering. It can be just the tools you currently use, or really the whole machine stopping. In such cases DPC Lat will miss those halts and not display anything. I have a similar problem on a machine where the disk access stops from time to time for half a second, making the playback software behave like that. I need to reset the SATA controller, then it works again. Just an example.

So you need to find out what exactly causes the halt. That can be small background apps to newer drivers to a dongle protection...endless possibilities...not an easy task...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • tonus
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Re: Stuttering FF800 XP sp2 - can't work out why...

Thanks Matthias - so if the problem is going to be very tricky to find and diagnose I may look at getting a whole new sequencer PC and rebuilding everything from scratch... It may be that a new system drive reformatted with XP sp3 and the relevant audio tweaks would be another thing to try first.
However if the problem is related to other hardware, dongles, new drivers, background apps etc then I might end up with the same issue... but I guess at least I'll be able to tell WHEN it started with a new system.
This issue is bugging me out every day - I've been writing for a living for years now and the last few months have been a nightmare 'cause of this...! Feeling that I'd rather start again from scratch system-wise than live with this stuttering that's srewing everything up.
As long as the issue isn't the FF800 then I'm good as it USED to work so well for me...

Any thoughts? My suspicions are many, and ever changing. Am thinking (today) is it to do with RAM so I'm running memtest...

Thanks - any ideas most gratefully received!

Tony