• SKULL
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Topic: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Good morning from Greece to everyone!

I have just acquired a new Fireface UFX to replace my 2 x MOTU 896 in my portable recording rack.

I was expecting it to be a dream come true, after having read all the praises on RME Windows drivers, compared to those from MOTU.

Therefore, I plugged it in my laptop (Lenovo T61, Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz, 3GB RAM, Quadro NVS 140, WinXP SP3) and began testing, to find the following.

1) TotalMix is one of the best applications I have ever tried. Reliable and powerful. I wouldn't hesitate to use the UFX with it in any live setup.
2) I used a PCMCIA FW card (T.I. chipset) with the 2 Motu 896's and an Allied Vision Technologies custom FW driver.
The cards worked almost flawlessly and I have successfully recorded 32ch at 48kHZ - 24bit (a 6 hour non-stop recording). The UFX however, gets installed, but no sound comes through. When reverted back to the Microsoft FW driver (from SP1 not the SP3 which has bandwidth issues), I finally got sound from the UFX.
3) I have serious performance issues with the UFX.

The card works at 96 samples with constant clicks, pops and dropouts using about 50% of the ASIO performance meter in Nuendo. Please note that the warning light on the ASIO meter turns on with the clicks. After setting the buffer at the maximum setting, 1024 samples for FW and 2048 samples for USB (tried both), I got fewer clicks and no dropouts, except when minimizing or restoring Nuendo and TotalMix. The FW driver works a little better that the USB one on my system.

I have updated all drivers, bios etc, turned off the pagefile, used Riva Tuner to set my GPU running at low performance 3D all the time and disabled any services that I don't need. No matter what I tried, the same behavior occurs on my PCMCIA FW card (T.I. chipset), on my on-board FW and on USB.

Next I decided to plug the FF UFX to my Studio PC (I7 920 *3.6 GHz, 3GB RAM, Asus Rampage Gene II, NV GT9600 silent, WinXP SP3).

So far I have used only the on-board FW, which works perfectly with the Motu setup (AVT FW driver. The UFX still required the Microsoft one). The card works at 96 samples with the ASIO performance meter in Nuendo at 25% on the same project as the laptop. However, I still get occasional ASIO performance meter spikes (with the warning light flash) and the clicks that go with them. I used the DCP Latency Checker and I got no readings above 150?s, even when the clicks were heard. Running my MOTU setup on this PC works flawlessly, with 32 inputs and 32 outputs (8 analog I/O and 8 I/O via ADAT on each card), at 96 samples. Using the UFX, I despaired when I got a click at 512 samples.

Any suggestions? I changed the 896's wanting more stability for live recordings and I got the exactly opposite! Motu cards have an issue clocking with each other (at times they lose sync, even though it happens rarely), whereas the FF UFX is steady as a unit, but does not work reliably with my PC's or Nuendo!

If you need any further information in order to help me out, please ask (i.e. Ratt 3 log).

Thank you all for your time.....

Kind regards,

George Skalides

Audio Engineer
Musical Recordings

PS. I apologize for any misunderstanding due to my English, since it's not my mother tongue..

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I forgot to mention, that since I plugged in the UFX, I get BSOD's at random, mentioning the "portcls.sys" file as the problem.

Any thoughts anyone?

  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Hi George,
For the portcls.sys errors I would try the following.
1. Make sure the MOTU is removed using Add/Remove programs.
2. Uninstall the audio driver for th eon board audio. Let it Windows just load an HD Audio device or unknown device.
3. make sure the latest firmware and driver are being used with the UFX. The UFX needs to be hooked up via USB only to do the firmware update.
driver-
https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/driver_usb_win.zip
Flash-
https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/fut_usb_win.zip
4. Uninstall that custom fire wire driver. The RME will not work with it at all. There is no need for any custom fire wire drivers for any fire wire device. Revert back to the SP3 Microsoft FW driver before trying anymore fixes. There are very spefic steps for SP2 depending on what Service pack versions you did or di not update from.

Questions-
Is this windows installed straight from a XP SP3 CD or from an older disk and then updated?
Does the Lenovo T61 have it's own on board fire wire?
Does it use a combo PCMCIA/PCI express slot? If it has both then it does.

In general I tend to see better performance when using USB on newer hardware. I would recommend trying this way to see if it works better for you.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

1) The MOTU ASIO Driver was already uninstalled.
2)The onboard audio device was never installed and it has been disabled from the BIOS.
3) Latest software and firmware was already installed for the ufx
4) The AVT driver was already uninstalled and I reverted back to the SP3 FW driver and got a BSOD again for my efforts, on the laptop and the Desktop both.

Windows was installed from a WinXP SP1 disk, in which I slipstreamed the SP3. No other tweaks or changes were made during the slipstream and it has worked without any glitches for years.
The T61 has an on board fw.It is a Ricoh controller and I think it is the same for the PCMCIA. No PCI express slot I think.
I have tried the USB option and got the same results (except for the BSOD I think, will try again on Desktop) and a slight worse performance than FW.

Thank you very much for your time and effort to resolve this issue!
If you need any further information, I 'll be more than happy to provide them.

Regards,

George

5 Reply by SKULL (edited by SKULL 2011-08-12 22:35:59)

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I've just connected the ufx via USB to my desktop PC. No BSOD up to now. However I noticed this:
Up to now, I 've always tested the card at playback. This time I plugged a mic and listened to it through Nuendo. There was audible latency at 96 samples! Monitoring through Nuendo is a must for the type of work I'm doing! The VST Audio System page at Device Setup (Nuendo) shows an output latency of 3.417ms which should not be audible, and I still get the spikes were the Asio performance meter's warning light turns on and I get a click sound.
Could it be that I have a faulty unit?

Regards,

George

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Make sure to use the "Desktop" or "Always On" power-profiles. And turn off the ACPI battery driver via Device-Manager. If the laptop comes with any media keys or something, then turn off the driver/program for that, too (for testing at least). Turn off any USB card reader.

Try using the "Standard VGA" driver. I know it's resolution is awful, but it's just for testing.

Last but not least, does increasing the audio buffer size help with the issue (forget about latency for the time being, it's for analysis)?

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I have the maximum performance profile selected. I'll try tomorrow the "ACPI battery driver" setting and disabling all the hotkeys.

I have already tried to disable any peripherals that I could and to uninstall the vga driver.
It was a big help, but not a cure. The same goes for the buffer setting. At the highest setting the clicks were seldom, but they were there.

Regards,
George

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

One should mention that the reason why the UFX offer both Firewire and USB is because that leaves you the option of using the other protocol if one should fail with your specific hardware setup.

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Only my problems remain on both USB and Firewire!:-):-):-)

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

It seems that I had a couple plugins activated on my Powercore card, that caused the latency at 96 samples. I tried it with another project, and all is well now.
However I'm still getting the BSOD's with the "portcls.sys" message. It seems that switching to USB doesn't help. And it only happends when I start Nuendo. Adobe Audition doesn't cause the BSOD.

  • Knut
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

2)The onboard audio device was never installed and it has been disabled from the BIOS. However I'm still getting the BSOD's with the "portcls.sys" message.

Portcls.sys is known for causing bluescreens under XP SP2+. Remove the driver files (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23764 … lue-screen).

best regards
Knut

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Admin Knut wrote:

2)The onboard audio device was never installed and it has been disabled from the BIOS. However I'm still getting the BSOD's with the "portcls.sys" message.

Portcls.sys is a driver file of the integrated Realtek audio hardware - known for causing bluescreens. Remove the remaining driver files (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23764 … lue-screen).

best regards
Knut

I have found this thread googling, but no solution is given. The onboard sound card is disabled from the BIOS and no driver for it has ever been installed.

Searching I found this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950616

I installed the hotfix, but I still get the BSOD's.

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

This is getting really frustrating. 3 out of 4 times that I start Nuendo 4, I get the BSOD with the following message:

portcls.sys - address AAC00918 base at AABE4000, DateStamp 47e39d81

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=9658

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I unistalled the fireface, deleted all the oemxxx.inf files in the windows folder and used regedit to cleanse the registry of all MOTU and Fireface entries.

Then I plugged in the UFX and used the "found new hardware" dialog to point to the folder with the driver.

I restarted, opened Nuendo.......and got a blue screen with the portcls.sys message again........

I'm getting really tired by all of this.....I would expect a sound card that costs almost 2.000€ to allow me to do my work, without all these problems....

  • From: Germany
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

SKULL wrote:

I restarted, opened Nuendo.......and got a blue screen with the portcls.sys message again........

I'm getting really tired by all of this.....I would expect a sound card that costs almost 2.000€ to allow me to do my work, without all these problems....

Since the portcls.sys is not am RME file, there is no possible relation to the price of the FF UFX.
Try to locate and delete the file. Make sure no Realtek software remains on the disk, chek Control Panel / Software also.


Regards,
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I already tried that. Even though I removed the sp3.cab and the driver.cab files, the file was restoring itself as soon as I deleted it.
And the only Realtek driver on my computer, is for the onboard lan card.

18 Reply by SKULL (edited by SKULL 2011-08-14 22:44:22)

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I tried uninstalling the Realtek lan driver, but it didn't stop the BSOD's.

According to Microsoft's hotfix page:

"This problem occurs when a thread of the Portcls.sys file tries to reacquire a spin-lock if an I/O request packet (IRP) is canceled at certain points in its processing. The thread has two locks. Therefore, a deadlock results. "

And according to this thread:

"Hello,
with V3 drivers i'm having BSOD on Nuendo startup. I can't load Nuendo because it allways and up with "Blue screen" saying that there is some hardware or drivers problem and something about portcls.sys. I can upload a photo of BSOD if there is a need. Tried 3034, 3033, 3016 driver version and same problem apears. When I tried with 295 drivers Nuendo was loading without a problem. I wonder where is the problem? Don't want to be stuck with old drivers."

it seems that the fireface drivers is causing it on WinXP SP3 and Nuendo 4.3 and I'm not the only one with the problem.

Tried Nuendo 3.2 on my laptop instead of 4.3 (I have them both) and the blue screens stopped.

Can someone from the Tech support look into this?

  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
  • Posts: 376

Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Hi George,

Some info from your original post that I think might be indicators of the possible issue.

The card works at 96 samples with constant clicks, pops and dropouts using about 50% of the ASIO performance meter in Nuendo. Please note that the warning light on the ASIO meter turns on with the clicks. After setting the buffer at the maximum setting, 1024 samples for FW and 2048 samples for USB (tried both), I got fewer clicks and no dropouts, except when minimizing or restoring Nuendo and TotalMix. The FW driver works a little better that the USB one on my system.

1. Make sure you do not have "Release driver in background" checked in Nuendo.
2. Test with Nuendo's Multiprocessing support disabled to see if you still get clicks and pops.
3. Remove any of the Riva Tuners tweaks. Uninstall[ all Nvidia related provgrams using Add/Remove Programs.
Test Nuendo using the standard VGA driver. Yes I know the resolution will be small. Set it to the highest it allows you. Probably 1024x768. See if you are still getting the clicks and pops. Make sure you have Multiprocessing activated in Nuendo for this.
Also make sure your system is tweaked correctly and not OVER tweaked such as disabling the pagefile, reducing video acceleration etc.
This web site has the best install and tweak guide for windows xp and a great one for Windows 7
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks1

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

1) This option was never checked on my PC
2) Tried to disable Multiprocessing support, as well as turning the hyperthreading option off (BIOS). No difference. Tried increasing the Audio priority from Normal to Boost and increase disk preload to 6 seconds. No clicks and pops at 96 samples, a few in 48 samples.

I would consider myself happy with these settings, if I did't get the blue screens with the portcls.sys message. It seems this is my only problem and it can be very embarrassing if it happens in front of a client.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Could you please clarify which Firewire driver you are using now, is it SP1 or SP3?

Did you try to remove/rename all Nuendo preferences and have Nuendo build its device list from scratch?

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I'm using the SP3 driver on my Desktop and the SP1 fw on my laptop. I have the same problems on both systems. On my desktop, I tried to uninstall Nuendo and then reinstalled it, but the BSOD's persisted.

On my laptop I tried Nuendo 3.2, and that stopped the BSOD's. I also installed Win 7 x64 on a spare HDD. No Bsod's with Nuendo 4.3

Therefore, the problem seems to be an incompatibility between the RME driver (both FW and USB), Nuendo 4.3 and Win XP SP3.

  • From: Connecticut, USA
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Hi George,

I've had trouble with N4 before when I've had allot of driver swaps and installs that have been cleared up by removing the ASIO folder in the Steinberg directory. This contains all the files and settings for the ASIO MME and WDM virtual driver stuff.
Just drag the folder to your desktop and relaunch Nuendo.

Other than this I would make a backup of the current setup and try a fresh install of XP or Windows 7 64.
Both N3 and N4 32 bit work great on Win 7 64 bit. It would probably be easier to try this on the desktop first.
Make sure to not do any of the fire wire hot fixes. Just go from your SP1 install disk to the SP3 update. The SP3 FW hot fix is only for people who ran SP2 and did the FW hot fix it had and then updated  to SP3.
So you only needed the SP3 hot fix to fix the SP2 hot fix that got broke by the SP3 update. smile

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Having Chris around with the Synthax moniker in his avatar makes me feel kinda useless now. He provides knowledge where I often can only provide deduction. HeadScratch wink

25 Reply by SKULL (edited by SKULL 2011-08-16 16:31:23)

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I just tried moving the ASIO folder to my desktop. I thought at first that it worked, but the second time I opened Nuendo, I got the BSOD again.

Since it seems that the RME driver is causing it (even though the portcls.sys file is not part of the driver), should I expect it to be fixed in a future update?

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Since the issue is neither known nor easily reproducible, I would consider it unlikely to be driver related... We can not promise to fix something that we can't reproduce.

There was a solution to the issue in the other thread you quoted. Have you looked into that?


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

SKULL wrote:

I unistalled the fireface, deleted all the oemxxx.inf files in the windows folder and used regedit to cleanse the registry of all MOTU and Fireface entries.

Then I plugged in the UFX and used the "found new hardware" dialog to point to the folder with the driver.

I restarted, opened Nuendo.......and got a blue screen with the portcls.sys message again........

I'm getting really tired by all of this.....I would expect a sound card that costs almost 2.000€ to allow me to do my work, without all these problems....

As you can see from the quote, I did. No luck though.

As far as the driver is concerned, my system was fine with the same programs, plugins and setup, with the MOTU's. The BSOD began after I installed the Fireface driver.

  • vinark
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I can understand you come to that conclusion, and so would I. But in the past I have been wrong and forgotten I also updated my graphics driver around the same time and that was the cause of my unrelated issues. Very hard to trouble shoot if you look in the wrong direction. Not saying that is the case with you in any way! Just for troubleshooting try to disable unneeded devices in device mamager

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

I tried uninstalling the Nvidia drivers and use the Standard VGA driver, as well as disabling all devices that were not necessary from the device manager. No luck there. I still get the BSOD's.....

I'm running out of ideas, so if anyone has any suggestion, I 'll be glad to try it....

  • SKULL
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Success at last!!!

I got the sp1 version of the "portcls.sys" file (it is in the sp1 update, you can download it from the Windows Update).
Rebooted in safe mode and replaced the file which lies in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers . If you do not go into safe mode, the file will be automaticaly replaced with the sp3 version by Windows.

Rebooted and everything works ok! No more blue screens! At last I can return to my work!

  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
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Re: Fireface UFX - Asio spikes in Nuendo 4 with clicks and pops!

Hi George,
Awesome. Still weird that the portcls.sys file was even being accessed at all. But glad to see it worked out.
Chris

Chris Ludwig
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