Ghosts in the machine... !

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

I'm toying with the idea of buying another motherboard to test with.

Mate, with what you've sunk into this, I'd call it quits and start from scratch. 

I'd get a high spec refurb. mac mini and be done with it. Get dropouts then? Send it back to Apple.

If you get another motherboard, the wormhole you will descend down might see you lose any remaining hair and age you 10 years.

I'd then part out the old machine and sell the bits.

Drew_TNBD

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I'm toying with the idea of buying another motherboard to test with.

Mate, with what you've sunk into this, I'd call it quits and start from scratch. 

I'd get a high spec refurb. mac mini and be done with it. Get dropouts then? Send it back to Apple.

If you get another motherboard, the wormhole you will descend down might see you lose any remaining hair and age you 10 years.

I'd then part out the old machine and sell the bits.

Get what you're saying, but selling the bits isn't going to get me that much cash back, certainly nowhere near the £500 I'd want back in my pocket to put towards another machine. And for the sake of £50 for an Asus 1150 socket motherboard, it seems like it would be worth trying??

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I'm toying with the idea of buying another motherboard to test with.

Mate, with what you've sunk into this, I'd call it quits and start from scratch. 

I'd get a high spec refurb. mac mini and be done with it. Get dropouts then? Send it back to Apple.

If you get another motherboard, the wormhole you will descend down might see you lose any remaining hair and age you 10 years.

I'd then part out the old machine and sell the bits.

Get what you're saying, but selling the bits isn't going to get me that much cash back, certainly nowhere near the £500 I'd want back in my pocket to put towards another machine. And for the sake of £50 for an Asus 1150 socket motherboard, it seems like it would be worth trying??

Yeah, possibly. You know anyone with a keyboard, mouse monitor etc you could borrow?

I'd like to know if it's def. your pc itself causing the issues

Drew_TNBD

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I'm toying with the idea of buying another motherboard to test with.

Mate, with what you've sunk into this, I'd call it quits and start from scratch. 

I'd get a high spec refurb. mac mini and be done with it. Get dropouts then? Send it back to Apple.

If you get another motherboard, the wormhole you will descend down might see you lose any remaining hair and age you 10 years.

I'd then part out the old machine and sell the bits.

Get what you're saying, but selling the bits isn't going to get me that much cash back, certainly nowhere near the £500 I'd want back in my pocket to put towards another machine. And for the sake of £50 for an Asus 1150 socket motherboard, it seems like it would be worth trying??

Yeah, possibly. You know anyone with a keyboard, mouse monitor etc you could borrow?

I'd like to know if it's def. your pc itself causing the issues

I can snag a keyboard and mouse from my office for a night or two. But they'd be USB ones as well, which is what my ones at home are so I don't see it making any difference tbh. I can even grab an entirely different PC from work and take that home to troubleshoot my soundcards - but again, don't think it's those because it already doesn't happen on any other machine.

The reason I am contemplating a new motherboard is because my current and last motherboard are/were Gigabyte ones. It's possible the chipsets on the two motherboards are the same or very similar, and thus have issues with realtime audio. Was thinking if I picked up a cheap ASUS or MSI one, maybe it'd be a different kettle of fish.

Clutching at straws I know.

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

Bridgehouse said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I'm toying with the idea of buying another motherboard to test with.

Mate, with what you've sunk into this, I'd call it quits and start from scratch. 

I'd get a high spec refurb. mac mini and be done with it. Get dropouts then? Send it back to Apple.

If you get another motherboard, the wormhole you will descend down might see you lose any remaining hair and age you 10 years.

I'd then part out the old machine and sell the bits.

Get what you're saying, but selling the bits isn't going to get me that much cash back, certainly nowhere near the £500 I'd want back in my pocket to put towards another machine. And for the sake of £50 for an Asus 1150 socket motherboard, it seems like it would be worth trying??

Yeah, possibly. You know anyone with a keyboard, mouse monitor etc you could borrow?

I'd like to know if it's def. your pc itself causing the issues

I can snag a keyboard and mouse from my office for a night or two. But they'd be USB ones as well, which is what my ones at home are so I don't see it making any difference tbh. I can even grab an entirely different PC from work and take that home to troubleshoot my soundcards - but again, don't think it's those because it already doesn't happen on any other machine.

The reason I am contemplating a new motherboard is because my current and last motherboard are/were Gigabyte ones. It's possible the chipsets on the two motherboards are the same or very similar, and thus have issues with realtime audio. Was thinking if I picked up a cheap ASUS or MSI one, maybe it'd be a different kettle of fish.

Clutching at straws I know.

Hardware diagnostics like this is about isolating every single component in the chain to discover the culprit.

It could be the chipset, but you'd be amazed how many mice, keyboards, monitors, interfaces, and other such stupid things cause issues.

Could you take your box into work, plug it in and see if the issue persists?

Drew_TNBD

If I get my project up and running and then pull the mouse+keyboard+monitor, wouldn't that be enough to rule them out?

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

If I get my project up and running and then pull the mouse+keyboard+monitor, wouldn't that be enough to rule them out?

Worth a try!

Drew_TNBD

Will give it a go tonight.

PolarityMan

I reckon this is power related, you got anythign else that is bus powered? I get issues like this on my cheap tascam buspowered usint but none on my externally powered focusrites. However im wondering if having something else which is causing power blips is causing issues on some of the voltage rails on the main board.

Could also be under-specced PSU

Drew_TNBD

PolarityMan said:

I reckon this is power related, you got anythign else that is bus powered? I get issues like this on my cheap tascam buspowered usint but none on my externally powered focusrites. However im wondering if having something else which is causing power blips is causing issues on some of the voltage rails on the main board.

Could also be under-specced PSU

I don't have *any* bus powered peripherals aside from what sits inside the machine, and the PSU is a Corsair RX650 - it's no slouch!

Drew_TNBD

Here's a thought... could an extension lead with a built in timer (that I never use) cause anything like this??

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

Here's a thought... could an extension lead with a built in timer (that I never use) cause anything like this??

You mean a power connector block with one of them funny clock things to switch it on and off automatically?

Plug your PC into a wall socket.... I hate extension blocks for a variety of reasons..

Drew_TNBD

So here is what I did so far...

- Different extension lead
- Disconnected mouse and keyboard

Using Latency Monitor from Resplendence Software, I get:

- Current measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - Mostly between 5 and 31
- Highest measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - 104
- Highest reported ISR routine execution time (μs) - 95 (dxgkrnl.sys)
- Highest reported DPC routine execution time (μs) - 552 (nviddmkm.sys)

(these figures did also eventually go higher !)

Within 20minutes LatMon was saying the machine wasn't capable of realtime audio.

So then I did this:

- Different extension lead (but the same as the new one above)
- Disconnected mouse and keyboard
- Removed graphics card and used the on-board graphics
- Disabled the network adapter in Windows

So literally 1 SSD hard-drive and my CPU fan connected to the motherboard. No case fans. No mechanical hard-drives. No front USB ports. As basic as you can get a setup and it still boot correctly. Here is what I get:

- Current measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - Mostly between 1 and 5
- Highest measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - 35
- Highest reported ISR routine execution time (μs) - 1.11 (wdf0100.sys)
- Highest reported DPC routine execution time (μs) - 71 (ntoskrnl.exe)

After 20minutes LatMon is still reporting that the machine is suitable for realtime audio.

So... I think this is almost certainly hardware, I just need to figure out what the worst offenders are.

Bridgehouse

That's progress.

Bring them back one at a time and re run the test..

Bridgehouse

One additional question - what's your network adapter connected to?

Drew_TNBD

Bridgehouse said:

One additional question - what's your network adapter connected to?

Used to be a Netgear WNCE2001 ethernet to wifi adapter. Now it's a TP-Link powerline adapter.

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

Bridgehouse said:

One additional question - what's your network adapter connected to?

Used to be a Netgear WNCE2001 ethernet to wifi adapter. Now it's a TP-Link powerline adapter.

Is that the one that goes through the power sockets?

Drew_TNBD

Okay, so restored my network adapter. After 5 minutes:

- Current measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - Mostly between 5 and 7
- Highest measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - 1434
- Highest reported ISR routine execution time (μs) - 2.2 (wdf0100.sys)
- Highest reported DPC routine execution time (μs) - 167 (ndis.sys)

... so I think we've found if not the culprit then a large factor in all this.

Bridgehouse

Drew_TNBD said:

Okay, so restored my network adapter. After 5 minutes:

- Current measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - Mostly between 5 and 7
- Highest measured interrupt to process latency (μs) - 1434
- Highest reported ISR routine execution time (μs) - 2.2 (wdf0100.sys)
- Highest reported DPC routine execution time (μs) - 167 (ndis.sys)

... so I think we've found if not the culprit then a large factor in all this.

It's the powerline adapter. They are notorious for ping spikes, drop outs and latency issues...

Bridgehouse

Best bet? Buy a card based wifi adapter (branded) and make sure you have the latest drivers installed..