Since you have an SSD OS drive, you probably should just let it use the default OS size and settings.
When I looked at mine, it was set to auto and was using 2x my memory size. Which is weird since it shouldn’t need to be any bigger than your RAM. Who knows it’s windows
When the processor receives an interrupt it allots the device (audio card in this case) so many microseconds to do what it needs to do before it services the next interrupt from another device. By increasing the interrupt time your card is able to process more audio samples before the processor moves on to the next device that is requesting cpu time.
I’m not sure if that will help you problem, but it maybe a solution. It’s interesting that it seems to take a couple of months before your system starts to develop problems.
Another option is to start up the task manager when Cubase is running and select Cubase so that it is highlighted and then right click and select CPU Priority and set it to high and see if that helps. It is not permanent and requires you to perform that action every time you start Cubase. There is a freeware program that you can download that remembers the CPU priority setting and sets it each time a program is started. Link: Permanent CPU priority program.
I downloaded PCI Latency Tool, but can’t get it to install. Installation failed with a warning that I have to install using an account with Admin priviledges. When I ran the install as Administrator (which took some finagling, as Windows 7 doesn’t natively allow “Run as Administrator” for MSI files, it crashed with message “This installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists, or contact the vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer package”
Is there another, perhaps newer tool for this purpose? (the guru3d site is pretty dated, but then so is PCI I suppose). I saw some suggestions of doing this through the BIOS, but I can’t find any such settings.
BTW I unplugged my USB hub. Didn’t seem to make any difference.
hmmm now this is interesting. In system info, I see that
Intel® 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 - 1C1C
PCI standard PCI-PCI bridge
M-Audio Delta 1010
and
Intel® 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D
all share IRQ 18
and
Intel® 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C1E
M-Audio Delta 1010
both share IRQ19
I have 2 Delta 1010 PCI cards in the 2 PCI slots, but I have no PCI/e cards installed at all. Could sharing the IRQ cause a conflict even if there are no cards in the PCIe slots? Should I try disabling the PCI Express Root Ports in Device Manager?
No, do not disable your PCI Express Root Ports or your USB Enhanced Host Controller in the device manager.
Too bad the PCI latency tool didn’t install. I used it several years ago when I was running 2 Delta 1010’s.
IRQ sharing may not be the cause of your audio dropouts, but the latency checker program you ran did show that your worst ISR latency was related to your USB driver which shares the same IRQ as your 1010s.
My PC system bios has the capability to adjust PCI latency, not all motherboards allow that adjustment.
I tried disabling the onboard sound card in the bios (since I rarely use is, I run most audio through the Delta), and also disabled the onboard serial interface (is that used for anything anymore).
Cubase priority was already set to high, but the Delta driver was set to low. I changed it to high also.
It seems to have made the problem worse. (However I was running LatencyMon at the same time as running Cubase - I think that may have a negative affect, although some people have reported experiencing fewer audio dropouts while LatencyMon is running)
I did get Latency Tool to install, but it still won’t run - Windows evidently won’t allow “unsigned” programs to run, still looking for a workaround.
I turned off Windows UAC, which gives the program permission to run, I guess. Still doesn’t work, I get a message that says “Failed to initialize Config Space access” and recommends rebooting and or reinstalling. (I’ve tried both).
Today I had a session with a client. 4 hours and not a single glitch. I did not change anything, not knowingly at least…
So after my client left I turned on LatencyMon again. In less than a minute the 2nd bar (Interrupt to process latency) shot up into the red and the “Your system appears to be having trouble” warning appeared.
Meanwhile, after 10 minutes, the pagefault numbers remain very low…
update: two minutes later number of pagefaults jumped to 500, highest pagefault resolution leapt to 50732.685751, and the bar went all the way across the screen again…
The computer I have now is fine in this respect, but on my previous AMD955 I looked into this in some detail. It turns out that windows pages for no reason. I disabled the page files and had no probs at all.
Microsoft Security Essentials is running, and often shows up as a resource hog (eg, in task manager), but turning it off for awhile had no effect on the problem.
I don’t have USB powering anything. I have my keyboard, mouse, two printers, an iLok key, and the Steinberg eLicencer key plugged into USB.
Haven’t tried turning off the pagefile yet. to be honest, it kind of scares me. Is it safe to turn it off, and then just turn it back on if I have problems? (I mean,it won’t cause my system not to reboot or anything like that will it?)
Found some suggestions in this thread in the proppfrexx.radio40 forum. They include some I haven’t heard before, such as disabling Windows DEP (Data Execution Prevention), turning off all Windows system sounds, and disabling USB power management (I didn’t know there was such a thing).
DEP is probably not the cause, but a quick test could confirm.
Windows sounds should always be turned off on any PC that is used for recording,
USB power management is used to power down unused USB devices and can cause system glitches when the device is accessed and powers back up.
Turning your page file off will cause the space allocated for the file to be freed up. Re-enabling will just allocate the space once again. I personally don’t think that is your problem since you are using a SSD for your OS drive, but I could be wrong.
Here’s a link to a useful guide on optimizing a PC for glitch free performance: Glitch Free
It’s a good guide on how to optimize your PC and covers a lot of areas.
