Overflow/underrun problem with Audiofire8

[Tobiah[_4_]]

Every one to three minutes or so, I get a little glitch
in audio playback, accompanied by an increment of the
overflow/underrun count in the firewire analyzer.

I can't seem to stamp this out, and it makes this unit
about as useful as a doorstop.

I'm running Windows 7 64bit on a 4 core phenom box with
8 gig of ram. I'm been emailing tech support for many
days. He had my buy two different firewire cards, which
I installed both with legacy and regular drivers, to no
effect. I tried a fresh install of windows, installing
only the Audiofire8 drivers and Reaper and Cubase. The
problem is the same under either program. I've been
through the Echo windows 7 tuning faq, and taken all of
the suggestions. I've been listening to a Tascam US-144mkII
now for the last half hour or so, and I have no problem.
ASIO buffer settings seem to have no effect, other than
the expected adjustment in latency. In fact, I get
extraordinary latency figures, save that phantom glitch
that happens now and then. I'm only asking that Reaper
play back a single 24/96000 stereo track at this point.
It doesn't feel like a resource issue at all.

Any extra tips welcome, although I've tried much more
than I've listed here.

Also, I've tried two different mother boards, the first
one sporting a Core II Duo. This is the fourth firewire
card, the latest being recommended by Echo tech support,
which has a Via chipset.

Anyone else had, and overcome this problem? There are
certainly enough complaints about the same thing on
forums. Anyone trust the Audiofire8 completely, and
never miss a sample?

Thanks,

Tobiah

[Tobiah[_4_]]

On 8/4/2011 3:33 PM, Soundhaspriority wrote:
> I had a more severe problem that cropped up with multicore processors,
> which was resolved by increasing the ASIO buffer size. This has been
> quite a while, so it may not be a problem with current drivers.
> You mentioned that you futzed with the ASIO buffers. But have you tested
> with them set to maximum?

Yeah, there is no difference in the frequency of the glitches
until I get down to about 3ms latency, when it can no longer
keep up. The largest buffer size I'm allowed is 2096 samples,
or 20 something ms latency, and sure, I tried that - no difference.

> There is a utility, DPC Latency Checker,
> http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml ,
> that graphs latency in real time. Have you used it? Is there any
> correlation between the glitch and the latency?

Yeah, I ran that. I'm always in the green - never over. When
the glitch happens, there is no spike in the latency checker.
>
> If the above indicates no correlation with latency, it might be a
> transmission error: bad cable or input receiver on the Audiofire.

I suppose it could be the Audiofire. I bought it used. It does have
two firewire inputs, and I've tried them both. As for the cable, I
only have one, but it's not moving around. I suppose I'll have to
get another one to be sure.

> Bob Morein
> (310) 237-6511
>
>
>
>
>
> "Tobiah" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Every one to three minutes or so, I get a little glitch
>> in audio playback, accompanied by an increment of the
>> overflow/underrun count in the firewire analyzer.
>>
>> I can't seem to stamp this out, and it makes this unit
>> about as useful as a doorstop.
>>
>> I'm running Windows 7 64bit on a 4 core phenom box with
>> 8 gig of ram. I'm been emailing tech support for many
>> days. He had my buy two different firewire cards, which
>> I installed both with legacy and regular drivers, to no
>> effect. I tried a fresh install of windows, installing
>> only the Audiofire8 drivers and Reaper and Cubase. The
>> problem is the same under either program. I've been
>> through the Echo windows 7 tuning faq, and taken all of
>> the suggestions. I've been listening to a Tascam US-144mkII
>> now for the last half hour or so, and I have no problem.
>> ASIO buffer settings seem to have no effect, other than
>> the expected adjustment in latency. In fact, I get
>> extraordinary latency figures, save that phantom glitch
>> that happens now and then. I'm only asking that Reaper
>> play back a single 24/96000 stereo track at this point.
>> It doesn't feel like a resource issue at all.
>>
>> Any extra tips welcome, although I've tried much more
>> than I've listed here.
>>
>> Also, I've tried two different mother boards, the first
>> one sporting a Core II Duo. This is the fourth firewire
>> card, the latest being recommended by Echo tech support,
>> which has a Via chipset.
>>
>> Anyone else had, and overcome this problem? There are
>> certainly enough complaints about the same thing on
>> forums. Anyone trust the Audiofire8 completely, and
>> never miss a sample?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Tobiah
>

[Tobiah[_4_]]

> I suppose it could be the Audiofire. I bought it used. It does have
> two firewire inputs, and I've tried them both. As for the cable, I
> only have one, but it's not moving around. I suppose I'll have to
> get another one to be sure.

I found another cable, and that was not the problem. I've been working
on this with their tech support for three weeks. I'm ready to try
another device. I have a US-144mkII that works sample perfect every
time. I simply has other shortcomings that I'd rather not live with.
The output is low, and full of USB noise, and to make matters worth,
they botched up the output section by combining computer and input
monitoring into one knob. The computer output goes way down as you
try to fade in the monitor. The US-122 had it right.

Anyway, I have no PCI slot, and I need to try something similar to
the Audiofire8 that is either USB2.0, or firewire. Tascam has
some new USB units out. The lower end ones suffer from the
"monitor mix" knob that I can't abide by. I'm not sure about eh us-800.
Maybe the US-1800 is my starting point. The US-400 says it's
4-out, but it looks like they're counting digital, as is common with
many units. The 1800 and above actually seem to have 4 analog outs,
along with digital, but they still call it 4 out.

I just wonder if the USB hum is present in these, as it was with the
US-122 and US-144mk. It's not striking mind you, but It guess worse
with the monitor mix knob in the middle, and it's definitely audible
after a track plays at a decent level. The Audiofire8 is stone quiet
with the volume turned way up.

Other units in the couple-three-hundred-dollars-used price range?

Or, if there are any other ideas to get the audiofire8 working, I'd
be grateful. The unit suits my needs very well.

Thanks,

Tobiah

[Norbert Hahn[_2_]]

Tobiah > wrote:

>Every one to three minutes or so, I get a little glitch
>in audio playback, accompanied by an increment of the
>overflow/underrun count in the firewire analyzer.
>
>I can't seem to stamp this out, and it makes this unit
>about as useful as a doorstop.
>
>I'm running Windows 7 64bit on a 4 core phenom box with
>8 gig of ram.

I had a similar problem while digitizing videos. The cause
of the problem was twofold:

1st of all: Energy management. I got improvements by
switching off Speed Step
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_step

2nd cause: Multithreading. I need to bind the program to one core.

HTH
Norbert

[John Albert]

On 8/4/11 10:33 AM, Tobiah wrote:
> Anyone trust the Audiofire8 completely, and
> never miss a sample?

I do, but I'm using an iMac... :)

Nice thing about the Mac and firewire-based interfaces is
that NO 3rd party "drivers" are necessary. The actual
drivers are built into the Mac OS (called "CORE Audio").

- John

[Tobiah[_4_]]

On 08/05/2011 09:03 PM, John Albert wrote:
> On 8/4/11 10:33 AM, Tobiah wrote:
>> Anyone trust the Audiofire8 completely, and
>> never miss a sample?
>
> I do, but I'm using an iMac... :)
>
> Nice thing about the Mac and firewire-based interfaces is that NO 3rd
> party "drivers" are necessary. The actual drivers are built into the Mac
> OS (called "CORE Audio").

I'm going to look seriously into getting a Mac. "Core Audio" seems
to be a real design advantage. I'm also a programmer, and I will
really appreciate having a native Unix shell environment available.

I don't intend to start a Windows/Mac war, but assuming that I will
switch to Mac, what can I look for in, and expect to pay for, a
machine that will comfortably accommodate my Firewire8? I assume
I'm going to want to run on Intel hardware at least?

Thanks,

Tobiah

[Scott Dorsey]

Tobiah > wrote:
>I'm going to look seriously into getting a Mac. "Core Audio" seems
>to be a real design advantage. I'm also a programmer, and I will
>really appreciate having a native Unix shell environment available.

Core Audio isn't conceptually a bad thing, and the firewire support is
excellent. However, it has a tendency to change dramatically from one
release of OSX to the next, which is annoying.

Having the shell available is absolutely wonderful. However, if you are
on a PC, you can get some of the same functionality with the Cygnus kit.
The problem is that Cygnus is a little different than typical Unices, just
enough to be really confusing.

>I don't intend to start a Windows/Mac war, but assuming that I will
>switch to Mac, what can I look for in, and expect to pay for, a
>machine that will comfortably accommodate my Firewire8? I assume
>I'm going to want to run on Intel hardware at least?

You want to run Intel hardware, and you don't want any OS later than 10.5,
I think.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Tobiah[_4_]]

> You want to run Intel hardware, and you don't want any OS later than 10.5,
> I think.

> --scott
>
>

What do you think of this used tower? I think I can get it
for around $800, maybe a bit more.

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Processor): 4 MB
Memory: 10 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz

three video cards installed:

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-2
PCIe Lane Width: x8
VRAM (Total): 256 MB

[John Albert]

RE:
"I don't intend to start a Windows/Mac war, but assuming
that I will switch to Mac, what can I look for in, and
expect to pay for, a machine that will comfortably
accommodate my Firewire8? I assume I'm going to want to run
on Intel hardware at least?"

All Macs sold are Intel-based.

For music, you'd probably do just fine on a 27" iMac. Lots
of screen space for the DAW app.

If you happen to consider the Mac "Mini", I'd suggest the
"server" model with 4gb of RAM and 2 internal hard drives
(and a quad-core CPU).

I believe all the new Macs that have firewire now come with
a firewire 800 port (no more firewire 400). That's not a
problem -- just get a 9-pin to 6-pin cable and you're fine.
That's what I use on my own iMac, connected to my Audiofire8
via the firewire 800 port.

BTW, the Audiofire8 works fine under Lion (both the hardware
and the software mixer app).

- John

[John Albert]

On 8/8/11 6:34 PM, Tobiah wrote:
> What do you think of this used tower? I think I can get it
> for around $800, maybe a bit more.
>
> Model Name: Mac Pro
> Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
> Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
> Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz

That would be fine.

I'm not sure if it will run Lion. I know that Lion requires
at least a "Core 2 duo" processor and those that are only
"Core 2" won't work. HOWEVER, I _think_ there is an
exception for the Xeon CPU chip, and Lion may install and
run fine on it.

In any case, you could run OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" without
problems.

- John