[Tobiah]

I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.

It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.

I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA .

Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).

Thanks,

Tobiah

[david gourley[_2_]]

Tobiah :

I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.

It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.

I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA .

Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).

Thanks,

Tobiah


I would look to see if something is being registered in the System and/or
Application logs under Event Viewer (Management) with each occurrence.
There's always a chance to backtrack with System Restore if you have that
active.

david

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013 16:48:25 -0700, Tobiah wrote:

I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.

It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.

I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA .

Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).

Thanks,

Tobiah

Try this

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

It measures the latency of your system over time and will identify any
processes that are being too greedy of the processor. It worked for
me.

d

[Neil Gould]

Tobiah wrote:
I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.

It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.

I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA .

Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).

There is a possibility that your performance hit is due to a quirk of SSDs.
If you were using a normal hard drive, I'd recommend defragging it. SSDs
supposedly don't need this, though Win7 supports the TRIM command that can
be used for this function. Before trying something as drastic as a reinstall
which man do nothing to solve this problem, you might want to try defragging
the SSD. Here's a fairly easy to understand article on the topic:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20475...-your-ssd.html

--
best regards,

Neil

[Sean Conolly]

"Tobiah" wrote in message
...
I'm using Windows 7 on a Quad core Phenom IIX4 910.

It's not the cutting edge system anymore, but it has
8Gig ram, and the install is on an SSD - It's no slouch.

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi (Kontakt with Reaper host).
It's like clockwork, although I have not measured the periodicity
other than to take note of it while playing. Everything is really
tight like usual, then burp, spit, stutter really badly for about
5 seconds, then it goes away. It has nothing to do with the
number of voices I'm activating at a given time.

I checked the performance monitoring utilities that windows
has, and I see no spike in network, disk or cpu activity during
this recurring, periodic, faithful spaz that goes on. I
tried turning off my firewall (Avast) and Steam, etc, things
that are lurking in the backround, but I saw no change. Something
is different, and I'm afraid it's a Trojan of some kind, but
I don't pirate things, or install questionable software, so I'm
short of explanations other than maybe the NSA .

Anyway, I know it's a long shot. I just thought the
experience might ring a bell with someone. I'm pretty much
looking at a re-install if I can't find the culprit. Before
this happened, I was getting 100-200 voices out of Kontact at
2.9ms latency (Well, that's what Reaper says).

I've found this kind of hiccup is frequently related to a hardware issue,
something firing off interupts on a buss. It could be an audio or video
card, or a built-in network adapter, etc. For instance, just checking a disc
left in the optical drive can cause a dropout.

Troubleshooting this kind of problem can be slow and painful, but I'd start
by seeing if it occurs without using Kontakt - like playing a mix with a lot
of tracks in Reaper. It may be that the cause is always there but you can't
see it until you do something that requires a lot of I/O.

Sean

[Tobiah]

Lots of helpful ideas.

Thanks guys.

Tobiah

[Tobiah]

So I was getting wonderful audio performance for a long
time, but something new is happening. About every 30
seconds or so, I get a few seconds of dropouts when playing
even simple piano pieces through a VSTi
Try this

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

It measures the latency of your system over time and will identify any
processes that are being too greedy of the processor. It worked for
me.

So, I immediately scored into the red with that program.
I also had another one on my system that had slipped my
mind called DPC Latency Checker. Both reported horible
scores. The DPC Latency Checker has a running graph, and
I could see visually what I had described earlier - mostly
smooth sailing, then small bouts of 'red'.

I knew I had a wireless card that I wasn't using, so I
disabled that and things got much better, but still going
into the red. I disabled a bluetooth controller after that
and now I've been watching the graph for quite a time, and
I've seen nothing approaching 500us, which is the smallest
ledger line on the DPC Latency graph.

Beats reinstalling, as Neil said, when it most likely would
not have fixed my problem.

Thanks,

Tobiah