Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 (edited) Hello Cakewalkers! Just updated my Windows 10, and upgraded to the newest CWBBL and BLAss... and those dreaded clicks/pops/buzzes are back again. Super tight bottlenecked CPU-style behaviour but the CPU usage meter is reading around 20 percent. Seems to get worse when scrolling/graphic display is engaged. Any ideas? Anyone have a link to an updated version of that Win10 audio optimization guide that floated around on the previous version of the forum? Scarlett 18120 Gen 1 (up-to-date driver) latest CWBBL Win 10 latest Intel i7-4770 @3.4GHz 24 GB RAM NVIDIA graphics card Thanks for your help! Edited October 17, 2019 by Sean Michael Robinson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Promidi Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 Uninstall and reinstall the drivers for your audio interface and your graphics card (whether onboard or dedicated). If this fixes it, tell Microsoft never to update hardware drivers via Windows update.http://woshub.com/how-to-turn-off-automatic-driver-updates-in-windows-10/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJ Jacobson Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 (edited) 6 hours ago, Sean Michael Robinson said: Just updated my Windows 10, and upgraded to the newest CWBBL and BLAss.. I would just undo the update, if you are sure the update is your problem. If you are not sure, then you have a lot of troubleshooting to go through first and foremost.. Start with the obvious sound card driver settings and then go from there.. 6 hours ago, Sean Michael Robinson said: and those dreaded clicks/pops/buzzes are back again. Super tight bottlenecked CPU-style behaviour but the CPU usage meter is reading around 20 percent. Do you get the artifacts in all audio or just your DAW? Is the CPU meter you are reading the one in your PC or the one in your DAW? Edited October 17, 2019 by CJ Jacobson 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 Okay, believe it or not this was relatively painlessly SOLVED... by peeking at my post history on the previous forum! It's the insidious NVIDIA Audio driver, sprung back to life after the Windows Update! GRRRR. Here's the post: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Solved-Super-glitchy-playback-after-Bandlab-Reinstall-m3793399.aspx SO! If you have an NVIDIA video card, and you're having this issue, it might be an audio driver conflict. Check out the details at the previous post. Thanks for your help everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 Okay, I was enthusiastic too soon.... It's BACK! That seemed to be a temporary fix. Okay, I opened CoreTemp to see if maybe the issue was something related to my CPU. Temps look normal, and usage is at about 24 percent during playback, BUT on every crackle and pop there's a visible spike in CPU usage-- up to 36 or 40 percent. And then back down again. Somewhat rhythmical in nature. Anyone have any idea what might be going on here? Some background process grabbing CPU during playback?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 4 hours ago, CJ Jacobson said: I would just undo the update, if you are sure the update is your problem. Do you mean the Bandlab update? I'm not seeing other versions available in the Assistant interface... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 Here's a snapshot from the Task Manager CPU usage screen. Each of the "humps" is a pop/crackle etc. I don't know if it's because it has a slower refresh rate than CoreTemp, but the spikes LOOK much less severe here, but still visible each time https://ibb.co/7jg9zNQ The only visible CPU fluctuations via Task Manager are within CWBBL itself, all else zeroed out or close to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 Whatever the problem is seems to be making spikes in both of those, yes... I just tried disabling the Ethernet connection and the graphics card simultaneously, and there was no change, still there. Then tried uninstalling the graphics card entirely and resetting...and it went away! for about 5 minutes of playback. Then back to it exactly the same as before... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Promidi Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 Are you using version 436.48 of the Nvidia drivers? (assuming a GTX600 or above card). And did you disable the audio component of that card in Device Manager? One other setting you might want to change is set Power Management mode to "Prefer Maximum performance". This is in the NVidia Control Panel, Manage 3D settings. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 17, 2019 Author Share Posted October 17, 2019 Hello again Promidi! Thank you very much for your help. My videocard is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 635. Driver date 5/22/2019, driver version 26.21.14.3086 Yes, I've turned off the audio. Thank you for the suggestion re: the power handling of the card. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have done anything with this particular problem. Any other ideas? I really appreciate everyone's suggestions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Promidi Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 There is a more recent Nvidia driver (dated 1 Oct 2019) than what you have that is compatible with the GT635. Still update it, even though I don't think this will stop the pops and crackles.https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/152007/en-us Do you have onboard audio that also may need to be disabled? Have you disabled core parking on your CPU? Turned off speedstep? (Intel sometimes calls this EIST) . In Advanced power settings set CPU min and max, both to 100% Go start run and "control powercfg.cpl,,1" (copy and paste without the quotes) to quickly get to these settings. In fact, disable any and all power saving options you can find. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 3 hours ago, Sean Michael Robinson said: ... I just tried disabling the Ethernet connection and the graphics card simultaneously, and there was no change, still there. Then tried uninstalling the graphics card entirely and resetting...and it went away! for about 5 minutes of playback.... All evidence does seem to point to the nVidia card/drivers as the culprit... Do you have another video card or onboard graphics you can switch to and test? Have you gone through all of the settings in the nVidia Control panel - disabling everything non-essential? How about disabling the nVidia control panel itself? Have you run dpc latency monitor lately? Try switching to a different USB port (pref on a different internal hub). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azslow3 Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 I have recently return to the topic how to debug latency issues... In attempt to understand a problem on a friend's computer (kind of solved, but still no optimal, work in progress) and my own DELL XPS (here the conclusion is simple... DELL XPS (from the Inet ALL of them) are disaster for audio. But at least I have learned how to use already known for me and yet new tools: * Latency Monitor and In Depth Latency test. Detects general system CPU/MB glitches, shows latency spikes and detect some bad drivers * ThrottleStop. Shows thermal situation of CPU/GPU, the distribution of C states, accurate CPU load and frequency. Also allows to change many power management parameters on the fly. * Windows Performance Toolkit from Microsoft (a part of ATK). Shows precise graphs of all timings, down to concrete drivers ISR/DPC (Latency Monitor can not distinguish drivers behind "frameworks"). Finally, REAPER performance monitor displays precise real-time processing length (not the same as real-time CPU load, but it is also shows). Sonar/CbB has no that kind of diagnostic. My comments about all that you can find here: http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,395.0.html. Open spoiler near "Latency Monitor" and REAPER. Another generic check I started to use recently is https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/. After quick test, it display how good/bad your computer components perform in comparison with other users computers with the same components. PS. I am not convinced I can find all possible origins of latency problems. But I am convinced using mentioned tools I can find concrete numbers and graphs describing such problems. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 18, 2019 Author Share Posted October 18, 2019 Okay, I've tried rolling back the update, reinstalling drivers, no dice so far. The LatencyMon suggestion however seems to be yielding some results, even if I can't interpret them myself. Anyone care to take a crack at it? Here's the text. "Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks, or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adaper, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. [have already done so in BIOS, not sure where it is in Control Panel]. Check for BIOS updates. [There is a much more recent BIOS, going to try installing now] Here are screenshots of the Drivers and Processes page results. Would anyone kindly point me to what might be suggested by the results here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 18, 2019 Author Share Posted October 18, 2019 (edited) Well, that does it. It appears to be my Realtek network adapter driver. If I uninstall it my PC immediately passes the LatencyMon with flying colors. If I reinstall it, the doom sets in immediately. Well well well. Not sure what to do here. Disable or uninstall every time I run audio? Buy a new network adapter? edit: as indicated by the "processes" image above. Edited October 18, 2019 by Sean Michael Robinson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Promidi Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 What happens if you reinstall the updates, yet uninstall (or disable) Realtek network adapter driver afterwards? Note: I have an onboard Intel gigabit wired network adapter enabled at all times (including when CbB is being used) and I do not have any glitches I do not have any form of wireless adapter on my PC. Is your network wireless or via cat5e? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Bone Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 1 hour ago, Sean Michael Robinson said: Well, that does it. It appears to be my Realtek network adapter driver. If I uninstall it my PC immediately passes the LatencyMon with flying colors. If I reinstall it, the doom sets in immediately. Well well well. Not sure what to do here. Disable or uninstall every time I run audio? Buy a new network adapter? edit: as indicated by the "processes" image above. I had suspected a WiFi driver might be the culprit - was too busy to circle back to post earlier - you do not have to uninstall it. Simply disable it, just prior to your CbB session, and enable it when ready to get back on the web. This kind of issue can happen with many models of laptops, and they often have a function key or physical switch to turn on/off the WiFi transmitter, which accomplishes that same kind of thing. (if it is your wired network adapter that is unusual - I have had and seen mostly the issue arising from WiFi device drivers). Going into Device Manager and just disabling or enabling the network adapter just takes maybe 30 seconds to a minute, yes a pain, but not really a deal breaker. Bob Bone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Michael Robinson Posted October 18, 2019 Author Share Posted October 18, 2019 (edited) It's a wired network adapter. The problem has come back (albeit less severely) while the card is still deactivated. Is it possible I'm having some kind of electrical issue with my PC? I'm having a hard time figuring out why all of these issues would simultaneously come up. When the network card is disabled LatencyMon is now identifying Wdf0100.sys (a system file added by compulsory Win10 update last year) as the issue. I wonder if I'm heading for some kind of system failure and these performance spikes are the indicator. (Also tried running the command prompt system integrity diagnosis, which came back clean). Going to keep digging through the troubleshooting suggestions above. Thank you all again! Edited October 18, 2019 by Sean Michael Robinson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azslow3 Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Not only network related drivers give a bit too high numbers, especially in case you work with low buffer size. Check with ThrottleStop (it is a tiny utility without installer) that your CPU is in performance mode. To check what is behind Wdf0100.sys, use Windows performance toolkit. You will see real driver then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Promidi Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Just to confirm, have you gone into your BIOS and disabled EIST abd C-States Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now