Old 08-07-2013, 12:39 PM   #1
Mudchild
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Default Line67 UX8 audio dropout woes

For my sins, I use a Line7 UX8 interface with my PC. There seems to be a known issue which is UX8 specific I THINK. Excuse me posting this here, I've had no luck getting a resolution on the Line6 forum, and I just wondered if there might be any wisdom here.

Listening to audio - even just iTunes or YouTube - through the UX8 can result in apparently random audio dropouts (lasting about a second). They seem very unpredictable, and you might go 10 mins without having one, then 3 show up in a minute. They don't actually stop you doing anything as such, but they just ANNOY THE CRAP out of you, especially if your'e trying to just listen to a tune.

- Computer is quadcore with plenty of RAM
- Windows 7 64bit
- Line6 drivers definitely up to date
- Audio buffers set nice and large
- No abundance of redundant background processes running - dropouts can happens even with not much going on and CPU having an easy time of it - in fact I don't think there is any apparent correlation with CPU usage

I know PC configurations vary in complex ways, but I wish I could kick this problem out - it stinks.

I have updated all the drivers for everything on my motherboard.

UX8 is plugged straight into computer, not via hub.

This is probably my final attempt to solve this before I simply give up. If anyone has any ideas to try, or relevant experience, please come forward!

Gracias

Mud.

PS it's supposed to say Line6, not Line67!!
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Old 08-07-2013, 10:03 PM   #2
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I also own a Line 6 UX8. I don't use it often with drivers other than the ASIO drivers. I'm on XP so I can't really offer much help.

Some suggestions on determining the source of the problem perhaps.

Using Reaper with the ASIO drivers I do not experience any dropouts, do you?, or is it just when using Windows directsound or waveout drivers?
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Old 08-08-2013, 12:42 AM   #3
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Hey thanks for the input.

To clarify, yes I always use the Line6 drivers, and whether using Reaper or not, I get dropouts. Didn't used to happen in XP either....
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Old 08-08-2013, 06:34 AM   #4
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Did you try to use the generic Asio4All driver instead of the specific Asio UX8 driver?
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Old 08-08-2013, 07:34 AM   #5
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Did you disable speedstep/EIST in BIOS? It likes to make stuttery things to Windows 7 when enabled, regardless of computer load.
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Old 08-08-2013, 01:49 PM   #6
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thanks for suggestions guys, not sure about either of these, will check and report back
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Old 08-08-2013, 02:45 PM   #7
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Also... here are a couple of programs to check you computer for audio 'worthiness'.

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

and...

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon.

If you get a "bad" result from the first program, run the second program to help you pinpoint the offending party.

Good luck.
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Old 08-10-2013, 11:28 AM   #8
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Have you tried disabling the drivers for the other peripherals in your PC, one by one?

I've been using a UX8 in Win7 x64 for years now without glitches. I did had clicking issues and dropped audio data with it right when I bought it. The culprit turned out to be the driver for my NVIDIA graphics card, which I reported to them. They came out with a new driver release a couple of weeks after that, I updated and haven't had further problems since then.

Also, even if you are connecting a USB device directly to your computer, that doesn't mean there is no hub between the port and the USB chipset. Some motherboards have internal USB hubs. It should show up in the Windows hardware device manager and an utility like Microsoft's "usbview" can display the USB hierarchy of the machine. If you are still having problems and if you got a free PCIe slot in your PC (it's not a laptop, right?), a dedicated USB PCIe card would be worth trying.
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Old 08-11-2013, 12:27 PM   #9
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Thnaks guys, still going through these suggestions. pbk, how did you establish it was your graphics drivers? did you disable the device and just work Crap Graphics Mode for a while?
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Old 08-11-2013, 12:34 PM   #10
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I checked out the usbview utility too - it was full of references for 'root hub' for every entry pretty much - is this the internal hubbery of which you speak? And you're suggesting that a PCIe USB card would be a good way of bypassing that?
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Old 08-11-2013, 07:50 PM   #11
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Yes, I disabled the driver for the card and used the internal Intel video of the motherboard for a while.

If you have a dedicated USB card you may even have a hub too, but you'll be sure the only device using it will be the audio interface. I'm aware of other interfaces that have native driver issues with some computers and folks have only been able to solve them with a dedicated USB-PCIe card after trial and error...
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Old 08-14-2013, 02:58 AM   #12
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Well pbk, at last - a result! Your suggestion of a PCIe USB card has WORKED, or at least greatly improved things. The UX8 now goes into the new card, and it still has the occasional glitch, but they are much more rare and extremely quick (almost unnoticeable), rather than the ridculous 1 second gaps I was getting. I guess it would still be a problem if I did audio recording on this machine, but that all happens on my laptop.

I may chase up the graphics card avenue also when I get time.

Now if only I could solve the other problem of occasional total 'all USB hangs', which appear to happen when doing audio stuff. Suddenly there is no sound and no way to get it back without restarting, but restarting always hangs too in this scenario, requiring a hard reset complete with safe mode prompts.

But I guess that's another battle...
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Old 08-14-2013, 09:31 PM   #13
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Cool.

However it seems there's something terribly odd happening in your system. Hope you get it resolved.
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