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Old 01-14-2009, 12:42 PM   #1
the all new rob
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Default Using dpclat and RATT to diagnose audio performance problems

This is intended to be a friendly guide to using these two fine (and free!) tools to diagnose (not fix) problems with clicking and popping audio.

dpclat is a tool for visualizing the latency of deferred procedure calls by kernel-mode device drivers. In doing so, it also makes a good assessment tool for your system's ability to handle streams of audio or video. It's extremely well described on the linked page, so please do read that page and familiarize yourself with the background.

To use dpclat, you just run the executable (there is no installation needed). You will get a window with an updating bar graph showing you the time taken for deferred procedure calls (DPC) to all the drivers in the system. What it does not show is which driver is responsible if you have a problem.

The tool will give you a sort of "go/no go" visualization. If you get all green bars, your system (hardware and installed drivers) is generally well-equipped for streaming. If you get red bars, the tool is alerting you to the presence of a problem, but that's about it--finding which driver is responsible will be done with another tool altogether.

RATTV3 is that other tool. As described on the linked page, "RATTV3 is designed to help developers of drivers and other kernel mode components audit the ISR and DPC execution time of their components."

However, we will use it a little differently. In cases where we have red bars showing in dpclat window, we'll use RATT to find out where to start looking for the problem driver(s). What we do once we ind them is out of scope for this tutorial--I'm just showing you how to use the tool.

RATT gets installed and then runs as a system tray icon. It will start every time you boot until uninstalled, so make sure you are paying attention and don't leave it running after you are done troubleshooting.

With RATT running, take whatever steps are needed to reproduce your audio issue. You'll want to make sure to leave RATT on for at least three minutes to ensure you get a human-readable log file built. RATT will build a log file in the directory %system32%\logfiles\rattv3 based on the info it collects about DPC times. (note: %system32% is an environment variable--it can point to a different physical path depending on how you chose to install Windows. Look for a folder system32 under the folder where windows is installed.)

You then will open up the above directory in explorer, and open a text file named <machine-name>.cswa-accumulator-report.txt. Wordpad works much better than notepad for reading this file.

Inside this file you'll find a section for each kernel mode driver (DRIVERNAME.SYS). Each section is a histogram (sort of) of DPC times. There are 1109 possible "buckets" a driver call can fall into. A bucket is a range of duration times. What we are looking for is when calls to a given driver take longer than a few hundred microseconds. when we find that, we have identified a driver that could be behaving better.

The easiest way to spot the misbehavior is to look at the first column. the buckets we don't want to see will be numbered above 100. Ignore anything with a bucket number under 50. Those are too fast to matter. Any driver with items in buckets numbered over 109 is doing DPCs that take longer than a millisecond (1000 microseconds), and may be contributing to our performance issues. Further troubleshooting will be needed to determine that.

So a "healthy" driver would have a histogram like this:
Code:
Cumulative Histogram for:      Ntfs.sys  (Ntfs.sys)
  #,                  Range, Label,       ISR Count,  DPC Count,  DPCTmr Count
 10,   10.00us to   19.99us, <20.00us,            0,          0,            63
 11,   20.00us to   29.99us, <30.00us,            0,          0,            11
                              TOTALS,             0,          0,            74
And a driver that deserves further scrutiny would appear like this:
Code:
Cumulative Histogram for:     atapi.sys  (atapi.sys)
  #,                  Range, Label,       ISR Count,  DPC Count,  DPCTmr Count
 11,   20.00us to   29.99us, <30.00us,            0,       2269,             0
 12,   30.00us to   39.99us, <40.00us,            0,       4576,             0
 13,   40.00us to   49.99us, <50.00us,            0,        446,             0
 14,   50.00us to   59.99us, <60.00us,            0,         70,             0
 15,   60.00us to   69.99us, <70.00us,            0,         82,             0
 16,   70.00us to   79.99us, <80.00us,            0,         49,             0
 17,   80.00us to   89.99us, <90.00us,            0,         24,             0
 18,   90.00us to   99.99us, <100.00us,           0,         41,             0
 19,  100.00us to  109.99us, <110.00us,           0,        136,             0
[more like this...]
302,    2.93ms to    2.94ms, <2.94ms,             1,          0,             0
342,    3.33ms to    3.34ms, <3.34ms,             1,          0,             0
351,    3.42ms to    3.43ms, <3.43ms,             1,          0,             0
415,    4.06ms to    4.07ms, <4.07ms,             1,          0,             0
                              TOTALS,          7841,       7841,             0
So, low bucket numbers: good, high bucket numbers: bad.

There are also three different times being analyzed by RATT: execution times of interrupt service routines (ISR), deferred procedure calls (DPC), and timer DPCs (DPCTmr). They are different, but effectively all are covered by the low bucket numbers: good, high bucket numbers: bad mantra above.


What next, once you've drawn a bead on a specific driver?
+ Selectively disable suspect devices with device manager to see if your issues get cleared up.
+ get updated drivers for the component if possible.
+ check the hardware behind the driver for performance issues.

It's worth saying--long times aren't a smoking gun here, they are a clue to the real issue. They should be used to narrow down the search field for your cause of your performance issue--it's still up to you to determine the resolution..

Hopefully this is of use to some of you.
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Old 01-14-2009, 03:00 PM   #2
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Good job! I bookmarked this in my "Reaper resources" folder and linked to it for some poor guys who have DPC troubles with their new Lenovo Thinkpad SL laptops.
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Old 01-14-2009, 04:44 PM   #3
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great post. can this be made sticky?
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Old 01-16-2009, 05:08 PM   #4
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yikes! I ran ratt and I have several drivers above 109. but i'm stuck now cuz I don't know how to disable any of them and i'm tired of googling for an answer. ???

HDAudBus.sys
portcls.sys
rdbss.sys
sthda.sys
tcpip.sys
TDI.SYS
USBPORT.SYS
ntkrnlpa.exe
ACPI.sys
atapi.sys
NDIS.sys

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Old 01-16-2009, 10:44 PM   #5
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Out of your list, the thing that kind of jumps out at me is the first one. That's the stock driver for the Intel chipset onboard audio for your motherboard.

If you are using the onboard audio chip, it may not be feasible (as a solution) to disable it, but I'd try deactivating your onboard sound in the BIOS setup screen (as a diagnostic).
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Old 01-17-2009, 10:10 AM   #6
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I didn't see anywhere in the bios setup screen that the onboard sound can be disabled
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Old 01-17-2009, 10:58 AM   #7
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Thanks for this posting... very usable!

Eddy
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Old 02-03-2009, 04:47 AM   #8
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So,

Does anyone have any thoughts on tracking down a driver that's listed as Unknown which is causing the issue? Here's the details:

Cumulative Histogram for: Unknown (Unknown)

# Range Label ISR Count DPC Count DPCTmr Count
0 0.00us to 0.99us <1.00us 0 1882 0
1 1.00us to 1.99us <2.00us 7015368 37918 2
2 2.00us to 2.99us <3.00us 32596420 164608 434
3 3.00us to 3.99us <4.00us 1064039 157747 50773
4 4.00us to 4.99us <5.00us 46677 72477 108547
5 5.00us to 5.99us <6.00us 137372 133734 32974
6 6.00us to 6.99us <7.00us 134460 64185 98156
7 7.00us to 7.99us <8.00us 226479 43175 40970
8 8.00us to 8.99us <9.00us 147192 16215 51761
9 9.00us to 9.99us <10.00us 80008 10062 17049
10 10.00us to 19.99us <20.00us 527600 51398 134029
11 20.00us to 29.99us <30.00us 375807 234711 105331
12 30.00us to 39.99us <40.00us 14491 104751 12448
13 40.00us to 49.99us <50.00us 212 61401 203
14 50.00us to 59.99us <60.00us 1 110689 9
15 60.00us to 69.99us <70.00us 0 128944 0
16 70.00us to 79.99us <80.00us 0 10250 0
17 80.00us to 89.99us <90.00us 0 2157 0
18 90.00us to 99.99us <100.00us 0 631 0
19 100.00us to 109.99us <110.00us 0 337 0
20 110.00us to 119.99us <120.00us 0 117 0
21 120.00us to 129.99us <130.00us 14 13 0
22 130.00us to 139.99us <140.00us 8 7 0
23 140.00us to 149.99us <150.00us 2 9 0
24 150.00us to 159.99us <160.00us 0 1 0
25 160.00us to 169.99us <170.00us 0 2 0
26 170.00us to 179.99us <180.00us 0 1 0
28 190.00us to 199.99us <200.00us 0 1 0
29 200.00us to 209.99us <210.00us 0 1 0
37 280.00us to 289.99us <290.00us 0 1 0
1011 30.00ms to 39.99ms <40.00ms 0 1 0
1012 40.00ms to 49.99ms <50.00ms 0 10 0
1013 50.00ms to 59.99ms <60.00ms 0 2 0
1019 110.00ms to 119.99ms <120.00ms 1 0 0
1020 120.00ms to 129.99ms <130.00ms 1 0 0
1021 130.00ms to 139.99ms <140.00ms 0 8 0
1022 140.00ms to 149.99ms <150.00ms 0 2 0
1027 190.00ms to 199.99ms <200.00ms 0 2 0
TOTALS 42366152 1407450 652686

According to the Rattv3 docs, the "Unknown" thing is a known bug, but I doubt it will ever be fixed.

Thanks,
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Old 03-17-2009, 10:10 PM   #9
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Please come to chat sometime
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Old 03-18-2009, 04:35 PM   #10
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can someone help me with mine?

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/131691/ratt-report.zip

so far it looks like

ipnat.sys
videoprt.sys
portcls.sys
sthda.sys (no surprise there)
tcpip.sys
usbprt.sys (youch, I often use a usb soundcard!)
ntkrnlpa.sys
acpi.sys
atapi.sys
iaStor.sys
NDIS.sys

at the very least are the ones messing with me...what can I do?
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Old 03-18-2009, 07:07 PM   #11
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I'd go into device manager and disable your SigmaTel onboard audio. That latency is ridiculous. And you seem to be using a MOTU card for the "Real" audio. It may be necessary to hit the BIOS to turn it all the way off.

I'd also take a look at disabling the nic. The NDIS.sys numbers are insane.

Do you have any USB stuff attached? I would look for any high-resolution mice or things like that and pull them if the above don't help, but I think those two are the likeliest sources of problems.
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Old 03-19-2009, 03:16 PM   #12
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whats nic and ndis?

I use the HDA audio when I am not using real soundcards...how did you know about the motu? Are motu drivers running even though the motu interface is 90 miles away? the run had no usb devices plugged in while rat was monitoring
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Old 03-19-2009, 03:45 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
whats nic
Your network interface card.


Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
and ndis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network..._Specification
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Old 03-19-2009, 07:38 PM   #14
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To make your network stuffs work, the NDIS driver is a fairly low-level component. I see long times in a bunch of other high-level things too like the firewall driver (ipnat.sys), but I think that disabling the network adapter (to use the windows term) will shut off all that stuff.

I figured that motufwa.sys was a motu firewire interface driver of some description.
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Old 03-19-2009, 08:08 PM   #15
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weird, so the motu stuff runs when theres no motu stuff around but the rme doesnt?

Motu is fired again

If I diable the nic stuff how do I chat on irc while recording?
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Old 03-20-2009, 05:29 AM   #16
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Well, I'm suggesting it would isolate it as a potential problem. So if you determine that disabling the nic in fact fixes the DPC latency and restores it to working as a DAW, then you'd shop for a different network adapter that you could run and disable the onboard, or potentially look for a driver update for the onboard one.

But first step is to isolate anything that is causing those long running DPCs. It may only be in one subsystem. In my particular case, it was the USB subsystem throwing problems, but disabling hyperthreading in my BIOS was the thing that fixed the problem for me.
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Old 05-17-2009, 04:06 AM   #17
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You guys rock. This method allowed me to find a spike that had been ruining stuff for ages!
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Old 06-03-2009, 06:04 PM   #18
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I have a problem with RATTV3, in that I get only one section in the human-readable report file, and there is no name for the driver. It doesn't even say "Unknown" it simply has empty parentheses where you'd expect to see the driver name.

I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit, SP2, on a Dell Studio 1737.

What do you think of trying tracelog instead?

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/Driver/tips/DPC_ISR.mspx

EDIT: Leapt through the hoops to download the Windows Driver Kit, and found, well, a very similar situation, in that it threw up thousands of unknown events it couldn't then process in any meaningful fashion- at least the output looked nothing at all like the link above suggests. Grrr.

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Old 06-18-2009, 09:17 AM   #19
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I seem to the same problem someone else has I have to bad driver one i named () the other is (unknown).
Help please it is so annoying to have pops and clicks.
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File Type: txt MATLAPTOPT-PC.cswa-accumulator-report.txt (2.8 KB, 1484 views)
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Old 09-04-2009, 10:57 PM   #20
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I was having some troubles w/my recent recordings, and i luckily found this thread. After running both programs, it seems i have a lot of lag related to my internet components (NDIS, NIC, etc). However, i also had an "unknown" listing that had the biggest latency numbers. Was anyone else w/this problem able to find out what the unknown driver was?
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:04 PM   #21
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Welcome to the forums!

Have you ever installed Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools or a similar software, maybe only a virtual CD drive? They install (and often don't uninstall) a driver that shows up as "unknown" in RATT and I've seen one case where it was actually responsible for DPC trouble.
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:06 PM   #22
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Thanks!

...and yes, i use Alcohol 120%. You think that might be the culprit? Should i uninstall the program altogether and search for that driver? Only problem is that i use the program several times a week. Any ideas?
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:15 PM   #23
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I'm afraid you have to get rid of it, at least once to check if the driver is the problem or not. If it is, you'd have to make a decision.

Check the last post: http://forum.alcohol-soft.com/index.php?showtopic=23889
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:19 PM   #24
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Actually, after taking a closer look at my RATT log, i see that there was already a listing for sptd.sys. I've attached my log. Looks like most of them are network-related, which makes sense. However, that "unknown" is still there...weird.
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File Type: txt DAVID.cswa-accumulator-report.txt (31.6 KB, 1213 views)
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:41 PM   #25
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There is a Soundblaster driver (ctoss2k.sys) causing 10x as much DPCs than the other drivers (but mostly in the medium bucket range). Not sure if that is normal. Network related DPCs would disappear when you disable the devices in the BIOS or Device Manager. But you always have to check if DPC spikes actually coincide with crackling, it's still possible that the culprit is something completely different. What is DPClat.exe reporting and can you see intervals in the spikes? What is the OS?

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Old 09-04-2009, 11:47 PM   #26
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OS is Win XP 32-bit.

While playing back audio in Reaper, the DCPLC started green and then spiked to 8000 on the meter, and the box had the message that:

Some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams. To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device Manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time. Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems, internal sound devices, USB host controllers, etc.
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Old 09-04-2009, 11:50 PM   #27
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I think i was reading the wrong section of the log file. Portcls.sys had huge latency, and i guess that's the onboard audio driver. I just rebooted into BIOS and disabled onboard audio, so i will run RATT again and see if that driver shows up. Everying else seemed to be network related, so i hope that by disabling and unplugging my router, i'll get better performance.

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Old 09-05-2009, 12:13 AM   #28
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You are looking for "high bucket numbers" like this

Code:
134,    1.25ms to    1.26ms, <1.26ms,             0,          1,             0
139,    1.30ms to    1.31ms, <1.31ms,             0,          1,             0
175,    1.66ms to    1.67ms, <1.67ms,             0,          1,             0
184,    1.75ms to    1.76ms, <1.76ms,             0,          1,             0
196,    1.87ms to    1.88ms, <1.88ms,             0,          1,             0
262,    2.53ms to    2.54ms, <2.54ms,             0,          1,             0
273,    2.64ms to    2.65ms, <2.65ms,             0,          1,             0
285,    2.76ms to    2.77ms, <2.77ms,             0,          1,             0
331,    3.22ms to    3.23ms, <3.23ms,             0,          1,             0
357,    3.48ms to    3.49ms, <3.49ms,             0,          1,             0
397,    3.88ms to    3.89ms, <3.89ms,             0,          1,             0
946,    9.37ms to    9.38ms, <9.38ms,             0,          1,             0
                              TOTALS,        521960,     353689,             6
in your portcls.sys, which is probably not normal. I know that portcls.sys relates to audio/MIDI in some way but I don't know how. Are you having a Soundblaster and onboard sound on that computer? Disable the onboard sound and check again.

- Are you saying that the DPC checker goes yellow/red all the time when Reaper is running? What is your audio interface or are you using the Soundblaster?

- There was a hotfix fixing a probably unrelated issue with portcls.sys post SP2. Are you running SP3 or did you get any hotfixes/updates after SP2? Maybe your driver needs that newer version.
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Old 09-05-2009, 12:21 AM   #29
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Well, i thought i was clever by disabling onboard audio in BIOS. I now have no sound at all. I have a Soundblaster Audigy as my main sound card, as well as an EMU0404 for my MIDI recording.

I've attached the new report i just ran. Thing is, the portcls.sys is now down to manageable levels, but i can't hear anything!

I agree that the portcls.sys is producing crazy latency, but a Google search didn't turn up any solutions for it. I thought by disabling onboard audio, i could still get sound out of my Soundblaster. Guess not. Should i have sound through the Soundblaster after disabling onboard audio?

DPCLC had a couple red and a couple yellow bars while i was playing audio in Reaper. It would do those and then go back to green, do a couple more red/yellow, go back to green, etc. I was using ASIO4ALL while in Reaper.

I'm on SP3, but i will Google the hotfix you mentioned to see if that's the case. This is really frustrating, but i appreciate your help!
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Old 09-05-2009, 12:54 AM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hwangman View Post
I've attached the new report i just ran. Thing is, the portcls.sys is now down to manageable levels, but i can't hear anything!
Also run the DPC checker again while your system is in this state. If it turns out clean, you may have encircled the culprit. But yes, the figures look muuch better.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hwangman View Post
I thought by disabling onboard audio, i could still get sound out of my Soundblaster. Guess not. Should i have sound through the Soundblaster after disabling onboard audio?
Definitely. The only thing I can think of is that the onboard was selected as "preferred device" in XP, you should set that to the soundblaster then. But I assume you didn't even install a driver for the onboard sound (I couldn't see one in your RATT logs), which would render that even weirder. The Audigy should still be recognized in Device Manager. If it isn't, no idea what went wrong there. Does ASIO4ALL still see the device?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hwangman View Post
I was using ASIO4ALL while in Reaper.
You have a real audio interface (your 404) with native ASIO drivers, I can imagine why you want to use the Soundblaster+ASIO4ALL but I wouldn't recommend it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hwangman View Post
I'm on SP3, but i will Google the hotfix you mentioned to see if that's the case. This is really frustrating, but i appreciate your help!
If you have SP3, the latest version of portcls.sys is already on your computer.
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Old 09-05-2009, 01:19 AM   #31
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Still stuck w/no sound. I've rebooted about 5 times now. I had onboard audio off...no sound. I turned it back on...no sound. I uninstalled and reinstalled the onboard Realtek HD audio drivers...no sound. I have no f'n idea how to get this to work and i'm really frustrated since all i did was disable the onboard sound and now i can't get any sounds out of this computer. Any advice??
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Old 09-05-2009, 01:26 AM   #32
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Are the devices still present (and not marked with an 'X' or '!') and active in Device Manager? That would mean they and their drivers are working. Then it's probably a question of audio settings (check what is the default or preferred device in 'Control Panel->Sounds and audio device properties') or cables mixed up/not connected.
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Old 09-05-2009, 01:39 AM   #33
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Everything's showing up as enabled and working. Here's what i did:

-rebooted computer and went into BIOS
-set onboard audio from "enabled" to "disabled"
-started Windows...Windows startup sound played, but after that, no sound
-rebooted into BIOS and set onboard audio to "enabled"
-started Windows...startup sound played halfway and cut off. After that, no sound
-reinstalled Realtek audio drivers, rebooted computer. No sound.

I'm at my wit's end here. I was trying to optimize my system and now i'm stuck w/no sound no matter what i enable/disable.

At this point, Windows recognized my EMU, my Soundblaster, and my onboard sound. No conflicts or errors listed, just no sound. Nothing is muted, and my Windows Audio preferences are set to playback through the Soundblaster. However, as i said, i'm getting no sound out of it. The speakers are plugged into the right port, but nothing. Argh!!
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Old 09-05-2009, 01:51 AM   #34
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Weird. Have you checked the Windows mixer (soundvol32.exe, the thing you get on right-click on the little loudspeaker symbol in the system tray) if it's muted or the volume turned down for the Wave output? Maybe it got confused. In addition, there is the Realtek HD Audio Manager in Control Panel, which is basically the same as the Windows mixer, things can get muted there as well, plus IIRC the two mixer applications may interact with each other in an ugly way.
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Old 09-05-2009, 02:03 AM   #35
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They're fine. Nothing's muted and volume is maxed.

I uninstalled the EMU entirely (i have all the install discs anyway), and when i rebooted, my computer didn't recognize ANY sound devices (no EMU, Soundblaster, or onboard audio). I went from having all 3 recognized and no sound to none recognized and (still) no sound.

I'm now trying to update the Soundblaster driver so that i can MAYBE get 1 of my 3 audio devices to play sound. If that doesn't work, i'm officially out of ideas. Literally all i did was switch the onboard audio to "disabled" in the BIOS. That's it! All these problems came from that one harmless change. I have no idea what's going on w/this now.
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Old 09-05-2009, 02:09 AM   #36
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Ok, FIXED! After uninstalling the EMU interface resulted in Windows not recognizing ANY of my audio devices, i downloaded and installed the latest Soundblaster driver. I rebooted, and while i was in the other room, i heard the Windows startup music play! I won't pretend to know how the hell this all worked out...i'm just thankful i have sound again. Oh, and onboard audio is enabled. Makes no sense, right? =)

I will run the performance log again tomorrow (it's past 2AM here) and see if any of the damage i did this evening will have a positive impact on my computer's performance.

Thanks VERY much for your help through my trials tonight. I really appreciate it.
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Old 09-05-2009, 02:27 AM   #37
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Me neither, sorry. I haven't heard of Windows choking on disabling a peripheral device since Windows 98 days. But 3 soundcards can be a handful I guess. A quick search on Google didn't turn up anything similar or useful yet and I'm seriously stumped.

Are you sure all 3 devices won't do any sound? Not even the 404?

Edit: Ah, cool. Then you know what you probably have to do tomorrow, try to get the Soundblaster working w/o the onboard sound (unless the initial DPC issue fixed itself somehow).

Last edited by Ollie; 09-05-2009 at 02:40 AM.
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Old 09-05-2009, 11:27 AM   #38
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Honestly, i don't think i'm going to touch the onboard sound again, at least not until i can talk to some of my more advanced IT friends. Every site i saw via Google said that you MUST disable onboard audio if you want your soundcard to work. Apparently, i'm in the exact opposite situation. I will run RATT again today. If onboard audio drivers are playing havoc on my system, that's a bummer, because after last night's debacle, i don't think i want to touch the onboard again.
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Old 01-22-2010, 06:58 AM   #39
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Every single audio forum you ever visit will tell you that if you want proper audio performance you should

a) Never install a Creative audio card
b) Never have two audio interfaces installed if you can help it
c) Always use native ASIO drivers wherever possible
d) NEVER INSTALL A CREATIVE AUDIO CARD!!!!!

You've managed to spectacularly ignore all four pieces of solid advice, which is quite a feat in itself ;0)

Do yourself a favour and uninstall the Soundblaster and give it to someone you really don't like.
Just use your Emu (even though they are owned by Creative, their products actually work properly for serious audio work), you don't need anything else, it will act as your audio/midi interface and it will act as your sound device for media player, the web etc, as for system sounds, best just to turn them off completely, no need for them.

Stop using ASIO4ALL drivers when you have native asio drivers for the Emu, that's just silly!
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Old 01-26-2010, 10:46 AM   #40
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I'm having trouble getting my log file to look like Hwangman's.

Mine looks very much like Guardians...
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...0&postcount=19

Versus how it should look like...
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...3&postcount=24

Any clue as to why my report doesn't show details for each driver?
Thanks ahead of time.
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