M-Audio Delta 44 sound problems with Windows XP
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Posted on Dec 06, 2004 10:35 pm
JamJamJamJamJam
Member Since: Dec 06, 2004
Here we go again:
Just got an Athlon 1800 on an ASUS PC133 board. I am running Windows XP with SP2. I only have the delta 44 sound card (as a sound card)installed with the latest driver from M-Audio (version *48a). I have 768 Mb ram. The sound stutters or cracks when I play an MP3, or use Sonar 3.0. Even when I switch on, the Windows sound crackles and stutters. We all know IRQ is at 9 for all the media devices (shared). XP ignores Bios changes.
Can anyone offer some expertise as to how I can get out of this dilema and get some use out of my set-up. Should I reinstall windows?, change operating systems?,.. HELP!!! (politely asked of course). I am on week 6 without my Delta 44 working. PS: my video card is a matrox 32 MB card. All shared on IRQ 9. I played with buffer on delta 44, no avail...
Reinstalled driver a few times. Did a physical uninstall of the card, reinstall, auto detected new driver...
I will be ever so grateful if I can go Wohoo (like Homer and one of the guys on this forum). :)
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vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
Dec 07, 2004 07:35 am Hmmmm..... <the sound of thinking*
Try ajusting settings in M-Audio's control panel they have with their soundcards. Sounds like a latency issue but not in Sonar like most of the time, but in the operation system which I believe can be adjusted in M-Audio's control panel.
My M-Audio soundcard does that with some games, like Halo for example. It wants to crack and lag sometimes. Just Windows not liking M-Audio's drivers. You know, Windows doesn't like to play well with others, wants to use it's own software. But hey, most be nice to rule the world :)
Give that a spin and let us know.
Welcome to HRC JamJamJamJam...uh....Jam
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Dec 07, 2004 09:12 am without going to my studio pc and looking, I thought putting the video and sound on the same IRQ was a big NO-NO. There's just too much data flying through there for both to live happily.
I just looked in this PC (non-music one) and the sound card (SB 128) is irq 9, but the video (matrox millenium) doesn't show up. It is an AGP, so that might have something to do with it.
Just a thought, what I have had the 'windows grabbing it's own resources for a card' blues, I would take out card #2, and all it's drivers, hardware entry, etc. and cold boot windows so it knows it's not there. Then shut down again, install card #2, and let it find and allocate resources appropriately. That has worked in the past with 98, so take with a grain of salt. You may have already done this as well, just thinking aloud.
Conversely, you could hard code a PCI slot to be a specific IRQ and put the audio card in there. (i'm assuming the video card is AGP).
Hope this helps.
Dec 07, 2004 09:22 am Yeah, typical you don't want two high-resource usage parts on the same IRQ, video cards are the highest resource usage componenet typically, sharing that with your sound card, which in a studio is very high usage as well, is a bad idea. If you have to share, share with a network card, modem or some low-resource component.
Dec 07, 2004 11:08 am Yo! doods! thanks for the helping hand. I will be happy to oblige some time in the future. As for the IRQ sharing - yup, Windows XP shares every media resource through IRQ 9 (I read that on the microsoft server). I guess what I am going to try to do is to set the IRQ for the PCIslot to either 10 or 11 (as these are free under Windows XP). I was suspecting that the vid card was interfering with the delta 44 so I am glad you have this thought as well.
After fixing the IRQ in BIOS for the PCI slot I will use for my Delta 44, I will then reinstall Windows XP and hopefully, it will recognize the fixed IRQ for the PCI slot. Yes the video card is AGP but uses IRQ 9.
I will post a reply once I try this out tonight. Luckily I don't have any projects which may be lost. :(
I guess the issue is simple - Windows XP shares IRQ 9 for Video card, sound card, USB drivers, and my LAN card. Imagine! If this all doesn't work, I will switch to Windows 2000 Pro and start from scratch (or maybe 98 SE). As for the hard de-install - reinstall of the sound card, I tried this, but maybe not as systematic as I would have liked, so i will try it again. I don't believe I can uninstall video card as I couldn't verify!! Cheers!
PS: hey Bill - what's up with your program designers?
JAM JAM JAM! (at least I still have my live jamming).
Dec 07, 2004 11:11 am You should not need to reinstall Windows to change the IRQ. also, rather than hard-setting the IRQ for that slot, you could just change slots that the card is in and see where it sends the IRQ.
Dec 07, 2004 12:47 pm hey dBmasters. In reponse to your particular post (remember I have been at it for 6 weeks, albeit only occasionally) - Windows XP ignores Bios IRQ changes. All my PCI slots (I have 5) are using IRQ 9 (coincidentally, I am using two only, LAN card and delta 44). I also tried changing the card to each of the 5 PCI slots. Same IRQ listed (I read a previous post which suggested this would solve the problem - from this forum). Unloaded software, restarted with out delta card physically in the machine (no software), closed pc, put back delta 44 card (done for a number of slots), reinstalled most recent driver. Same problem - IRQ 9 for video and audio.
That is why I am going drastic. Maybe I am wrong about Windows XP (SP2), but it doesn't allow an IRQ change (clicking on drivers, the area is greyed out). I will get he microsoft reference and post for the IRQ workings of Windows XP and sharing. Thanks a lot for your (and everyone's) feedback!
Lastly, I forgot to mention this, but just to let everyone know I am using the delta 44 multi setting drivers for playback and recording. Can't wait until this is solved (hope no one else gets this type of problem. I sent an email a day or two ago to M-Audio's support desk requesting same problem.
Speaking about anyone else, I imagine that there is someone else who uses Windows XP with the M-Audio Delta 44 sound card and interface. It should work. I guess, before wiping my OS, I will check the settings on the delta 44 software (patiently) to see if latency problem can be overcome.
My other theories are: faulty motherboard, faulty chip, faulty delta 44 card, or faulty speakers. If I had another delta 44, I would swap to trouble shoot, but I haven't gotten any of my friends to do this, they all had quite a hard time in setting up their cards as well.
Cheers.
Dec 07, 2004 12:50 pm That true, there are occassions where Windows believes it knows better than you and reassigns the IRQ's accordingly. But it doesn't always (I have not had this problem myself) ACPI I think it is called that does that, if you can disable ACPI I believe that will help stop, or at least diminish that impact...if memory serve correctly.
Dec 09, 2004 08:18 am I just got a response from M-Audio's tech support. It took them 3 days to get back to me which is pretty reasonable, so thumbs up for M-Audio!
Here is the response below (which is in line with you fine folks and your knowledge, so thumbs up to you guys as well!):
"Your Delta 44 is sharing on IRQ 9 with a number of devices. If it is sharing with your Graphics card, Ethernet Card, or any intensive dev ice, it is a conflict. Furthermore, if it is on a number higher than 15, it is on a virtual IRQ, which worsens the problem. If this is the case, it is most likely the reason why your device is behaving oddly. Windows does not report conflicts unless something is about to explode, so do not trust the OS's diagnostic reporting.
There are 3 ways to fix an IRQ sharing conflict.
-1. Turn off the computer and unplug the power cable. Open up the computer case and physically remove the card from the motherboard and place it into a different PCI slot. Check msinfo32.exe for changes.
-2. Enter the Motherboard BIOS setup (Refer to your Computer or Motherboard's User Manual for specific instructions on how to enter the Motherboard BIOS). Select PnP/PCI configuration in the BIOS setup. In the following screen, there should be selections to switch to a Non PnP OS and to manually assign IRQ to PCI slots. Refer to the Motherboard manual regarding the assignment of IRQ per PCI slot.
-3. In the Motherboard BIOS, you can disable any Devices or Ports on your computer that you do not use. Some examples include COM ports 1 & 2, Built in Audio, and even USB. By disabling these devices or ports, you free up IRQs for other more important devices such as your Sound Card.
Your machine should reassign the card to a different IRQ. If that does not work, you may have to do some other, more complicated steps. Go to www.pcaudiolabs.com and www.windowsxp.net. Both of these websites have tips and tricks on how to reassign IRQ's, since that is one of the biggest problems with all gear regardless of manufacturer in PC based DAW's.
However, if you do decide to contact us back, because the tips on the aforementioned sites didn't work, could you please copy and paste your IRQ listing to your response."
I would like to add a word of caution: do NOT go into dxdiag (through windows, run) to have your DX audio scan the card. When I tried this, my scan revieled that my card could only work at 22,100 Hz and 8 or 16 bit - vis a vis, this caused Windows to 'unuse' my mp3 audio driver and I affectively lost all sound.
After I follow all the suggestions (from M-audio and this impressive forum) and solve it once and for all (I can see the rainbow!) I will post a follow-up completion.
An interesting point which was told to me by my keyboardist/drummer: "the card cannot be partially broken, either it works or it doesn't).
Cheers all!
Dec 09, 2004 08:20 am Bwahahahaha, they consider a network card intensive?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
Dec 09, 2004 09:33 am *crying from laughter*
Ohhh me, wonder what they think about modems!! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH...chuckle...HAHAHAHAHA!
Dec 09, 2004 09:58 am you guys are killing me (says the niave amateur)!
Dec 09, 2004 09:59 am I guess the theme of this is that M-audio and the delta 44 series were perhaps written in a hurry?
Dec 09, 2004 10:09 am It is not limited to the 44 card. I am running win2000 with a delta 66 on a Dell 2.8Ghz and I sometimes have IRQ conflicts as well. M-audio techs sent me a fix, similar to yours. Basically disable all unnecessary IRQ's (serial port, etc.) However no matter how many times I tried to reset the IRQ's it would sometimes go back resulting in sharing conflicts.
One thing I just thought of. When I get IRQ conflicts as they are being assigned when Windows boots up, my 66 disappears and I get a "Found new hardware" dialog to re-install the card. The easiest solution I have found is to just restart and it 99.9% resolves the conflicts. Man I miss the good ol days when you could just set a jumper on your card and that was that.
It sounds more like you have a latency problem rather than IRQ issues. It could also be related to (as I was told by m-audio) that if you have multiple USB items connected to your pc it could cause some problems.
hope this helps with your problem.
Dec 21, 2004 10:25 pm Jam, sounds like even the M-Audio tech didn't research fully - the answer is in the knowledge base on their website. The problem is that XP is installed with ACPI (power management), and this is why all IRQs are steered thru IRQ9.
I had exactly this problem when I installed my Delta-66. Search the M-Audio knowledgebase for "Delta Series". Near the bottom is an article "Pops and Clicks / IRQ Troubleshooting, Windows XP". The answer is there.
Disable ACPI and XP will not override the Delta's IRQ as set in BIOS. I had to run my mouse USB and disable the PS2 mouse port to get the Delta to take a unique IRQ. But it makes all the difference.
Cheers,
Marty.
