Returning SAW User -PC Build Help

[Robert Parent]

Hi Guys,

A previous SAW user here, after a few years of 'life' I am trying to put together a PC that works with audio and at a lost as to where to start. Things have changed in the past several years in the PC world and I really have not kept up.

I have and older version of SAW, Sound Forge 10, Lynx One Audio Card, Focusrite Scarlet 8i6, nVidia FX1400 video card sitting in the drawer.

I tried getting an AMD /Asus M5A78 board working with audio and it has been a total failure, the latency when doing nothing is awful. Any suggestions on what to look at would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Robert

[Butch Bos]

Are you using ASIO drivers ?
I have an old AMD Asus combo that works good

Butch

[RBIngraham]

Sound Forge 10 as old?

Ummmm.... version 11 is only a few weeks old. :)

None of that gear sounds that old to me, guess it's all relative.

[Robert Parent]

Hi,

Sorry for the confusion, the SAW version and Lynx card are a few years old... I just updated the Sound Forge to version 10 and added the 8i6 interface which is when my PC nightmares stated. My old PIII system worked great with SAW, SF, and the Lynx card.

The ASIO buffers set at maximum (20mS) and there are still dropouts. Spent evenings the past week removing hardware, software, drivers, BIOS versions/settings,and re-installing in various configurations trying to find a fix. The mother board is about a year old and has XP pro SP3 installed on a Hitachi 7200 RPM SATA drive. The DPC utility and RATTV3 show there are latency issues with a couple system drivers, frustrating to say the least!

Thanks,
Robert

[RBIngraham]

That's unfortunate. Did you try something simple like a different USB port?

Have you tried just using MME drivers? Sometimes I find those actually work.better in Forge, although obviously not low latency.

For what it's worth this is just one of several bad reports about the Scarlett series in general.

[sebastiandybing]

Somewhere on RME site they state that
usb soundcard only work proberly on
motherboards supporting from core2duo and onwards.
so mb older than that will have problems.

If you are going to use usb soundcards
you dont need a full size mb.
Then you should take a look a Lenovos
small desktop comp. with I5 cpu.
go for I5 cpu's with model nr. 3xxx (3ed gen)
4xxx (4ed gen), a 2.5ghz is the slowest cpu
, but will still work well for recording, editing and mix
. Lenovo are well build.

[Carl G.]

The first, best, cheapest, quickest thing I would suggest is downloading the new upgrade to SawStudio. (There are a lot of good things from 4.x series to 5.1, and the upgrade is free!)

Lynx has good drivers and excellent converters. Depending on your channel count needs, you could stick with the Lynx. The Lynx-TWO and Lynx-L22 give you more I/O and operating options, with good drivers and software.

Bob and others have made some good recent recommendations on motherboards. After searching around - I'll be settling for an Asus P8Z77 series which should do very well for SawStudio and SAC with XP, Win7, as well as Win8. (it's also cheap now because newer models are out).

As recommended before - to avoid latency issues - generally a good idea to stay away from USB audio interface.

[Ian Alexander]

The first, best, cheapest, quickest thing I would suggest is downloading the new upgrade to SawStudio. (There are a lot of good things from 4.x series to 5.1, and the upgrade is free!)

Lynx has good drivers and excellent converters. Depending on your channel count needs, you could stick with the Lynx. The Lynx-TWO and Lynx-L22 give you more I/O and operating options, with good drivers and software.

Bob and others have made some good recent recommendations on motherboards. After searching around - I'll be settling for an Asus P8Z77 series which should do very well for SawStudio and SAC with XP, Win7, as well as Win8. (it's also cheap now because newer models are out).

As recommended before - to avoid latency issues - generally a good idea to stay away from USB audio interface.
I agree that Lynx has great cards. But not all current MBs have PCI implemented in a way that is compatible with the Lynx cards. Asus boards seem better in this regard than Intel, for example, but their warranty and replacement policies are not as good.

As for USB, I am very happy with the sound and the latency of the RME FireFace UCX. It is expensive, though, and one of the ADAT ports broke apart on first use. The US service rep sent a replacement unit immediately, so I had no downtime.

[Robert Parent]

Thanks for the suggestions..... I have had good luck with my Leveno laptops so will check out their desktops. I have had mixed luck with Asus boards but will give those a look as well.

After a bit more messing with my AMD system I am pretty convinced it's the AHCI interface disk driver that is causing issues. The only way to know for sure is reinstall as the patching procedures I have found thus far don't work. If I am going to have to rebuild may as well get a new system. Intel i5 or i7 processor to start. Will search here and see if I can find some additional system suggestions.

Yes, I always liked my Lynx card (but not as much as my old CardD+ which lighting took out.. :( ). I thought the USB interface would be nice but thus far the jury is out on that decision. When it sorta works it sounded Ok.

Appreciate the suggestions and will post the outcome.

Robert

[sebastiandybing]

Usb are working very well on newer mb,
the case is that Intel first made usb working
as it should from core2duo and onward.
It means thst usb has been working the last 4-5
years.
test your usb card on your laptop.

But not all usb sound card are good,
RME are usb experts when it come to
low latency using usb connection.

[Robert Parent]

After messing around last night there appears to be a success story. At the moment I have the AMD/Asus board working with the Focusrite 8i6. As suspected, it was the AHCI/disk driver causing the problems. After downloading a mtn of drivers I found an AHCI driver installation program (not named as such) buried deep in a driver download subdirectory from AMD. I ran the program, rebooted and bingo latency dropped to almost zero, audio and CAD programs appear to work as they should. What's a bit funny is that looking through the device manager, nothing appears to reference any AHCI driver, but there is one working someplace!! What's hard to believe is that there is nothing on the internet about this whole issue.

The Focusrite USB in a nice sounding interface. It will be interesting to see what the USB latency really is and how the mic pres sound.

Thanks again to everyone for the assistance. If anyone has a similar AMD issue I would be more than happy to point them to the solution which worked in this case.

Robert