Dropped buffers playing back SAW through SAC-Link with Windows 8.1

[dbarrow]

I thought I had most of teh dropped buffer causes sorted out for SAC/SAW running SAC-Link under Windows 8.1, but now when I play SAW back through SAC with SAC-Link and a scene that switches all the inputs to SS, I get dropped buffers every few seconds with audible clicks. Any ideas on this one? It all seems more stable when recording from SAC to SAW with SAC-Link, but not going the other way.

[dbarrow]

I figured it out. Like a dumass, I was using the local C: drive for testing. Big multitrack sessions won't play back from the OS drive. I should have already known that. I do still have issues with Windows 8.1 restarting scheduled tasks that I disabled. I'm not sure where exactly to turn them off, so they won't come back on. Other than that Windows 8.1 seems pretty darn solid.

[dbarrow]

I think the various maintenance tasks must be reinitialized when I restart the computer. Previously, I had disabled various tasks in the task manager that seemed to be causing dropped buffers in large clusters. Those tasks somehow came back online again later. This last time, I left the computer on and they didn't come back and there were no dropped buffers after letting SAC/SAW/SACLink run over night, so I'm guessing a restart must re-trigger the maintenance tasks to come back online in the task manager. I will continue to probe...

[brettbrandon]

I think the various maintenance tasks must be reinitialized when I restart the computer. Previously, I had disabled various tasks in the task manager that seemed to be causing dropped buffers in large clusters. Those tasks somehow came back online again later. This last time, I left the computer on and they didn't come back and there were no dropped buffers after letting SAC/SAW/SACLink run over night, so I'm guessing a restart must re-trigger the maintenance tasks to come back online in the task manager. I will continue to probe...
If you are turning them off in Task Manager, that usually only affects the current session.
Not positive with Windows 8 but try going to the Run box and type in services.msc (or do a search for it).

Brett

[dbarrow]

If you are turning them off in Task Manager, that usually only affects the current session.
Not positive with Windows 8 but try going to the Run box and type in services.msc (or do a search for it).

Brett
Yes, I am familiar with that. Services and tasks are two separate things. The task scheduler service (not task manager) may have a whole long list of tasks that it runs from various triggers or at various times. It looks like there may be different levels that you can disable them, some affect the current session, others may disable it from even running at a later session on a later date. I think I turned some off at that level, but It is taking days to let things run overnight and then try again turning it off at night and back on the next day to see what pops back up again. I will get to the bottom of it, but no one has coughed up the lower level details of how this stuff works, at least that I have found so far. I get bits and pieces here and there, sometimes while searching for some other answer.

[airickess]

If you are turning them off in Task Manager, that usually only affects the current session.
Not positive with Windows 8 but try going to the Run box and type in services.msc (or do a search for it).

Brett
Brett is correct. Turning off Services in Task Manager will not permanently affect their status on the computer. You must find services.msc and then you can turn off the task scheduler service. Check out the Black Viper website for more information about how to do this in Windows 8 and to find out what might be the best setting for each service (Automatic, Manual, Disabled, etc.).

[dbarrow]

Brett is correct. Turning off Services in Task Manager will not permanently affect their status on the computer. You must find services.msc and then you can turn off the task scheduler service. Check out the Black Viper website for more information about how to do this in Windows 8 and to find out what might be the best setting for each service (Automatic, Manual, Disabled, etc.).
Yes, I know that. You can't turn off Task Scheduler in Windows 8.1. In Task Manager there is no option to do that and no option to have it disabled at startup. You can only disable specific tasks in the Task Scheduler windows and then even some of those can't be disabled. Try it yourself, if you have Windows 8.1. Believe me, I have been doing this stuff (Black Viper tweaks, registry tweaks, etc.) since the beginning.

The latest round of tweaks resulted in running SAC with Foobar playing looped music for over 24 hours without any dropped buffers, so apparently I was able to turn off some of the maintenance tasks, such that they wouldn't turn back on by themselves (I think). I now need to reboot and see what gets restarted again. As I said, there are apparently deeper levels in the Task Scheduler dialogs to where you can disable tasks, so they won't be reinitialized on a reboot.

[soundchicken]

Some services are PC related whereas some are user related and some are default user related. It's a freakin mess.

[dbarrow]

Here are a couple of pertinent articles I am perusing:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/34374-automatic-maintenance-enable-disable-windows-8-a.html

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2633-automatic-maintenance-manually-start-stop-windows-8-a.html

As I stated in the post title, I am using Windows 8.1, so keep this in mind if you are proposing solutions that worked on previous Windows versions. Windows 8.1 has quite a few changes that must be considered when tweaking for SAC/SAW/SAC-Link. At the moment it seems to be rock solid with no dropped buffers, but I am testing to see if any tasks or services get re-initialized at later times or with one or more reboots. This has been the case previously.