I just installed a new M-Audio 2496 card in my system. In Nuendo if I zoom using key commands or scroll with the mouse wheel the audio either cuts out or splutters and pops.

I have the latency set at 512 samples which is pretty high, if I set it to 1024 samples the problem seems to go away. but at 44.1kHz this means 23ms of latency, which is way too much. I've that other pepole are running these cards at at like 128 or 256 samples with no problems.

After a bit of slot swapping I have the card on its IRQ (5).
I have tried the PCI latency timer at 32 and 96 but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Also if I swith to ASIO direct X driver the problem goes away. But this means big latency too. Soon as I switch back to the M-audio ASIO tyhe problem returns

Can anyone suggest anything helpful?

Cheers,
Nick

my system:

M-Audio ASIO driver version 5.10.00.0036

MSI mobo KT333
Athlon XP 2000+ (1667MHz)
512MB DDR
WD hard drives
ATI dual head VGA
Win XP pro SP1

Via chipsets have had these sorts of problems before.
The card should ideally have its own IRQ.
The latest 4-in-1 drivers from VIA may help.
I am using an ASUS A7V333 with the audiophile just fine. No issues.

I've had this problem before on linux - it stems from the fact that since the ICE1712 chipset used in the Audiophile requires all 10 possible channels of 32-bit audio to be sent to the card (regardless of the fact that the Audiophile only uses 2), the maximum possible scheduling latency before you hear skipping is 0.14ms, which is unusually low.

Having said that, the issue has since been fixed for me in Linux by scheduler improvements, and I never had this problem with Windows, either with my current mobo, or my previous one which was KT333-based. As ddrawley said, make sure you have the latest VIA drivers.

Ok latest VIA 4in1 is 453 and I have 451, I'll update them and post again.

I had the same problem with my Terratec on a nForce2 based motherboard. It crackled when i started typing and also many times during games. So i read somewhere that this could be caused by my keyboard and that i should try an USB keyboard instead of PS/2... and it worked!

The crackling is a lot less now.

You might have the same problem as you say it happens when you use the key command and scroll wheel.

BTW, i can get a latency of 5.8msec at 44.1khz (256samples), lower will cause quite some crackling.

Well the VIA 4 in 1 hasn't changed anything. Alas.

THanks mark7 but i already have a USB keyboard.

I also tried the latest M-Audio drivers and now the problem is happening at 1024 samples.

This is awful. anyone know where I can get some older M-Audio drivers, I have read somewhere that older drivers worked for someone with a similar problem.

This may or may not help, try updating your motherboard BIOS.

Ok this is getting very interesting now

I have successfully flashed the BIOS, what I mean by that is that my computer survived. However the audio problem has changed.

Now when I play audio it runs at what seems to be half (or double) the sample rate. It plays really slowly. The very strange thing is that when I zoom or scroll now, it picks up to the correct speed, but only if I constantly wheel the mouse or hold down keys on the keyboard.

Comments anyone?

This might sound strange but you might be having grounding problems of the case or power supply. Tighten the screws on everything inside the system case, make sure the motherboard is screwed to metal standoffs and that you are not using any rubber washers between the board and the standoffs. If this doesn't help try another power supply or power outlet.

I solved EMI noises on my santacruz card this way. They weren't the same as yours but moving the mouse, hard drive operations gave me noise.

Yes I know those sounds, I can only hear them when my monitoring is turned up loud but moving the mouse and large processing operations in sound forge seem to be noisy.

I'll give it a go.

Well I'm still stuck.

Does anyone know why all the audio from system sounds to mediaplayer to nuendo all sound really low in pitch and play really slowly. It seems very strange to me. Its like there is a global sample rate setting thats out of reach.

any ideas?

It seems like an uninstall of your AP24/96 and mouse software is in order. Then reinstall. Pretty odd problem.
If you have M$ stuff, the latest versions after removal, reboot, then reinstall.

Something I didn't mention before is that I have 2 partitions, one I use for internet word processing and testing software & hardware configs. The other one is used only for audio apps, thats it.

Until recently both partitions were behaving the same so I didn't bother to mention it. So after the BIOS update thaey both started palying all audio a slow speed and a low pitch, unsless I typed on the keyboard or wheeled the mouse, which made it play at a normal speed. Midi sounds form MS wavetable synth played out through the audiophile at normal pitch and speed.

Now...

In my general partition I tried uninstalling the whole PCI bus from device manager. This has been successfull in that the 2496 now plays audio close to normal speed but it is not consistent in tempo and there are alot of cracks and pops.

I've been using a PS2 mouse because the USB bus was unsinstalled under the PCI bus but that hasn't made a difference. And I've also now updated to the latest drivers for th 2496. It seems to behave the same no matter which drivers are installed.

This is really becoming problematic I've been sitting here since friday pretty much all day every day and I still can't get the damn thing to behave.

I have read a post somewhere about a similar problem with the pitch and they were suggesting a software modem might be at fault, but have no such modem on my system.

ideas?

I had pops and skips with my Philips Aurilium, on an nForce2 board. I fixed them by Giving USB/PCI4 (generally a PCI slot shares an IRQ w/ the USB controller) their own reserved interrupt.

For grating-like noise when moving the mouse or doing a lot of CPU/IDE work (if you experience that), in my case that turned out to be a video card issue mostly, but also a motherboard issue.

Going to my current video card got it down to levels I can deal with (and if I notch down hardware video acceleration, rid myself of it), and moving to a motherboard that seemed made a bit better fixed all problems of hearing noise during heavy CPU and IDE activity--now it is only faint and video-only, and then only with hardware acceleration at full (control panel->display options, settings tab, advanced, troubleshooting tab).

So all that and moving from a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra to DFI NF2 Ultra-AL, and from a Gecube Radeon 9600XT to Leadtek 5900XT. Then having to force an IRQ for USB on top of that. USB is overrated, IMO, and PCs typically have too much noise.

Hope this helped some!