cracks when surfing internet

[Guitarking]

Hi everyone,

For some reason, my audio pc has started making cracks/pops when I do even the tiniest things like surfing internet. I've raised buffersize to 512 now. Normally no problem, but now my pc acts strange.

Any suggestions?

Best regards,

[Guitarking]

Raised buffersize to 1048 still cracking

[Guitarking]

latency monitor:
your system seems to be having problems handling realtime audio. one problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in control panel and BIOS. Check for BIOS updates.
Just checked, my power is on ' high performance'

But. Latency monitor doesn't always say this, sometimes I hear pops while starting up internet or surfing/scrolling and lacency monitor says all's fine...

[Watchmaker]

more info needed. Does this occur when recording or on playback? both?

Are you on wifi? have you recently moved any transmitters closer to your workstation?

This is an outstanding walkthrough of settings, in case you haven't done these yet.

Outstanding!

Dave

[Guitarking]

Thanks!

Mmm might seem that x86 altiverb 6 (being bridged) is the guilty one. When I disable this plugin no more cracks so far...

[Guitarking]

after some more investigation still cracks/pops...

- could Reaper be the problem? If I listen to music on Spotify directly (not via Reaper; I use reaper to use my ARC roomcorrection plugin) I here no clicks/pops when surfing the internet
- Latency Monitor freezes after 16 seconds...

When I open Speccy the computer freezes...

windows 10 home 64 bit
latest Reaper
RME Babyface with latest drivers
Intel Core i7 2600 3.40 GhZ sandy brigde 32nm technology
16GB RAM
ASUSTek computer INC. P8P67
NVIDEA GFORCE GT520

buffersize is 64 now but I 've always multitasked with reaper running and surfing etc without a problem.
Is my computer dying?

[Drew Stephenson]

Check the performance meter in Reaper and see if there's anything happening there (like ARC) that's tipping the processor.

[Watchmaker]

I'm surprised that some of the better informed PC folks haven't chimed in. CS70, Agartha and another guy who's name I can't remember are much more educated than I. Maybe they'll come along.

I've abandoned windows because Win10 isn't viable for me for recording and I use the expensive Win10 laptop I bought for reading weather forecasts...but generally when windows starts to fall apart there's a series of diagnostic steps to take.

As you have a plugin that you suspect may be involved, I'd say uninstall that and see what happens.

Regardless, make sure your BIOS is up to date as well as drivers. If you participate in the windows insider program, opt out so you get "stable" builds instead of beta.

Be sure to disable power management on USB root hubs as that's known to cause problems and try to shut down all bloatware programs in Windows. I had to disable XBox in the registry...these programs are horrid abusers of system resources and often run unchecked in the background.

If you're computer savvy, I'd suggest you browse Black Viper's configuration site for ideas *I explicitly disclaim any liability for following his advice* but I have relied on his recommendations for years with excellent results. Do Not click if you are afraid of advanced tech

I put his config recommendations in an Excel file and select the services I want to disable there first and then update my services accordingly.

Historically, I will completely re-install a new OS at the first whiff of trouble - i.e. format the drive and go from there, but that's waaaaaaayyyy more than you need to get into.

To reiterate - in order of precedence, I suggest you: uninstall the offending plugin, ensure your drivers/firmware are up to date, follow the UAD optimization guidelines, read black viper and take what you will...pray for success.

[CS70]

I'm surprised that some of the better informed PC folks haven't chimed in. CS70, Agartha and another guy who's name I can't remember are much more educated than I. Maybe they'll come along.

Saw the thread but people were already giving great advice, so thought no point in adding more of the same.

Haven't read the full thread, but if one's ruled out the most basic things which have been already named (disable power management, pinning down the problem to a specific application as opposte to a system-wide slowdown, checking if it's not simply a networking issue if you are streaming, checking used disk space and the disk health, exiting/removing all background applications which periodically call home like Dropbox, Google Photots, etc), the next step would be to look at the Event Viewer.

Windows logs absolutely everything that happens and an error or warning event helps immensely narrowing down what's going on.

If the event viewer is clear, an option is to look at what is the last system restore point and see what has happened since. Sudden, unexpected slowdowns may happen temporarily if the system is performing some heavy download (yes, Netflix included ) but also if some hardware component (say a network card) starts failing. Many protocols are error correcting so the system will keep working but with an impact to performance.

At an even lower level, check the bios - especially cpu temperatures.. a broken fan can easily cause CPU throttling - the computer works, but the CPU is much slower than its spec.
Most motherboards come with utilities to monitor these aspects.

Also RAM can create problems: an ASIO driver is very simple - it reads data from interface memory and writes in the computer RAM where it can be further read by, say, a DAW. And vice versa for playback. So RAM issues may impact the audio interface if some bytes of your core ASIO buffer happens to reside in the malfunctioning RAM. High DPC latency is one of the possible results of faulty RAM.

I've had glitches once due to a faulty USB port or cable.

Check the task scheduler and see if there isn't any runaway task which has been active in the background.

Obviously checking for viruses, trojans and other nice stuff is another angle - a first step is to go to Technet Sysinternals (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysint ... downloads/) and download Process Explorer, which allows a better view of which processes are running than the built in task manager; AutoRuns is also very useful - as some virus hijack system images so it's not immediately evident from the process name that the code is malicious (anything in the LSA providers should be signed and by a well known entity).

A machine with your specs has no reason not to be blazing fast, so if it used to be but no longer is, something's gone wrong: as with any computer, if you factor in the hardware, there's endless possible failure modes, so starting with looking at the Event Viewer is usually sensible.

[Guitarking]

Thanks everyone for the time taken to think with me!!!

Opened a mix yesterday with lots of plugins/tracks etc... everything running smoothly, but when opening Firefox, I hear a glitch. So strange in my eyes...

[Pete Kaine]

"Doctor doctor, it hurts when I press here."
"Don't press there then."

It's glitching when you open FIrefox, largely because firefox eats up CPU cycles whilst it loads, recovers old pages and calls for the web page. Also if the page that loads has flash or other streaming media on it, then it'll also grab CPU time whilst it's buffering.

If you have enough overhead (DPC wise) you can open it without it glitching, but if it's borderline Firefox (and all browsers to be fair) will exhibit this.

If it wasn't doing it before but is now, then something has changed DPC wise and it's closer to the overload limit than it was 12 months ago.

The workaround fix is not to open Firefox whilst recording audio for the time being.

That aside...

- Latency Monitor freezes after 16 seconds...
<snip>
When I open Speccy the computer freezes...

Both of those are slightly more concerning. Latency monitor is generally stable and I've never seen Speccy crash although given it has to call (and get a response) from everything in there, I can see why it might.

Your machines getting on a bit, so it could be voltage droops somewhere (which could be fixed with a bit of tweaking) or it could be a component starting to fail which obviously is a little more problematic if so.

I would look to grab memtest86 and run it to check the memory. At this it could be pretty much anything (PSU, board, CPU etc..) but memory seems both the easiest to test and often the first thing to consider.

[Guitarking]

Thanks Peter.

Installed a fresh OS. Computer seems faster but after a while (maybe a coiincidence but after installing latency monitor and speccy which ive deinstalled again without result) still the same crackling while surfing internet. Speccy freezing system and latency monitoring stopping after 16 secs.

No problems when listening to audio directly so not via reaper.
Also put on a big mix in reaper and that mix plays without a problem. Strange!

Latency monitoring also suggests updating bios. Would that be worth trying? Never done that.

[Wonks]

It's always worth updating the BIOS. It's often updated by the manufacturer to make the motherboard work properly after updates to the O/S, as well as to fix any reported bugs.

No guarantee that it will fix all problems, but it should allow the PC to run as best it can.

[Arpangel]

My comments may seem irrelevant considering what's been posted so far, but you mentioned "a big mix" how many tracks/plug-in's? I'm using Reaper too, on PC and Mac, and it can be very fussy about what plugs it uses. Also, I never, ever go online while doing anything musical on my computers, it's just not advisable, it may just push your computer over the edge.
I'd go through Reaper and have a sort out, plugs included.

[Guitarking]

Thanks!

I never go online whilst recording etc...
The situation I'm talking about is having some music on spotify to listen to whilst surfing the internet

I want to update my bios but I'm a bit scared. Have never done this and looked on the asus website there's quite a few derivants from my motherboard.
Speccy says:
Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Model P8P67 (LGA1155)
Version Rev 1.xx
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model Sandy Bridge
Chipset Revision 09
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model P67
Southbridge Revision B3
System Temperature 31 °C
BIOS
Brand American Megatrends Inc.
Version 1503
Date 10/03/2011

Where to find and how to install bios? I hear if it goes wrong it goes really wrong??!

[Guitarking]

btw: ran mem68test. No errors so memory seems fine?

[Pete Kaine]

btw: ran mem68test. No errors so memory seems fine?

It was a generic first test. Memory (and storage) is always the most obvious thing to check when things start to hang/freeze as you noted with latency monitor.

I'd look to locate some disk checkers next (from whoever made your drives, wd checker for wd, samsung checker for samsung... etc...) and run those as they can also cause random freezes when calling data.

Again, not a solid suggestion, but I'm still mulling over why speccy and latency monitor froze. You've re-software'd since then haven't you, are both of them still hanging on the new install?

Anyway, BIOS from here.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8P67/HelpDesk_BIOS/

There has been... errrm... a few since your last update, to say the least.

Insert a USB drive around the back of the machine (has to be on the native USB ports, use the ones at the top of the rear of the case on the I/O board) and put the extracted bios download on there.

Reboot, tab along to the far right two dropdowns and one of them will have "Ez flash" or something witha similar name. Run that, select the pen drive and flash from there.

You might want to note any BIOS settings before doing so, this will wipe all of them (including saved profiles) in the process. I used a camera personally as it, speeds things up, crucial if you don't know what all the settings do.

Feel free to disable additional stuff here, but only if you know 100% for sure you don't need it, otherwise, leave it as is.

[Guitarking]

Thanks Peter,

Bios update has been succesfully completed.

OS has been re-installed, as have been speccy and latency monitor. And yes, LM stops after 16s and starting speccy while listening to music throught reaper freezes the computer.

I will try and run a disk checker.

[Guitarking]

Checked my SSD drive on which windows has been installed. No faults.

I'm beginning to think there's something really wrong with my computer. How about taking it to a pro shop to have it checked?

[Guitarking]

disabled my LAN driver. still crackles.

swapped my RME babyface soundcard for a babyface I borrowed from a friend. Also swapped its usb cable and put in into another usb port

did a disk check on my C (samsung SSD) drive: no faults

checked the event viewer: some things I see:
critical: ID41 kernel power
error: ID2 kernel eventracing
ID13 VSS
warning: ID10016 distributedCOM system

Frankly the event viewer is hard for me to read as I dont understand it but maybe someone can tune in?

Audio is still compromised. Yesterday, even just moving my mouse (not even scrolling) made the audio (Spotify playing through Reaper with the ARC plugin on) crackle. Even without reaper and listening directly its not totally stable although less problematic. But hey, my computer should be able to just listen to spotify through Reaper with a plugin engaged right?

[CS70]

checked the event viewer: some things I see:
critical: ID41 kernel power
error: ID2 kernel eventracing
ID13 VSS
warning: ID10016 distributedCOM system

Frankly the event viewer is hard for me to read as I dont understand it but maybe someone can tune in?

It's really not that hard - you just look (or filter) the non-information errors and what's left is what is (or has been) wrong with your system.

For each of the errors there may be more details if you click on the error.

"kernel power" means that the computer has been shut down without warning
"kernel eventracing" - something went wrong at a very low level. The details would tell you what
"VSS" - mh, if you have Volume Shadow Copy enabled, that may explain some of the crackle. Google's your friend for how to turn it off.

"warning: ID10016 distributedCOM system" - there's a good chance this is the culprit. It's a permission error (typically on the registry) for which some DCOM calls (internal calls between applications and windows components) fail, and retry. This retry is the problem: the system work, but it's overloaded with hundreds of pointless retry attempt, which are doomed to fail as the problem is not temporary, but static (wrong permissions).

This is often due to some application installer messing up things (including, in one notorious case a couple years ago, a windows update package itself).

You find online how to fix it (https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/win ... 6.2752271/ ) but before doing so, make a system restore (or be prepared to reinstall the whole shebang).

To diagnose what causes it, you've got to start with a clean install (and a recent copy of Windows), look at the Event viewer (confirming is clean), and add software a little at a time until it isn't.

In any case: the Event Viewer should be clean, no errors at all. If you have errors, you have to investigate them one at a time and solve, because they mean there's something wrong with your system (hardware or software).

[Guitarking]

Are you saying it could be a windows update? Sounds logical as I haven't changed hardware in a while and the crackling was suddenly there.

But the way ran an intel CPU tester and CPU according to this tester seems fine.

[CS70]

Are you saying it could be a windows update? Sounds logical as I haven't changed hardware in a while and the crackling was suddenly there.

But the way ran an intel CPU tester and CPU according to this tester seems fine.

There was one case last year or two years ago when a major updated messed up the registry permissions.

But more likely it's some app installer. I would also disable the VSS.

When do you reinstall the system, what software do you put on besides the OS?

[Guitarking]

I did a OS reinstall (back to factory default including formating harddrive) a few days ago.
I installed:
AVira security/virusscan
RME drivers
Reaper
IK multimedia ARC
Waves plugins
Altiverb
Speccy
Latency mon
Firefox
toontrack superior
spotify

[Guitarking]

OMG!
Deinstalled the AVIRA suite. apparently the suite came with lots of other programs but all I really wanted was the antivrius. So that's all that's left now.

Suddenly Latency Monitor doesn't crash anymore. Also Speccy loads whilst spotify is playing music through Reaper with ARC plugin engaged!
My machine is blazing fast, no cracks (ok 1 but I think because after start up AVira antivirus was still initalising???), internet is fast. Fingers crossed!