Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen 2 Woes

[Warhen]

Hi folks, big fan of the site but first post. I'm having audio issues with my interface and a new Dell computer. Audio intermittently drops out. I have taken exhaustive measures to optimize the system. This same audio interface worked perfectly with my DAW in my retired machine, but not on the new Dell XPS 8930. I believe the PC to be in good working order. It does not sleep or hibernate nor do any of the USB ports, and all of the other audio devices are turned off, but for no good reason the audio simply drops away from windows and doesn't return until the USB plug is pulled and re-inserted. I'm suspicious of the latest Focusrite driver. It's different than the one I had on the other machine. The company is not available for chat and I'm told by someone on another forum that they are resistant to giving out an older driver to roll back to. Does anyone have this driver that you could provide to me? It would be the version before the current one for the 2nd Gen Scarlett 2i2. Thank you! I believe it's either the driver or something with the computer. Of course it could be hardware related but it's been tried in several different ports, even in a powered AC hub.

[CS70]

Just to make sure - you have disabled power management both in the BIOS and individually on the USB devices in the device manager?

Intermittent dropouts as you describe are typical of the USB port going to sleep, since with ASIO Windows can't say that it's in use.

[Rockrooms]

Do you know which version of the driver you previously had and which one you have now (4.65 is the current one on the website)? There have been a number of drivers since the 2nd Gen 2i2 came out.
I would be very surprised if the driver was causing the issue. If you still have the old machine and try the 2i2 in that, does it also drop out? Whilst it's possible that there could be a hardware issue, it would seem somewhat unlikely compared to the introduction of a new PC with a different config.

Is the Windows version the same on the new Dell as the old (1903/1909/2004...) ?
It takes a lot of clicks to actually get there these days, but in the power settings, which are probably set to balanced, it's worth a quick check in advanced power settings, USB Settings, USB selective suspend setting and disabling those.

When you lose audio, does the 2i2 still have its USB light on? The fact that when you disconnect and reconnect the physical connection it temporarily solves the problem does seem to point to the fact that it's a host issue, the driver is reliant on what Windows tells it and if a port decides to do power management then it's going to think the device has gone offline.

If the host USB socket is going off line, a powered hub isn't going to help in this situation, generally wouldn't recommend using one.

Joe

[JackFocusrite]

Hi @Warhen

Very sorry to hear that you're having some problems.

It sounds as though you may have accessed our support site at a time when none of us were available for Live Chat. We're typically available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week but there are windows within that timeframe where we might be briefly unavailable for half an hour or so due to the number of chats coming in/meetings.

If the suggestions that have already been made here don't help then, if you haven't done so already, please feel free to raise a support ticket with us so we can help you investigate: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new

If you let me know your ticket number here after raising it I'll grab it myself.

Contrary to your comment we are absolutely not opposed to handing out previous driver versions if we think it's likely to solve a problem! We don't host previous driver versions on the site as it's incredibly rare that going down a driver version should really be necessary.

Best,
Jack // Focusrite Tech Support

[Warhen]

Hi CS70, Thanks for your reply! It's not turned off in the BIOS, but yes, each port has been checked twice- port management is disabled for every port. To my knowledge, no other device is dropping, save for the Scarlett, and several ports have been used, So that's why I remain suspicious about the Focusrite's driver. I'd call myself an advanced user but the BIOS scares me a bit and I'm not finding many good articles online, this being the best I've found- https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bi ... 126-8.html. would it be as simple as disabling every thing I see you under power management? Thanks a lot! If anyone's out there with the older driver, I'd be grateful for it!

[Warhen]

Hi again guys, and thanks sincerely for your desire to help! it's greatly appreciated. A few things...

Rockrooms Joe, I do not know the previous driver, but the current driver is the latest 4.65.5.658. As a clue to Jack from Focusrite, the old driver had a black/gray/red UI. Joe, the Windows versions vary a bit- both version 10 Home, but somewhat different Version and OS Build numbers. To answer your questions on power settings, I've been in deep and there's nothing that 'should' be affecting the ports- selective suspend is disabled and again, the settings for each and every port has power management turned off, as is the 'allow device to take exclusive control' option. I'll check, but I'm fairly certain that the Scarlett's power light remains on ('reason I'm not 100% clear- panic, and I used to sleep the old machine, and upon wake it'd often be off and I'd have to reinsert the cable).

JackFocusrite, thank you for monitoring this thread! I have loved my Scarlett, so the last thing I'd want to do is disparage Focusrite. Here's where I found some negative buzz on the drivers https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthrea ... t=2&page=1. Note in particular, a comment by user CeeBee .

Jack, since receiving the acknowledgement from Focusrite of Ticket 1575229 on Sunday, I have not seen the chat widget appear in either the desktop's Chrome, or my phone's Safari browsers. I'm very happy and impressed that you've responded here.

I'm going to look at the BIOS settings and report back to all. Jack, I'd appreciate if you'd continue to monitor this. Thanks again everyone.

[Warhen]

Can someone help me with BIOS power settings? I got in but looked in Power Options and USB settings and did not see anything apropos of turning off additional power management. A screen shot on the web shows an 'ACPI Suspend to RAM' field on the Advanced tab that don't seem to exist on mine. Thanks!

[CS70]

Hi CS70, Thanks for your reply! It's not turned off in the BIOS, but yes, each port has been checked twice- port management is disabled for every port. To my knowledge, no other device is dropping, save for the Scarlett, and several ports have been used

That's because when a DAW uses the interface via ASIO drivers, it bypasses Windows entirely - the drivers talk directly with the hardware.

So from the point of view of Windows, nothing is happening on that USB port, hence - if some power management is enabled - the OS concludes it's a waste of energy to keep it up and turns it off.

If you use the port with other "regular" devices, Windows will usually be aware of that so it won't think that the USB port is idle and therefore won't turn it power off.

Check also the pwr mgt of other devices in your system. For example, certain hard disks allow power management, which needs to be disabled.

As of BIOS, nothing scary - simply change one setting at a time and make a note of what is the current setting. If the PC does not want to boot, you simply go back in the BIOS and change that setting back. What power mgt options there are (and if), it depends on the specific motherboard. Might be you don't have any.

Note on some laptops there can some additional power management software which you may need to get rid of.. but if you have went into Device Manager and untick "Allow the OS to manage the power of this device" (or something like that) for all USB hubs, the hub driver should refuse or ignore power management commands.

Finally - a long shot - but CPU throttling due to overheating can also cause dropouts. It seldom happens in desktops (until you're playing Call of Duty while mixing, that is), but with laptops, it might happen.

[Warhen]

CS70, super informative, I get it! So, apparently my motherboard is offering very little in the way of power management in the BIOS. I've been in twice and don't see anything that's specific to 'turn off power management' etc. But I'll look a third time. That's so damn interesting on ASIO bypassing Windows, CS70- thanks for that.

At this point, JackFocusrite, if you're out there, I'd really like to try an older driver, say ca. 2018 that I was using previously. My S/N indicates Gen 2, though I don't recall choosing that download for the original install on the old PC.

To whomever suggested testing the old machine, I'd have to hang myself before I pulled all the peripherals out of my wife's machine, pulled them out of mine, reinstalled programs/drivers to the old one to test it. They'd have to commit me to Bedlam! ;>))

[Rockrooms]

I wouldn't say that ASIO bypasses Windows entirely, the Focusrite driver has code running in Kernel mode like many other drivers, making Windows API calls and relying on what the Kernel tells it, including the state of the USB stack. Other misbehaving Kernel mode drivers can happily trash it and cause problems, including the USB host drivers and in turn their interaction with the firmware and system BIOS. If Windows power manages a usb port, the driver will get a notification that the Scarlett has gone off the bus and so won't stream audio to it any more.

I also suspect that once ASIO has stopped streaming, you'll find that regular Windows / WDM playback also doesn't work, due to the same root issue, the device is no longer present.

Another vague possibility is the cable, is that the same one as you were using previously? The Gen 2i2 has modest power requirements, so I don't think that there being enough power on the bus is a problem, but if you have another that you could try it would help rule that out.

Out of interest, was your old machine USB 2.0 ports only ? Just trying to narrow down differences between it and the new one.

It's worth checking what version of the BIOS you have on the XPS, the latest on the website is 1.1.15, although that seems to be more about security updates.

Dell used to have their system update tool that made it easier to update all their drivers in one go, not sure if you have that on your system.

I was trying to post an image of the power settings I have on my Dell laptop , but google drive is refusing to play, will have to find another way.

Joe

[Warhen]

"I also suspect that once ASIO has stopped streaming, you'll find that regular Windows / WDM playback also doesn't work, due to the same root issue, the device is no longer present." That's correct Joe- that's why I've never suspected the DAW at all. WMP won't play either- all audio is gone.

Same cable, I jiggled and it seems perfect. I swapped another USB A to B from the printerfor these tests.

Yes, older PC was USB 2.0. This new Dell has a mix of 3.0 and 2.0. I've stuck with 2.0 ports based on what I've read?

I will check the BIOS. Thank you!

[CS70]

I wouldn't say that ASIO bypasses Windows entirely, the Focusrite driver has code running in Kernel mode like many other drivers, making Windows API calls and relying on what the Kernel tells it, including the state of the USB stack.

The kernel will provide for example DMA to and from the interface hardware but USB support is limited to WDM (usb.h). ASIO drivers don't use WDM, obviously. Check https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... i/_kernel/
And an ASIO driver could use the kernel PEP services and deal with power notifications and events, but generally will not want to waste time doing so - which is why with most ASIO drivers one needs to disable power management altogether.

[Rockrooms]

I was trying not to get too technical about the interaction with the whole ASIO / driver / Windows interaction, Kernel mode might give you the keys to the Kingdom, but the Kingdom still belongs to Windows

I should probably mention at this point that I work with the chap that writes the Focusrite Windows driver. The permutations of OS, chip sets, associated drivers, power management and less than fully compliant USB hardware are a constant moving target challenge and there are only so many combinations we can test with.

Dell hardware is normally pretty good, I ran Rockrooms studio on it some years ago (albeit on Firewire, Win 7 with minimal extra hardware or software ), but not all new "features" are without downsides and USB power management can be a truculent beast.

We like to think that things are generally improving, which is why I don't think an older driver is going to help in this case, but in any shifting sand situation, the stable point isn't always where it might logically be expected, so it's worth a shot, but if Windows / BIOS is deciding to enable power saving and turning off the port, then the old driver is going to have the same problem .

Joe

[Warhen]

I was fairly sure you were a hardware or software engineer. Thanks heaven for guys like you. Especially when you're so willing to help. I haven't gone back into BIOS yet, but Windows power settings are so damned tricky- you have to choose the high performance mode, open the advanced dialog, tweak it further, and save it... being careful not to touch the main settings/power dialog again or it can bounce you right back to the Balanced power option.

[James Perrett]

Has anyone mentioned Wifi yet? I find it essential to switch off Wifi before doing any critical audio recording or playback on my Dell Laptop.

Have you run LatencyMon yet? That will tell you what is likely to be causing the problem. You'll probably need to run it for a while to catch the particular problem process.

[Warhen]

James, I wouldn't have thought of that. So, we're saying that Window's networking with the modem/router can interfere too? I see you're a moderator- great forum, and group of people. Hopefully, we'll solve this!

[James Perrett]

Yes, if you run LatencyMon then chances are you'll find that the networking is hogging the system at some point. I don't find the tiny occasional glitch a problem for processing and mixing so I leave the Wifi on for those but definitely off for recording.

Thanks too for the kind words about the forum.

[Warhen]

Gents, The track plays back for several minutes in the DAW on loop as a test, and eventually, system audio drops away. The Focusrite light remains on.

Reloading the project into the DAW restores system audio? How does that make sense? IOW, we're not talking about the DAW connection to the interface, we're saying that reloading (but not closing the DAW) the project file restores the interface connection with both the DAW, and also to Windows (Windows Media Player, etc.).

If I close the DAW without reloading the project, audio returns to Windows Media Player. I am so mystified.

At one point, I saw an external backup drive attached to an external, powered USB hub, flash its light as if it were doing a backup or something. I saw Resource Monitor's 'Disk' field spike hugely. But my SyncBack Free software was closed and has no scheduled backups.

I turned off power to the external drive at the powered external hub. In fact, all of the drives plugged into that hub are off. I again lost audio. I don't believe that Acoustica Mixcraft Pro Studio 9 is to blame. Again, I used it very successfully on the old machine with the Focusrite.

FYI, the Focusrite's cable is good, I still lost audio with an alternate cable. Thank you for your further analysis!

[Warhen]

He's baaack... LOL I played an MP3 in Audacity, WMP, and Mixcraft at the same time, with no audio drops for 15 minutes while running LatencyMon which I learned about today. Everything was green and go.

This got me thinking again about the difference in the 2 PCs configs. On the old one, Mixcraft was installed on a mechanical hard drive and recording to an internal SSD. On the new one, Mixcraft is installed on an SSD, and I was recording to a mechanical drive. Now, I knew that may not have been ideal, but I thought optimizing that hard disk not to sleep, etc. was enough.

Maybe not?! As soon as I loaded the project into the DAW from the D drive, the audio crashed, and LatencyMon went red with a 'Conclusion: Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio...likely to experience buffer underruns as dropouts...a DPC routine that belongs to a driver appears to be executing too long...may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS...Check for BIOS updates.' Yes, I had to type that in since I couldn't see how to attach a screen shot!

I transferred the project folder with the associated WAV files to the C Drive SSD, and loaded it to the DAW, and... drum roll please- the project has not crashed in over 45-minutes of looped playback! So, perhaps this is solved!?!!

So, if this is it, should I store but absolutely not work a project that's on the mechanical data drive, or might the data drive be optimized in some way to accommodate that? I'm a fussy minimalist, and in my OCD brain, I thought sending all the recordings to a drive other than the C was a neat idea. Perhaps this was my great folly?

Thank you all!

[Rockrooms]

That is puzzling. I would normally set a system up to have a separate drive to record to, keep the OS and programs on one and the data on another (not just for audio systems). All things being equal, you're sharing the load across two separate controllers leaving the recording drive to just do its thing without having to service OS requests.

An SSD is obviously orders of magnitude faster in transferring data with much lower latency than a mechanical drive, but unless you've got a "green" style drive which runs at a lower RPM and powers down a lot, most mechanical drives *should* be capable of handling tens of tracks without issue. It's worth defragmenting mechanical drives on a fairly regular basis, but that's generally not a massive improvement unless the drive is very full, had a lot of file changes and hasn't been defragged in a while.

In pre SATA days of IDE, there were could be problems if you had a CD ROM / writer on the same controller channel as a drive, but that was a very long time ago.

Tracking down the offending driver can be a bit of a needle hunt and if its ACPI.SYS there's not much you can do about it. Network drivers and as mentioned WIFI drivers can be serious offenders in causing DPC problems.

Another clutching at straws question is how much RAM is available, although as you've got an SSD as the system drive, I suspect the swapfile is on that, which would mitigate a low RAM situation somewhat, but not completely.

Joe

[Warhen]

Hey Joe! So, at least I'm relieved it wasn't an especially stupid decision to record to the mechanical hard disk, so called D: Data Drive. Again, this is a brand new XPS 8930, which I believe matches these specs https://tinyurl.com/yy4qhe3f. Thanks for any further thoughts. I did hear back from JackFocusrite who has been fabulous and I may try the older driver just for the heck of it.

[Warhen]

Joe, et. al., The problem persists. Despite the successful long playback runs yesterday, this morning, the audio is again, gone. Reloading the project into Mixcraft did not restore it there or to Windows Media Player. Pulling the USB of the Focusrite did restore audio to Windows. And this project is now on the same SSD drive as Mixcraft, so it's not a question of the HDD drive either.

Nonetheless, I did also CrystalDiskInfo on the HDD. I don't understand how to attach a screen shot here (IMG?). It states 7200 RPM. Are there any useful fields I could paste in for diagnosing it. The overall 'health status' is GOOD! Thanks.

Grateful for further thoughts but meantime I am going to install the older Scarlett driver that JackFocusrite sent. Thanks!

[CS70]

Hmm - do you have the latest drivers for the Dell? There are quite some recent updates for the 8930 - July and August, and the chipset driver was updated in March

https://www.dell.com/support/home/no-no ... op/drivers

[Warhen]

CS70, I'll try it! The machine is only here a month but I'll look. Also guys, I was just on a 2-hr video/VoIP Skype with a client and Skype reported that the audio had dropped, and indeed it had. I unplugged the Focusrite and it returned.

[Warhen]

Hi again guys, Problems persist. Who among us is successfully running a DAW on Windows 10? FYI, Jack at Focusrite has been great. It is nothing to do with the Audio Interface or its drivers. I'm certain it's Windows. There are apparently known latency issues with the following drivers, documented in several places on the web:

ISR dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

DPC Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Hard Pagefaults- msmpeng.exe Microsoft Corporation

LatMon will show good performance for 30 minutes, then go red and the audio drops. I tested with Windows HD driver and Realtek with the onboard audio (and WaveRT) which had profound clicking even in YouTube when the DAW is looping.

The BIOS and Firmware is now updated as was Windows, and still, the audio drops! Next step is to reinstall Windows from scratch and test audio before anything other installations. Any thoughts appreciated before I do this!