Routing all windows audio through ASIO4All (crackling audio caused by network interface)?

[Roman Empire]

Dear All,

For a couple of months, on my NONE-DAW, I´ve had issues with audio starting to crackle whenever there´s network activity after a couple of days. Only solution so far was to reboot the computer till it happened again after some days.

I spent alot of time googling the issue and try figuring out what has caused this to be happening, perhaps a Windows 10 update - dunno. It´s just an onboard audio interface from the motherboard that I´m using btw, same goes for the network interface.

I tried installing more uptodate drivers for both of the interfaces, tweaked various settings for the audio card etc., but nothing helped.

At the end I came up with the idea of routing winamp, my primary source of audio, through ASIO4All. I tried to increase buffer settings and other stuff that I imagined could eliminate the problem and bingo - crackling hardly ever happens.

I know that the best would be to find out THE reason for this issue, and I would have kept on trying if it was my DAW that had this issue, but I feel that enough is enough now and though I´d be happy to hear if anyone´s got any ideas of stuff I didn´t try already, I would like to know if there´s a way of routing all audio from windows through ASIO4All, since that indeed would solve my problem, which obviously is still there when for instance I´m playing youtube videos.

Thanks in advance!

[Reefius]

I've had all kinds of issues using the onboard network interface of my computer. Tried different drivers but no luck, so I purchased a USB network interface and the problem was solved. Cost was about 20 Euro.

The problem with those onboard devices is that it's usually one Realtek chip doing both audio and network which can result in 'leaking', so basically you can hear the network activity.
Having a separate interface for either sound or network (or both) fixes this.

[VariKusBrainZ]

WLAN is often the culprit

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/fix- ... ound-card/

http://www.komku.org/2013/06/how-to-fix ... oblem.html

[Roman Empire]

WLAN is often the culprit

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/fix- ... ound-card/

http://www.komku.org/2013/06/how-to-fix ... oblem.html

Cheers, but the network is wired and there´s no wireless adapter on the computer (it´s a desktop).

[Roman Empire]

I've had all kinds of issues using the onboard network interface of my computer. Tried different drivers but no luck, so I purchased a USB network interface and the problem was solved. Cost was about 20 Euro.

The problem with those onboard devices is that it's usually one Realtek chip doing both audio and network which can result in 'leaking', so basically you can hear the network activity.
Having a separate interface for either sound or network (or both) fixes this.

I feel a bit weird about doing that since it´s been working for 5 years with no such issues...

[Distorted Horizon]

Basic issues:

Onboard network device = Buy a separate one
USB port doesn't give enough juice = Buy a powered usb hub or set power settings to High performance and turn off usb power "plan" or what ever it is that turns usb ports power off at some point.
Hardware issue = Buy a new PC. My last pc just didn't like any external audiointerface and crackling was so awful that I gave up and bought a new and better one.

[Roman Empire]

Basic issues:

Onboard network device = Buy a separate one
USB port doesn't give enough juice = Buy a powered usb hub or set power settings to High performance and turn off usb power "plan" or what ever it is that turns usb ports power off at some point.
Hardware issue = Buy a new PC. My last pc just didn't like any external audiointerface and crackling was so awful that I gave up and bought a new and better one.

I´m pretty convinced that this is no hardware issue, as it worked well for these many years. It´d be the first time ever that I heard of a soundchip that started getting defect in a way that it´d crackle when the network´s on after having worked well for years.
I do see though that it´s a workaround to use another audio or network card, and in fact I do have a network card in that computer already for networking with my DAW.
I could actually just switch them around functionality wise; it´s pretty rare I need the DAW connected with the none-DAW, so I guess that´ll do.

[Roman Empire]

Update: So, I bought a new LAN card.
Why not a new audiocard?
Because I got the glitches when using a USB headset for VOIP stuff as well.
I disabled the onboard LAN and got the new card running fine, but again after a few days the problem is back..
So back to the original question: Is there a way I can route all audio through Asio4all or any suggestions for things I can try that I did not try already? Already tried different settings for the onboard soundcard, effects on/off, different bitrates and khz.
As I said, I doubt that this is a hardware issue but either something I´ve installed on the computer or a Win 10 update.
And.. I do have antivirus and firewall software (that I´ve tried dis/enabling as well) installed, but I think that if a cryptominer hacked himself into my system, the glitches wouldn´t wait for a few days to come back after a reboot, right?
CPU usage is not intense at all.
The highest ISR and DPC culprit in latencymon is for both cases USBPORT.SYS, but I didn´t install new drivers for this, so I don´t get why this one would suddenly start to make things act up..

[Kaine]

The problem with those onboard devices is that it's usually one Realtek chip doing both audio and network which can result in 'leaking', so basically you can hear the network activity.

Are you sure? I don't recall ever seeing a Realtek combo chip like that, it's always 2 separate chips.

[Roman Empire]

So I ended up defragging system and swap drive as well, still with no luck.

Then I finally found something that does excactly what I´m looking for, and it´s free (aka donationware)! Voicemeeter!
There was some crackling at some point, but I figured that turning off the systems audio cards input would solve this problem, should anyone have a similar problem.

I´ll let you know if the problem comes back.

[planetearth]

Realtek audio chips aren't made for the simultaneous recording and playback of real-time, multi-channel, high-definition audio. They're made for playback of stereo audio or (usually) compressed surround audio. ASIO4All is a "wrapper"; it's not true ASIO, so it doesn't work the same way ASIO does. It simply addresses your audio drivers differently than your on-board audio drivers would do natively.

Any change to Windows 10's drivers or anything else that runs on your system when you're trying to to record could be the final process or application that asks too much from the CPU. And keep in mind that Microsoft has been rolling out huge updates to Windows 7, 8 and 10 over the past few weeks to "fix" problems with Intel CPUs. Because of the way these updates worked, estimates floated from Intel (and others) suggested that you'd see a 5%--or higher--performance hit. That update could have slipped onto your machine during a recent reboot, causing this problem.

Realtek audio and network drivers aren't usually updated as part of Windows Update. You should grab the latest ones from Realtek's site (they just updated their Gigabit Ethernet interface drivers at the end of January, for example).

Steve

[Roman Empire]

Realtek audio chips aren't made for the simultaneous recording and playback of real-time, multi-channel, high-definition audio. They're made for playback of stereo audio or (usually) compressed surround audio. ASIO4All is a "wrapper"; it's not true ASIO, so it doesn't work the same way ASIO does. It simply addresses your audio drivers differently than your on-board audio drivers would do natively.

Any change to Windows 10's drivers or anything else that runs on your system when you're trying to to record could be the final process or application that asks too much from the CPU. And keep in mind that Microsoft has been rolling out huge updates to Windows 7, 8 and 10 over the past few weeks to "fix" problems with Intel CPUs. Because of the way these updates worked, estimates floated from Intel (and others) suggested that you'd see a 5%--or higher--performance hit. That update could have slipped onto your machine during a recent reboot, causing this problem.

Realtek audio and network drivers aren't usually updated as part of Windows Update. You should grab the latest ones from Realtek's site (they just updated their Gigabit Ethernet interface drivers at the end of January, for example).

Steve

Thanks Steve,

But this has got nothing to do with recording - only playback. Drivers for both the audio and network were already attempted switched a million times to both whats available on the manufacturor of the chip and of the motherboards website.
Asio4All is the solution here because the buffers can be set large enough to handle the glitches.
I could go and grab my old EMU 1212M, but being very outdated on the driverside, I´m afraid that easily would just introduce other issues.

[Distorted Horizon]

My old PC crackled like hell when using audio interface. The issue was that usb ports didn't give enough juice.

[Roman Empire]

My old PC crackled like hell when using audio interface. The issue was that usb ports didn't give enough juice.

Give enough juice to what? A USB audio interface or other peripherals?
The one I´m having issues with is the audio chip on the motherboard.

[MidiToGuitar]

Hi:
I had similar issues until I used Voicemeeter.(free mixer with ASIO drivers)

https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/index.htm