Audio Interface Causing Crackling & Stuttering

[Rowbance]

Hey fellows,

So i have had this issue for a while where my monitors (and headphones) are crackling and popping. When streaming video's (youtube, netflix) it happens quite allot and at random moments. Also the video stutters with the audio.
Sometimes (but less frequent) it happens when just playing back audio offline.

Now today i discovered it's my audio interface causing the problem.
I disconnected it and used my pc's standard (realtek) line in with my headphones, and there was no crackling or stuttering with the video and audio whilst streaming video's, everything just runs smooth.

I was always assuming it was an internet connection problem but i guess i was wrong...

My audio interface is a Roland UA-25 EX. Set to 44.1 sample rate with advanced driver on.

I have to admit though spilling coffee over it once.......
But i cleaned it out as good as possible, and the problem already occurred before the coffee incident, so i thought (hope) it might be another issue.

Hope someone could help me out on this

Thanks !

[UltimateOutsider]

That's an older Roland model than I'm familiar with, but if yours has a control panel that looks like this:



Then try sliding the Audio Buffer Size slider to the right a little to increase your buffer size a bit. That usually does the trick.

Also, are you plugged into a USB 3.0 port? Because even though on paper USB 3.0 is backward compatible with 2.0, it doesn't always work out, and can result in pops and dropouts on USB 2.0 interfaces. Most computers still have at least one USB 2.0 port, so worth checking that out too.

Internet (and specifically Wi-Fi) could still be a possibly culprit because the Roland is a USB interface whereas your Realtek audio is most likely built into your motherboard. Network cards (and again, especially WiFi cards) can sometimes cause issues with USB devices. I've known a lot of guys who turn WiFi off whenever they're doing audio work. There are other ways to work around this problem if this is the case.

[Clearscreen]

Take a look at your power plan settings, try disabling the "USB selective suspend" setting in the advanced power settings in all of your plans. Also have a look in device manager and uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" on each USB device that has it. All this pretty much fixed my USB latency issues...

Otherwise, do all the obvious stuff like making sure that ALL of your device drivers are up to date. Wifi and bluetooth drivers in particular are notorious for causing latency in DSP stuff, so definitely check them out...

[Rowbance]

Thanks so far for all the answers guys.

So i've tried increasing my sample rate (to the maximum) as ultimateoutsider suggested.
And although it seem to have lessened the pops and cracks, they are still happening once in a while. If i put it to the minimum everything just stutters like heck. (which is normal i guess :d )

So i'm not sure whether i should leave to buffer size on it's max or not ?
I don't think my pc is that bad to have to put it on it's max :
Acer FX58M
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
12gigs ram

My internet is connected with a ethernet-cable straight to the modem. There is a switch in between though to split 1 cable for 2 pc's upstairs (including mine).
I'm not sure if this has any downsides.
But i know wifi is not going to be the issue.

I'll have a look at the USB ports now and also apply the tips Clearscreen gave me

Thanks so far !

[Rowbance]

Hey Guys,

So i've tried about everything mentioned here but with no avail...

-Disabled USB selective suspend.
-Changed settings in device manager.
-Updated drivers.
-Maxed my sample rate.
-tried changing sample rate's on the back of my audio interface.
Not using wifi/bluetooth neither.

I have found a forum post though with someone who had a similiar problem :
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Edirol-UA25-E ... 42231.aspx

But he mentioned when turning advanced driver off the problem was gone. I tried this but for me the pops and clicks still occur with advance driver off.
So it might not be related...

I'll try plugging it into another pc to see if my pc is the problem or the interface (should have done that a long time ago :d)

Could be just a corrupted interface i guess...