Audio card randomly dropping out.. Any ideas what's going on?

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Hey guys,

So periodically my audio card will just drop out. There's no real pattern that I can see as to when it will happen. Any ideas on what is going on? It is a Pro 40. Maybe a power management issue or something? I know that when I sleep my computer at night I have to turn my audio card off and on for it to be recognized again. I don't want to just go changing things but I'm guessing it's something with power.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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theEmbark wrote:So periodically my audio card will just drop out.
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Sorry, could not resist...
theEmbark wrote:It is a Pro 40.
Nice... doesn't ring a bell though. Most Behringer products have "pro" as a product name suffix and 40 is a high and solid sounding even number. Lucky for you, google recognises the pattern as possibly a "Focusrite Saffire Pro 40" which is a Firewire interface (also good to know)

So is there any pattern to this? Like it worked just the other minute and now it doesn't, possibly even stopping in the middle of a song? Or would it take some time of (audio) inactivity?

I'm sorry, but I think more info is required...
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Image
My MusicCalc is served over https!!

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Haha :-)

Sorry about abbreviating. It's also in my signature ;).

The only pattern I've seen is like I said in the original post where if I sleep the computer or its inactive for to long I have to turn the interface off and back on for it to recognize again.

I'm happy to provide more info just not sure what is important at this point.

My FireWire card is a TI chipset. I did order another FireWire card just to either rule it out as the issue or vice versa. The cards on its way it's the card focusrite reccomends on their site.

Other then that I've seen a few people complain about the same issue online but no one has provided an answer.

Thanks for the help!
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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Focusrite interfaces don't always cope well with sleep on Mac – and it sounds like it's also the case on PC. My Pro 24DSP has been much better since the past few driver updates (though this is on OS X).

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Maybe your firewire card is going to sleep when idle and not waking up when needed?

Check for power management options related to the card or pci-e in general. Modern operating systems are obsessed with power savings, which often have adverse effects like this.
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Thanks guys,

I have auto sleep disabled but at the end of the day I sleep it sometimes instead of a full shut down. However it still randomly drops out.

I did suspect an issue with power from the start. I need to dig some more but having trouble finding anything related to FireWire. However I can try the pcie settings that's a good idea.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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So here's something interesting I stumbled upon. When Mixcontrol is open it still shows the audio playing. However the driver isn't recognized in control panel. I do have the latest driver installed. Still looking at power management just happened to notice this.
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P.S. PCI power management settings are turned off
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Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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On the Mac it was the other way round. MixControl would 'zone out' but the OS reported the interface as still being there. But the later drivers fixed the sleep issues – I haven't had to restart the interface for ages after any form of sleep.

This doesn't really help you on Windows (unless they have provided an update that fixes this kind of behaviour), but I think indicates that the problem is not OS power management per se but how the interface driver or firmware deals with it. It may simply be that the driver gets confused or dumps the OS wakeup message without processing it properly assuming the same core problem was in both the OS X and Windows drivers/firmware.

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Thanks for your insight,

Yeah on my Mac I don't have this issue just on my PC :/. I'm going to send an email to focusrite they are pretty good about troubleshooting these kinds of things.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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The is a USB disable in Windows, but nothing specifically for FW.

Whats your motherboard and current FW card solution?

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Kaine wrote:The is a USB disable in Windows, but nothing specifically for FW.

Whats your motherboard and current FW card solution?
Not sure why I didn't get a notification when you posted but happened to see it now :tu:

Focusrite had me do a bunch of random stupid stuff that of course didn't solve the issue :P lol

The current motherboard is an EVGA SR-2 and the FW card is a SYBA Card

This one to be exact:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006D ... UTF8&psc=1

I did just order a new card recommended for the Pro 40 by focusrite it's not here yet but hoping that might solve the issue.

Here's that link as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6800998059

Both are TI chipsets but different chips.

Let me know if anything jumps out otherwise I will swap these as soon as it gets here and see if that solves the issue.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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How about NOT putting it to sleep for a week and keep it running 24/7 to see if that makes a difference?

Best Regards

Roman Empire
Best Regards

Roman Empire

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Roman Empire wrote:How about NOT putting it to sleep for a week and keep it running 24/7 to see if that makes a difference?

Best Regards

Roman Empire
Not a bad idea :D but great minds think alike :clap:

So what I've found out is that it's not the fact that the computer is going to sleep but just anytime the computer sits idle for a while. Sometimes the computer won't even be idle though. For instance it loves to do it when I'm listening to Spotify.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
Image
Kevin DiGennaro

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theEmbark wrote:
Roman Empire wrote:How about NOT putting it to sleep for a week and keep it running 24/7 to see if that makes a difference?

Best Regards

Roman Empire
Not a bad idea :D but great minds think alike :clap:

So what I've found out is that it's not the fact that the computer is going to sleep but just anytime the computer sits idle for a while. Sometimes the computer won't even be idle though. For instance it loves to do it when I'm listening to Spotify.

Thanks,
Kevin
Spotify is network dependant. Have you tried with local mp3 files?

Best Regards

Roman Empire

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Yeah although it doesn't seem to be a network issue. I setup my monitor (computer monitor) audio as a secondary sound source and Spotify didn't have an issue. Usually when it's a network issue in Spotify it will say something like Spotify was unable to connect to the network. Right now it just says Spotify was unable to play the song. As soon as I flip my interface off and back on it will play no problem. This happens in my DAW and other apps with sound but I notice it most in Spotify because that's pretty much going all day.

Thanks,
Kevin
Win 7 | Dual Xeon x5680 | 48 GB RAM | Saffire Pro 40 | Yamaha HS50 monitors |Cubase 8.5 Pro|
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Kevin DiGennaro

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