USB woes?

[Cavey Arrgh]

I think this is mostly on topic -- I have issues with audio stutters when using my DAW and listening through my MOTU M2 on my stock / off the shelf Dell Inspiron 3030 - i7 14700 with 32GB 5600 RAM. I get no stutters when doing exact same thing but listening through the (very low quality) PC headphone jack on the back of the PC. I would think it has to be a USB issue. I've tried most of the tweaks that people like Pictus recommend.

One question for anyone who cares to answer -- Has anyone tried the MOTU company's suggestion of getting a PCIe USB card and connecting the audio interface to that? Their full list of suggestions is here: https://motu.com/techsupport/technotes/ ... dows-audio

[dlandis]

I've got one thought on this, but chances are it's dead wrong and just pure and useless speculation. Having said that...

Can your interface take a power supply? Some USB hubs do not produce enough of a charge to support an interface, but with the juice coming from a wall wart, you will be clear of that issue. Again, just a thought (and perhaps a small one at that.)

[Cavey Arrgh]

I've got one thought on this, but chances are it's dead wrong and just pure and useless speculation. Having said that...

Can your interface take a power supply? Some USB hubs do not produce enough of a charge to support an interface, but with the juice coming from a wall wart, you will be clear of that issue. Again, just a thought (and perhaps a small one at that.)

Funny, I had the same thought 20 minutes before I read your post. Unfortunately the Motu M2 is only bus powered with no apparent option for separate power source.

OTOH I ran across someone on gearspace who said a PCIe card did the trick...and someone on reddit also, but in their case, the audio stutters when away only to be replaced by the USB controller shutting down and BSOD.

[dlandis]

I've got one thought on this, but chances are it's dead wrong and just pure and useless speculation. Having said that...

Can your interface take a power supply? Some USB hubs do not produce enough of a charge to support an interface, but with the juice coming from a wall wart, you will be clear of that issue. Again, just a thought (and perhaps a small one at that.)

Funny, I had the same thought 20 minutes before I read your post. Unfortunately the Motu M2 is only bus powered with no apparent option for separate power source.

OTOH I ran across someone on gearspace who said a PCIe card did the trick...and someone on reddit also, but in their case, the audio stutters when away only to be replaced by the USB controller shutting down and BSOD.

I'm going to guess that probably the easiest way (but not the cheapest way) to straighten this out would be to buy a new interface that allows for a wall wart power supply if you've tried everything else and ruled out other options like software conflicts (again, just speculation.) Do you have this hassle when using your computer to listen to, say, Youtube? Or is it only with your DAW? If the latter, can you try a free DAW to see if the results are the same?

[lfm]

I think this is mostly on topic -- I have issues with audio stutters when using my DAW and listening through my MOTU M2 on my stock / off the shelf Dell Inspiron 3030 - i7 14700 with 32GB 5600 RAM.

I get no stutters when doing exact same thing but listening through the (very low quality) PC headphone jack on the back of the PC. I would think it has to be a USB issue. I've tried most of the tweaks that people like Pictus recommend.

It could be since low latency ASIO or WDM put a much higher demand on cpu. Driver to onboard audio are usually delayed like 20-40ms or so. No sweat to play that back.

But keeping below 5-7ms or so is another story.

I got a new i7-12700F based computer 2 years ago and that was first time using usb audio. I could not get clean audio until I got a separate PCIe USB 3 card based on a NEC chip and Renasas drivers.
- it seems to me an experiment that Intel does to make a single usb controller fix everything and to me not working

Such a card is maybe $25 or so and easy to try out rather than the path I did. Changed the Asus MB to Gigabyte just to find the same problem.
- common factor single Intel usb 3 controller to run it all

PCIe card with NEC chip fixed that once and for all. Creates a separate usb hub in system apart from Intel.
- but you have to look out for windows 11 updates not shifting to xHci drivers
- I had serious strange fenomena that even made hardware not be seen by system
- I have had all updates blocked since 6 months now so all is fine and working

Apart from that I have only 4 E-cores and turned them off.
- benchmark only goes from 31000 to 29000 at cpubenchmark.net
Doing that on a 14700 maybe hurts more. Turning off E-cores you get even clock frequency looking in Task Manager of 4.5 GHz, rather than jumping up and down depending of some E-cores are running stuff too, making average clock frequency and even processes having mixed half speed core threads with full speed core threads.
- that is the rabbit hole Intel started entering and seem to continue

[uOpt]

You don't need an interface with its own power supply. A powered USB hub would be an equivalent for that experiment.

Not that I think it will help...

[zerocrossing]

I did buy a PCIe USB card, and so far it seems like it's fixed my issues. Fingers crossed, but I haven't had a notification saying a device isn't recognized in a while. Thanks everyone.

[Cavey Arrgh]

Thank you from me as well for the replies. I agree a PCIe card is an inexpensive purchase to experiment. MOTU recommended Inatek, and as previously mentioned those are under $25. I asked my question becuase I just wondered if others have tried it, since it will take time to put the card in and tinker with settings, etc.

[Pictus]

- I have had all updates blocked since 6 months now so all is fine and working

It is not necessary to block all updates, we can block specific Windows drivers/updates
https://www.minitool.com/news/how-to-bl ... 10-11.html
Here I block Windows update to install Logitech bloatware.
If the driver is already installed, uninstall from Device Manager

Before rebooting I also use https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysin ... s/autoruns
To delete Logitech crap from "Scheduled Tasks" and "Services".

[lfm]

It is not necessary to block all updates, we can block specific Windows drivers/updates

Thanks, I am taking notes.

What scared me lately were 24H2 Windows 11 that was said to introduce a lot of audio issues over usb.

I am running 23H2 and aim to keep it.

If it works, don't fix it! Especially after what I went through getting this computer to run audio smoothly.

I installed Waves v14.x something now, to see if it objected to anything.
- no problem with that either

But all licensed Waves I run are v9.92 still, but just that framework does not object and said to update windows or something.

Computer is not online unless I update or install a new product anyway.