yeah you're definately right about the art
money is a problem so i'll just have to keep looking..
just ran memtest86+ and my ram seems ok no errors found.
anyone else with even the weirdest idea?
Acer laptop harddrive latency isssue, urgent help please
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- KVRAF
- 5666 posts since 23 Mar, 2006 from pendeLondonmonium
Hi,florkii wrote:
i'll describe the test in simple steps again
load your host and put your soundcard latency to a medium buffer say 1024samples this translates into 20ish seconds latency, not counting your input latency wich will effectively double the total latency if you don't compensate for it in your host by disabling inputs or setting some negative buffer.
you should now be able to play larger audiofiles say above 20mb without hiccups or glitches, and you can use the free/sharware prog DPC latency checker to confirm that your machine can handle realtime audio, very simple just launch it no install required.
now the actual test, start lauding a few large samples or tracks upwards of 20mb, 5 or six of them while maintaining playback
do you get glitches like me and does DPC show large red values corresponding to read write disk operations? curious..
also is your system optimized for audio? tweak xp?
further investigation leads me to believe there may be a problem with the ram acces time...
tried disabling the swapfile altogether, was previously fixed size, but still no good..
pci latency timer anyone?
I have just performed this test, sorry to be so late...
This is what I have running at the moment:
- Sonar 6PE in WDM driver mode - latenyc of 5 msec, file system buffer size of 256 KB
- 1xRXP
- 4x 20 MB stero files
I then imported a 20 MB file into a new track during playback, repeated this three more times, with the last time inserting a new track during playback, then importing the file.
The HD is showing 8 to 9 % use.
I didn't get any dropouts or any playback problems.
My Acer isn't tweaked for audio properly, however I remember doing some small tweaks when I first got it.
During the test, the DPC program has reported some problems, see the image attached:
My wireless and bluetooth is off, but not in BIOS, just using the external switch. Would this affect anything at all ? I do need the wireless available, when outside and in need to acces the net...so I wouldn't want to permanently get rid of it.
Anyway, what do you make of it ?
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 33 posts since 24 Nov, 2007
thanks for trying but you really need to use the asiodriver
then you'll definately hear dropouts in the audio orresponding to the red bars in the graph, and of course it gets worse when using smaller buffers ie lower latency
if u haven't got one u could use asio4all but normally you should already be able to choose one specific for your audiocard.
from the graph i can tell it's likely the same problem
there is something hogging the cpu when reading or especially writing from disk to ram or cache..
but i don't know if it's your network,firewire,infrared
you can leave them on i have tested this quite extensively even disabling them in bios and they don't matter to the problem..
of course if u use high buffers like when using the wdm driver u might not notice anything in the audio, and low latency can be achieved perfectly when not loading large samples to disk
simply copying in windows explorer also does Not produce the problem.
so it's got to be ram/cpu related
are you runnig dual channel ram?
can you post specifics of your system i'm gonna look up which motherboard you have i mean model number aspire...?
and please try with asiodriver
thanks
then you'll definately hear dropouts in the audio orresponding to the red bars in the graph, and of course it gets worse when using smaller buffers ie lower latency
if u haven't got one u could use asio4all but normally you should already be able to choose one specific for your audiocard.
from the graph i can tell it's likely the same problem
there is something hogging the cpu when reading or especially writing from disk to ram or cache..
but i don't know if it's your network,firewire,infrared
you can leave them on i have tested this quite extensively even disabling them in bios and they don't matter to the problem..
of course if u use high buffers like when using the wdm driver u might not notice anything in the audio, and low latency can be achieved perfectly when not loading large samples to disk
simply copying in windows explorer also does Not produce the problem.
so it's got to be ram/cpu related
are you runnig dual channel ram?
can you post specifics of your system i'm gonna look up which motherboard you have i mean model number aspire...?
and please try with asiodriver
thanks
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 33 posts since 24 Nov, 2007
and thank you also for posting the image
in your graph the red bar goes to 4000 microseconds interrupt where as here with me it goes to 21000 microseconds
do the red bars appear exactly when loading tracks and is otherwise asio playback not exibiting this?
in your graph the red bar goes to 4000 microseconds interrupt where as here with me it goes to 21000 microseconds
do the red bars appear exactly when loading tracks and is otherwise asio playback not exibiting this?
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- KVRAF
- 5666 posts since 23 Mar, 2006 from pendeLondonmonium
Yes, most likely, that's why I use WDM with Sonar as I can get more milage out of it. But I'll do the asio test as well. BTW, have you returned the laptop or did you keep it ?florkii wrote:thanks for trying but you really need to use the asiodriver
then you'll definately hear dropouts in the audio orresponding to the red bars in the graph, and of course it gets worse when using smaller buffers ie lower latency
Here, copied from my invoice:can you post specifics of your system i'm gonna look up which motherboard you have i mean model number aspire...?
Travelmate 6592-101G16N - C2D T7100 1.8GHz 1x1GB 160GB XPP 15.4" ATI HD 2300 512MB 128 DVD-SM 802.11abg, Cam, 8 CELL
This also includes the 800 Mhz FSB (Santa Rosa spec).
The red bars seem to be there all the time.in your graph the red bar goes to 4000 microseconds interrupt where as here with me it goes to 21000 microseconds
do the red bars appear exactly when loading tracks and is otherwise asio playback not exibiting this?
I'll post further Asio results when ready...
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 33 posts since 24 Nov, 2007
thanks
no i have not returned it, as the harware is mostly tested now running various monitor and benchmarks utils i conclude this must be a driver/software issue so the quest continues
the horizontal axis of DPC is time
your image shows periodic appearing of the red bar 8 times
however if something else causes this eg network,infrared and such things when not disabled i would then expect the frequency of appearance of the red bar to be constant at equal times
when recording and playing midi i find asio to be necessary..
some more results after testing
perfmon : when glitches occur these values change corresponddingly
proces abletonlive paging errors per second goes way up
swapfiles ?use of virtual memory slight change after
loading the files
virtual bytes
and also physical disk average read and write this goes down a lot
memory extensively tested no errors found
disabled virtual memory swapfile completely no difference
monitoring of cpu ram and swapfile shows no signs
intel application accelerator this chipset is not supported
using cacheman to change default i/o page block limit
disable ntfs last acces time,
memory freeing is not what u need with realtime audio
other optimizations disk cache memory allocation and more
not better results but in some cases worse investigating further
i got better results when maximizing memory throughput with cacheman, but still red bars of now 16ms instead of 21 to 22ms
i am using an old hercules dj console and a new maudio xponent audio device
both should have drivers for low latency, and i'm using asio4all
however asio4all basesitself on the wdm driver
and since i'm using usbaudio.sys for both audiodevices there might be some error in there, but i doubt it
raising the buffer to 2k allows unglitched playback but still shows red bars of too high DPC latency when the analysis of audiofiles are written
read somewhere there were some problems with intel boards bottlenecking
installed updated storage driver but alas there is no application accelerator for my chipset (not needed?) this one fixed some old i/o bottlenecking issues
so i am contacting intel support as well as acer support
hope they can test an axact same model so i can eliminate faulty motherboard
issues
anymore ideas? good monitor programs and memorymanagers/performance? optimizers?
no i have not returned it, as the harware is mostly tested now running various monitor and benchmarks utils i conclude this must be a driver/software issue so the quest continues
the horizontal axis of DPC is time
your image shows periodic appearing of the red bar 8 times
however if something else causes this eg network,infrared and such things when not disabled i would then expect the frequency of appearance of the red bar to be constant at equal times
when recording and playing midi i find asio to be necessary..
some more results after testing
perfmon : when glitches occur these values change corresponddingly
proces abletonlive paging errors per second goes way up
swapfiles ?use of virtual memory slight change after
loading the files
virtual bytes
and also physical disk average read and write this goes down a lot
memory extensively tested no errors found
disabled virtual memory swapfile completely no difference
monitoring of cpu ram and swapfile shows no signs
intel application accelerator this chipset is not supported
using cacheman to change default i/o page block limit
disable ntfs last acces time,
memory freeing is not what u need with realtime audio
other optimizations disk cache memory allocation and more
not better results but in some cases worse investigating further
i got better results when maximizing memory throughput with cacheman, but still red bars of now 16ms instead of 21 to 22ms
i am using an old hercules dj console and a new maudio xponent audio device
both should have drivers for low latency, and i'm using asio4all
however asio4all basesitself on the wdm driver
and since i'm using usbaudio.sys for both audiodevices there might be some error in there, but i doubt it
raising the buffer to 2k allows unglitched playback but still shows red bars of too high DPC latency when the analysis of audiofiles are written
read somewhere there were some problems with intel boards bottlenecking
installed updated storage driver but alas there is no application accelerator for my chipset (not needed?) this one fixed some old i/o bottlenecking issues
so i am contacting intel support as well as acer support
hope they can test an axact same model so i can eliminate faulty motherboard
issues
anymore ideas? good monitor programs and memorymanagers/performance? optimizers?
-
- KVRAF
- 5666 posts since 23 Mar, 2006 from pendeLondonmonium
Florkii, no Asio test yet...but in the meantime, I'd post this topic on the Sound On Sound PC forum as well. There are pro people there, who build music PC systems. Also, Martin Walker is very helpful with all PC related issues.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 33 posts since 24 Nov, 2007
hi again, an update on my quest
himalaya, your graph shows bars going to 4ms i had similar values until i disabled the fast infrared port in device manager, perhaps bluetooth exibits the same although not with me,
but my values are in the 20ms range so not the same problem.
also 4ms is not so bad if u set higher buffers u might not have any interference in audio
done more testing on various issues with no succes
-tried powerstrip but doesn't allow me to change latencies for bus devices
latency for all devices shown greyed out is 0
-tried other latency changers like latencytool and double dawg
-tried various memorymanagers for recovering memory
-tried cacheman tested all optimizations for memory and cache
-found various issues concerning the santa rosa spec and speedstep
on leopard there is a bug but on xp when enabling full performance this
should be resolved
-another santa rosa issue is something to do with downthrottling harddisk to
save power,i need more information on this
-various issues and problems are being reported with latest technology dual
processing and software including windows not being optimized to properly
handle this latest technology
this concerning microsoft hotfix 896256 i'm running version3 and version 4
is available so gonna try this new one
-another hotfix is available but i need to contact microsoftsupport for this
one or is it included in sp2? link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835730/
-installed chipset drivers from intel as well as matrix storage manager
-tried running the sata hd as ide
-getting in touch with acer support now
gonna swarm other forums as well as contact various tech supports
thanks for the sound on sound tip, mr walker over ther was one of the proactive persons in dealing with pci latencies and reporting them to the
powerstrip programmers if i remember correctly
i've gone in too deep way over my head there are so many issues on the net with possible causes i am slowing my research down a bit,
holiday season and all, wishing everyone the best
i'll be back
himalaya, your graph shows bars going to 4ms i had similar values until i disabled the fast infrared port in device manager, perhaps bluetooth exibits the same although not with me,
but my values are in the 20ms range so not the same problem.
also 4ms is not so bad if u set higher buffers u might not have any interference in audio
done more testing on various issues with no succes
-tried powerstrip but doesn't allow me to change latencies for bus devices
latency for all devices shown greyed out is 0
-tried other latency changers like latencytool and double dawg
-tried various memorymanagers for recovering memory
-tried cacheman tested all optimizations for memory and cache
-found various issues concerning the santa rosa spec and speedstep
on leopard there is a bug but on xp when enabling full performance this
should be resolved
-another santa rosa issue is something to do with downthrottling harddisk to
save power,i need more information on this
-various issues and problems are being reported with latest technology dual
processing and software including windows not being optimized to properly
handle this latest technology
this concerning microsoft hotfix 896256 i'm running version3 and version 4
is available so gonna try this new one
-another hotfix is available but i need to contact microsoftsupport for this
one or is it included in sp2? link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835730/
-installed chipset drivers from intel as well as matrix storage manager
-tried running the sata hd as ide
-getting in touch with acer support now
gonna swarm other forums as well as contact various tech supports
thanks for the sound on sound tip, mr walker over ther was one of the proactive persons in dealing with pci latencies and reporting them to the
powerstrip programmers if i remember correctly
i've gone in too deep way over my head there are so many issues on the net with possible causes i am slowing my research down a bit,
holiday season and all, wishing everyone the best
i'll be back
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 33 posts since 24 Nov, 2007
Hi there
been trying to get help from acer support for over a month now, not helpfull at all.
It seems they can't even read my emails correctly, because after several and calls, their final answer is that they cannot support audio because i'm using third party hardware, wich of course is b*******
because the problem is ther without even any third party hardware connected
I'm now getting in touch with several consumer organizations...
i'll keep you posted here..
you could of course buy it and send it back in if you are tempted to try it,
because i think it's probably a default in mine alone
please do let me know your exact model and testresults if you take the chance
btw for tracking etc this performs fine for audio
friendly greetz
been trying to get help from acer support for over a month now, not helpfull at all.
It seems they can't even read my emails correctly, because after several and calls, their final answer is that they cannot support audio because i'm using third party hardware, wich of course is b*******
because the problem is ther without even any third party hardware connected
I'm now getting in touch with several consumer organizations...
i'll keep you posted here..
you could of course buy it and send it back in if you are tempted to try it,
because i think it's probably a default in mine alone
please do let me know your exact model and testresults if you take the chance
btw for tracking etc this performs fine for audio
friendly greetz