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Optimod PC-1101 audio skipping

E

EP

A few months ago, I purchased an Optimod PC-1101 card. It runs on a Windows 7 64-bit machine. It works good most of the time but every 35-40 minutes, the output from the optimod driver starts to skip like crazy for 3-4 minutes, then it cleans up. All of this will happen over again another 35-40 minutes later.

I am sure the input is not skipping and the card itself is not causing the skipping. I think this is an Orban driver problem. I've tried all kinds of suggestions to fix this but for brevity I won't get into that here. On another forum, another guy said he had the same problem with the card under Windows 7. He said he was going to post about it on this forum but his country is banned from posting here.

So has anyone else had this problem with the Optimod PC-1101 card on Windows 7 64 bit? If so, were you able to fix the problem without downgrading to XP? I've been going back and forth with Orban support about this and they insist it is my problem and not the fault of the driver or the card. I just want to get this problem resolved so I can enjoy my new audio processor.
 
One thing to look at is whether the computer is configured to change the clock speed of the main microprocessor on the fly. This has been a feature of Intel processors for several years now. We have noticed audio glitches on some motherboards that go away completely when these features are turned off in the host computer's BIOS. One of these is called "Speedstep," but if you have power saving functions turned on, you might want to defeat these too. Our card is not the only audio system we have seen that is affected adversely by these features.

Bob Orban
 
Ok, I've made a bunch of changes, mostly in the BIOS, and I'm still getting skipping. I've tried many of these changes individually and now all together and still get skipping.

Here are the changes I've made in BIOS:
Intel SpeedStep Tech disabled
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode enabled
CPU voltage mode set to manual instead of offset (to keep voltage more consistent)
Load-line calibration, CPU Spread Spectrum, PCIE Spread Spectrum all disabled
C1E Support disabled
Intel C-State Tech disabled

In Windows:
PCI Express Link Power State Management set to off from moderate power savings

I also found that I have more PCI Express slots than I realized so I took the card out and installed it in a different slot. I still get skipping though after deleting and reinstalling the driver.
 
I can't offer much, but let me ask: do you think this is an IRQ problem or that the system is having problems processing real-time audio?

If so, you might wish to look at this free utility. It will tell whether the computer suffers from excessive latency and thus fails to properly process real-time audio. Simply download the .exe and run it. Explanations and instructions are posted on the site.

http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

Good luck!
 
Thanks, but I've tried that already. I guess I might as well post a list of all the things I've tried. These are in addition to what was posted above..

- Tried Kernel streaming the output from the Optimod card to the speakers using AudioRepeater (a program included in the Virtual Audio Cables package.. After this didn't work, I uninstalled VAC) Skipping is the same as when using the "Listen To This Device" method.
- Updated BIOS (this made the skipping worse, but not more frequent)
- Updated Optimod driver
- Updated main soundcard driver (main soundcard drives speakers)
- Uninstalled main soundcard drivers and Optimod drivers and reinstalled both.
- Tried older driver versions (for the soundcard only. Can't find older versions of the Optimod driver)
- Tried disabling a device called "AMD High Definition Audio Device" but reenabled when it did not help clear up the problem.
- Tried an entirely different soundcard to feed the speakers in case it was a soundcard problem. Did not work.
- Updated video card drivers.
- Tried changing power settings from Balanced to High performance
- Made sure hard drives are running on DMA mode.
- Went through Black Viper's Website and disabled a bunch of services (I used the "Tweaked" version)
- Tried feeding the Optimod input with sources other than Winamp to make sure Winamp wasn't the problem. It wasn't. Winamp is the main program I use to feed the Optimod with music.
- Tried disabling the On-Board LAN.
- Made sure Windows Update is all up to date (just installed Service Pack 1 last week)
- Tried disabling Norton Internet Security, both the anti-virus and firewall.
- Scanned the computer completely for viruses and spyware with Norton and Spybot Search and Destroy.
- Checked the latency using DPC Latency Checker. No spikes showed up when skipping started. The lines were always in the green.
- Started the computer in safe mode to try but apparently all sound devices are disabled in safe mode.
- Tried turning the priority of audiodg.exe from normal to realtime.
- Removed other soundcard, Turtle Beach Montego DDL from PC. It was previously installed but drivers were disabled in Device Manager because I never used it.

My computer:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (Service Pack 1)
On-Board Sound: VIA® VT1828S (main soundcard that feeds speakers)
Orban Optimod PC-1101 audio processor (sounds passes through this card before going to main soundcard)
Intel i7 860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz Quad-Core
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 memory
ASUS P7P55D PRO motherboard
ATI Radeon HD 4830
Seagate ES.2 750gb
Seagate ST3250820AS
Western Digital WDC WD2500JD-22HBC0
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Power supply

It should be powerful enough to handle real-time audio. Thanks for the help though. Hopefully this problem can be resolved soon.
 
You have certainly tried a lot. I once had a similar-sounding problem with real-time audio on a
"very weak" but brand-new computer running windows 2000. I cannot remember the exact tweak, but I am sure it
involved increasing the amount of RAM that could be allocated to any individual process.
When the available RAM was increased, the skipping went away forever.
Only used that system for a year, before going to a better machine that could run Breakaway.

Sure hope it doesn't turn out to be a Windows 7 problem, but I have seen such issues with every new
platform that is developed.
Real-time applications are the worst for computers because the thinking is that all these interconnected devices
are now designed to be told " wait a sec, I'll get around to you." That sort of handshaking is fine for
consumer applications, but audio won't wait. If the processor is busy doing something else, your "data",
in this case, music, is on hold.

Is the audio source (file being played) resident ON that computer, or is it on a network drive?
Too much network activity could be keeping the data from getting to the computer in time to be there as needed.
 
I understand that you feed the main (VIA soundcard) with the sound from the Optimod? How do you do this? Virtual cable or externaly? Why do you feed the speakers with the VIA soundcard?
 
Tom, all the audio played is from local files on the computer. All files are on hard drives. I never play anything directly off of CDs.

F Mister, I feed the speakers with the VIA on-board sound because I can't feed them directly with the Optimod soundcard. The speakers are Bose computer speakers so I didn't think it was worth it to buy the extra Optimod cables. To listen to the output of the Optimod, I have set up in the Optimod Wave In 1 device properties so that "listen to this device" is checked and "speakers" are selected under "playback through this device."
 
I would try to check at the output of the optimod card (I must say I have no experience with this card). But you need to rule out the VIA soundcard in this case.
 
I thought I did rule the VIA soundcard out. Maybe I worded it wrong in the list above. One of the things I did was disable the VIA on-board sound and use a Turtle Beach soundcard to drive the speakers instead. So in that case, the chain was Winamp output>Optimod>Turtle Beach card>speakers. Unfortunately, the skipping was the same as before.
 
Could still be a IRQ problem because you are going from one PCI slot to another. I would like to know if it's still there only with the Optimod in the chain. Winamp out->Optimod->monitor.
 
I can't really monitor the output directly without buying the Optimod cables and hooking them to speakers.

I did try something similar to what you described though. I tried streaming the audio to another computer. The chain was Winamp out>Optimod>Shoutcast (capturing sound from Optimod wave in 1, set as the default recording device) and the skipping was still there in the stream.
 
Well that does rule out the part of hopping from one PCI port to another. Remains the card or Motherbord if you ask me. Maybe test the card in another PC?
 
Ok, I'll put in my 2 cents. And tell you all kinds of stuff you do not want to hear... ;)

1. you absolutely, definately need to hook your speakers to the optimod-card, period. The way you are monitoring your signal now is unreliable to say the least. If you don't want to buy the breakout cable (which I can understand) make it yourself. You could make one with only analogue audio-out.
2. If after that the problem is still there, create a fresh, clean windows install with only the optimod driver/software added. Use the Microsoft mediaplayer as sourceplayer and see if the problem is still there. You have done some serious experimental digging and tweaking in your system, therefore you can no longer rely on its consistency...
3. If the problem is still there, us an external audiosource and hook it up to the Optimod-card inputs and see if it's still skipping. Like I said, you need a breakout cable ;-)
 
richard.vanderveen said:
Ok, I'll put in my 2 cents. And tell you all kinds of stuff you do not want to hear... ;)

1. you absolutely, definately need to hook your speakers to the optimod-card, period. The way you are monitoring your signal now is unreliable to say the least. If you don't want to buy the breakout cable (which I can understand) make it yourself. You could make one with only analogue audio-out.
2. If after that the problem is still there, create a fresh, clean windows install with only the optimod driver/software added. Use the Microsoft mediaplayer as sourceplayer and see if the problem is still there. You have done some serious experimental digging and tweaking in your system, therefore you can no longer rely on its consistency...
3. If the problem is still there, us an external audiosource and hook it up to the Optimod-card inputs and see if it's still skipping. Like I said, you need a breakout cable ;-)
Click to expand...

I have the same problem, i dropped Windows 7 because of this, downgraded to Windows XP. Then a new card came in, installed in a different machine with Windows XP, the same spikes are there, also. There is nothing wrong with the computers, the spikes are present even if the audio source is on the digital input, 1 or 2, all i can do now is to sent the cards back. I tried everything, even more than ESP, i listened on the analog output, on the digital outputs, everything, i even upgraded the firmware, nothing solved the spikes, i even fed the clock from an external source. From the 3 new cards we ordered, just one is working nice and smooth. If you want to hear the spikes on live, here it is http://80.86.106.35/

Any help ?
 
Yeah, thanks, but it isn't silly, i was also thinking about it. This isn't working, either. The spikes are present all the time, i do not keep the GUI open because there is the RCS player working, and the Selector. On the second computer that i use only for testing i tried only with Windows Media Player and Winamp, acts the same. It's like the Optimod card is dropping audio samples, and when it happens, it produces spikes, all songs are losing the tempo. Anyway, i can't believe that there are still listeners on that internet station, also broadcasted on HD Radio.

We have a lot of stations all over the country and we are using more than 100 Optimod cards, version 1 and 2, but the new 1101, the package called 1211 (bundled with Opticodec 1010) is having problems.

Thank You, any more suggestions?
 
richard.vanderveen said:
This may sound silly, but have you contacted Orban?
Click to expand...

This isn't silly, i will after i'll do all posible tests. Don't want to give them bad info. Today i digged for an old PC and guess what: one of the so called "faulty" cards sounds perfect, an old AMD, 10gb hdd, 8 mb shared video memory, 128mb ram ;D . I like to put a smile on Your faces, so follow the link of the screenshot. Like i said, it is working perfect, crystal clear sound, no spike, no skipping, just perfect. But in my opinion it should work with any pc, not just old ones.

Big thanks to all of You for the time and good help!

EP, please test your card in an old desktop, if you have one.
 
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