Ableton Forum

I've been testing out a new laptop with my Echo Indigo DJ. While it's a pretty good spec. (Intel T7200 Core2Duo 2.0GHz with 2GB RAM) it glitches every 60 to 61 seconds - unless I increase the Indigo DJ's buffer size to 256 samples or more. But I figure it ought to be able to cope with a smaller buffer...

I guess that something is hogging the PCI bus every minute or so, and that's what's causing the problems. But I can't work out what that something is. I've tried disabling all startup items (including those in the Registry using MSConfig), all networks, graphics acceleration (nVidia GeFoce Go 7600) including write combining, and virtual memory. And I've ended every process that I can in Task Manager. But whatever I try, I still get the same, extremely regular glitch.

Live is just playing a simple loop on one audio track, so I don't think it can be a hard drive issue (even though the hard drive is only 5,400RPM).

And while it does have an ENE CardBus controller this doesn't sound like it's the normal ENE problem, and Echo ENE Utility makes no difference at all.

Anyone know what this could be? What could this PC being doing regularly, once a minute, that could cause such problems?

Thanks,

Robb

PS I doubt if it makes any difference, but I've been doing these tests in Live 5.0.

OK, I've disabled everything I can...

I've used MSConfig to disable every Service apart from the essential ones: "DCOM Server Process Launcher", "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)", "Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator", and "Plug & Play" (not strictly "essential" but needed for the Indigo DJ).

I've also used MSConfig to disable all Startup items - both in Startup folders and in the Registry.

And I've also disabled some AOL stuff in Win.ini.

When I start up, only the "DCOM Server Process Launcher", "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)", and "Plug & Play" Services are running.

And the only running processes are:

taskmgr.exe
RUNDLL32.EXE (used to display the Windows clock that I used for timing the glitches)
Live 5.0.exe
MSCONFIG.EXE
EXPLORERE.EXE
SVCHOST.EXE
SVCHOST.EXE
LSASS.EXE
SERVICES.EXE
WINLOGON.EXE
CSRSS.EXE
SMSS.EXE
System
System Idle Process

Graphics acceleration is also set to none.

All of the above (mainly the Services, I think) has reduced my glitches to... one every three minutes (almost exactly).

But I can't seem to do any better than that.

Any other ideas?

Cheers,

Robb

robbmasters wrote:PS I doubt if it makes any difference, but I've been doing these tests in Live 5.0.

Now using Live 6.0.7.

No difference...

And just realised my PIII 1GHz laptop can go down to 64 samples with the same Indigo DJ! So clearly something serious is up with the new laptop...

what's the brand of your laptop?
i had this problem on a toshiba: each time the fan kicked in, there was a dropout on the firewire bus, causing a glitch.
there was nothing to be done.

another important parameter is the brand of the chipset. try to find it.

Thanks for the reply. It's an Acer, and looks like an Intel chipset.

Drivers (and Live) should all be up to date too. It is XP MCE, but all the MCE Services are all disabled.

I don't think it's the fan though. The glitches seem far too regular and I haven't noticed the fan kicking in.

It all seems very odd. I've got the option to return it, so I may have to...

Last call for any ideas...

Gonna send it back tomorrow if I can't sort it before then...

Cheers,

Robb

well, MCE is not officially supported by ableton, and is known to have issues with audio perforance.
if you can try to install XP, that would be worth trying.
otherwise send it back.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I can't really try installing XP Pro on this machine. I don't think MCE is the issue (as all the MCE stuff is disabled) but I guess it could be. I'll avoid it next time (if I can).

How's your ASUS? Been wondering about an F3JP-AP062U, which seems to be roughly the same spec. as the laptop I've been trying. But I'm getting conflicting information about whether or not it supports PCMCIA...

mine doesn't have PCMCIA, only expresscard.
and because of the ricoh chipset, i had to get a RME soundcard; my FW410 didn't work properly.

Thanks - sounds like it may not be the best choice for me then...

This is grasping at straws for sure but they both have happened to me:

1. Does your machine have any kind of HD protection? If you bump the machine does audio stop? When I got my new ThinkPad I couldn't figure out why I now had drop outs even though the machine was top of the line. Disengaging the protection fixed the issue.

2. What happens if you turn the wireless card off? You may have done this but i didn't see this in your write-up.

Thanks for the reply. Since I hadn't managed to sort it out, the laptop had to go back today. But it's all good advice for any future issues.

The wireless card was disabled. Firstly in Network Connections, and secondly in Device Manager. (I also ended up disabling the wired network connection, Bluetooth, the media card reader, InfraRed, FireWire, and anything else I wasn't actually using...)

As for HD protection, I'm not sure what you mean. (It was a SATA-150 5,400 RPM drive.) But I did do a test with all the audio in RAM, and that didn't help.

HD protection is what you see on ThinkPads. Basically if the machine is dropped, the hard drive locks itself so as not to get damaged when the impact happens. If you loaded the samples in RAM that would eliminate the HD protections as the problem.

Thanks. It probably wasn't that then, as it was an Acer that I don't think has that feature.

Currently I suspect it was another issue with the ENE CardBus Controller, as it looks like other ENE users may be having trouble achieving low latency.

I'm looking at a different Acer now - one with an O2Micro CardBus Controller. I hope that fares better...