DAW Audio Choppy With Interface

T

T-Top

New member
Hi guys,

For as long as I can remember, I have been having issues with my audio occasionally getting choppy through my audio interface when using a DAW.


Here is my rig: (Some of it is probably irrelevant but figured I might as well include everything)

Processor | Intel Core i5 760 @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz 8MB Cache
Memory | 8192 MB RAM
Hard Drive | 250 GB Samsung SSD MZ-7TD250
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 Rev 2.0
Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
OS | Windows 7


Audio Interface: Saffire Pro 40
Speakers: KRK VXT 8's
DAW: Ableton Live 9 (Previously used Live 8 with same issue)


Previously had a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 USB 2.0 Audio Interface with different speakers that gave me the same problem
The new audio interface uses firewire via a PCI FireWire card

The audio will sound really choppy (if it helps, I can post a video) for 3-10 seconds, and it seems to happen at least once every 2 minutes (usually more frequently). This seems to only happen with my DAW open.
Here is all of the troubleshooting I've tried:

Swapping from a standard HDD to an SSD which included re-installing Windows (Windows 7 in both instances)
Verified that no more than 25% of my CPU appears to be used while running a project file in Ableton
Swapped Firewire cables
Checked benchmark speeds on hard drive, everything appears good
Checked processor temperature, it idles around 28° Celcius and jumps no more than 3 degrees when a project file is playing

Increased ASIO Buffer size to 2048 (was previously using 512)
Tried using both the ASIO4All v2 Driver and ASIO Saffire drivers using both of these buffer sizes/settings
Also tried using MME/DirectX Audio

*Tried plugging in my headphones directly to the motherboard - this worked with no issues *
3rdwyu.jpg
It works fine with audio from iTunes, YouTube, Video Games, Movies, or External Audio like from My DJ Mixer (Pioneer DJM 2000)

This has been the biggest pain for me
I don't care where you live, if you help me fix this, I will find a way to buy you a pack of beer.
 
Last edited:
Even though you are not using a PCI audio interface I would still recommend disabling the on board audio in BIOS just to see if it makes a difference.
 
T-Top said:
Thanks, I will try that! It is connecting to my FireWire card which IS in a PCI slot though
Click to expand...

Unfortunately connecting a FireWire interface to a FireWire card which is in a PCI slot is a bit different to connecting a PCI audio interface directly to the PCI BUS because the additional protocol has the potential to introduce unnecessary problems, same thing goes for adding a second hard drive for streaming audio, you don't want to use some middleman shit like USB when you can connect a SATA drive that will not place unnecessary strain on your CPU.
 
So I don't have an option to disable my on-board audio through the BIOS, so I disabled it through the device manager. Still having the same problem :(
 
Hopefully that means we can eliminate any conflict between the two audio interfaces as being the problem, what FireWire card are you using and did you try it in any different PCI slots?
 
Okay! Good news! I finally found the problem! I am now 100% certain it is my Wireless PCI card causing the issue. With everything else plugged in except for the wireless card, there are absolutely no issues.
I tired changing my wireless channel frequency on my router to Channel 1, 6, and 11 all of which made no difference.
I tried keeping my wireless card in and just not connected to a wireless network and it still gave me the same issue. leading me to believe the issue is caused by just having the card in the computer, and not the network I'm connecting to.

I tried disabling the wireless card from device manager and everything is working good.
So, the good news is I now know the cause of the problem, the bad news is I have no idea how to fix this :(

Any idea if there's anything I can do? Should I just try getting a USB wireless network adapter and see if that gives me the same problem?
 
Excellent, that's exactly what we were looking for, conflicting hardware. Ideally you want to give your firewire card IRQ address priority over your wireless card, you might be able to achieve this by swapping the cards around depending on what slots have priority or by making changes in the BIOS so you can hopefully avoid replacing an otherwise working wireless card.
 
I love to read your post as containing very impressive information. The audio will sound really choppy for 3-10 seconds, and it seems to happen at least once every 2 minutes. This seems to only happen with your DAW open. So you have just find the solution in the above thread.
 
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