1 (edited by ronan.teva 2016-05-29 08:59:16)

Topic: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Hello,

How can I fix audio glitches with HDSPe AIO when moving windows around the screen ?

I checked connections, ground and ground loop. I insulated the L bracket of the card. I switched cards between various PCIe slot. I tried 3 differents video cards. No improvement.

The best solution so far is to install a generic vga driver. There are always some weird audio glitches but it's better.

Win 7 64bit
Nvidia GTX770
HDSPe AIO (sn=23192095 rev=14 latest driver)

It's a bit frustrating to have issue like this with a RME audio PCIe card.

Sorry for my english.

Help please. smile

Thank you

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Where do you hear the glitches, speakers or headphones?

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

I hear the noise on both analog output and headphone out.

I will try with a Matrox fanless lowpower video cards soon.

So far I deal with it but if someone had a simple solution it will be great.

Thank you for your interest Timur.

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Can you try the PC in another house with different electrification or the RME card in another computer // in another loction ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

I'll try that and keep you inform.

Here is a recording of the analog output. It's a simple A tone.
The noise occurs when I moved windows around the screen. In this exemple it was a bypassed vst plugin.

https://soundcloud.com/ron754/output-noise/s-BlCXF

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Where is this beep from ??? Maybe a faulty project / vst ?

What happens if you use the interface for simple audio playback ?
Use i.e. MusicBee player, which supports ASIO driver, to playback a mp3 or flac file.

What happens if you use a fresh DAW project with no plugins.
Use the RME ASIO driver.
Use only one input and the main out where the nearfield monitors are connected through.

Save the settings of Totalmix and eventually also reset TotalMix FX:
TM -> Options -> Reset Mix -> Total Reset.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

The beep was created with a tone generator. It's a A note, 440Hz base frequency sine wave. I' ve just play it back and record it with a simple loop. It was a newly created DAW project. I use Reaper.

With Foobar,  other music player and RME ASIO drivers it's the same when i moved windows around the screen.

On headphone the noise is more like cracks ( I don't know if it's the correct word: in french "craquements")

8 (edited by Timur Born 2016-05-28 09:01:46)

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

If the noise also happens when you don't use the HDSPe at all (no audio software running) then the source likely is the computer (components). What happens is that the ground lines are polluted with computer noise by various load states. Especially graphic-cards induce lots of this, but also USB (mouse movement). The base frequencies depend on the source (USB frequency, GPU frame-rate), a 125 Hz mouse will sound different than a 1000 Hz mouse, for example. The level of the noise usually depends on the load of the component responsible (higher GPU load at same frame-rate increases noise levels). And then there are modulation effects that alter the sound of the noise, if the sound keeps altering then it's often easier to discern.

Where the speakers are concerned this is ground-loop related. If you break pin 1/shield on (one side of) the XLR cables to the speakers the noise should be gone. There are (overpriced) adapters available for this, but you can just literally cut the wire of pin 1 (usually on the speaker's side of the cable). Using an optical digital connection in between also helps, if you have the means to do so.

One thing to know about is that there are several ground-loops in effect at the same time, which leads to combing effects. Especially the connection between graphic-card and display can have much of an effects. Try disconnecting everything but the bare necessities from the computer, then change the power-plugs around on your power-strips. Try display, speakers and computer on the same power-strip and also try changing one or two into a different power-strip. The run-times of the different ground-noise signals (loops) can change by this and thus you may get cancellations that lowers the noise-floor.

Sometimes external synthesizers connected to the system can be a problem, depending on their power-supply. On Gearslutz one guy had problems with two out of four synths, a DI box with ground-lift helped there.

Where the headphones we first have to make sure that the speakers can be cleaned up when you break the ground connection before we can look at the headphones. It's strange that the headphones would sound like cracks, though. Are you sure that this isn't a problem of audio buffers or PCI slots being used? Does that happen with all buffer sizes?

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Lifting ground, or using a DI box as no effect for me. I already tried different power strip too.

This morning I've juste activated "Show window contents while dragging" in the Windows performance settings and the noise is gone. It appears only when notification pops in the taskbar or when I let my cursor on an icon for a few seconds. It seems to be related to my graphic card, transparency or some graphic hardware acceleration issue. I'm not an expert.

Thank to all for your advices. I'll investigate.

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Where did you lift the ground? This part was only about connecting external equipment. For the speakers you need to break pin 1/shield on the cable to the amp/powered speakers, there is no way around it (other than going optical in between).

The graphic-card creates the noise on its ground line, which then travels over all ground lines on the computer, including the AIO and everything connected. Inside the powered speakers ground is connected to earth, which then forms a loop with the earth line of the computer power-supply, which is connected to computer grounds. Same for the GPU + display and possibly other external stuff.

Breaking pin 1/shield breaks the line over which said noise travels towards earth and thus breaks the loop that is affecting the speakers.

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Cool partialy fixed !

Breaking ground pin between output and speaker seems to work. I've just got some noise in my headphone but with graphics setting previously mentioned it's much more useable.

I probably will test with a Matrox video card when I have one on hand.

Thank you Timur

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

Although it looks the be the graphics card, it can also be the cpu throttling you are hearing. If you know how , try to disable speedstepping and all C states (C1 C1e etc in the bios, mostly under CPU advanced). This is something you want to disable anyway on a DAW.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
Babyface pro fs, HDSP9652+ADI-8AE, HDSP9632

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

In this case you need to look to allow for custom settings and disable by this any potential predefined power profiles in the BIOS. Then disable EIST / Speedstep and Turbo Boost. Disable C-States if possible. Or only allow C0 which is max power.
Disable any C3 or C6 report if there is an option like this. Completely disable T-states.
Look whether you have Spread Spectrum which is something based on EU norms.
It slightly varies clock to prevent electronic noise.
1st try to get a steady clock, which doesnt change as suggested. You can measure this with CPU-Z (CPU Voltage, CPU clock).
In regards to Spread Spectrum settings: My preferred setting is to disable it, as changing the clock might cause latency and might rob a little from CPU performance. But maybe you can try to enable it, whether it cures some of your problems. If it doesnt help disable it for best performance.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

14 (edited by Timur Born 2016-05-29 16:31:16)

Re: [SOLVED] HDSPe AIO weird audio noise

You can easily rule out CPU based noise by switching to the "Power Saver" power profile. This lowers the CPU clocks and thus the level of CPU based noise. Usually C1E is the more prominent noise source compared to C3 and C7, not every BIOS allows to disable it, though (a software called Throttlestop can help).

Since breaking pin 1 helps with the speakers you might need to contact RME about your headphone output (also point them to this thread).