Problems setting up a laptop for Guitar Rig

AlanRatcliffe

Hi all. I have a problem (no, penicillin will not help this time!).

I'm running GR successfully on an Acer Travelmate 2300 with a stripped down version of Win XP and an Edirol UA-25 USB interface. I just got an Acer Aspire 3500, which is a better model of the same thing: same processor (celeron 1.6GHz), same memory type and speed. Feature-wise the Aspire has a bigger and better screen and a built in wireless LAN card.

I installed a copy of XP (also stripped down with nLite) and Guitar Rig 3 as well as the drivers for the Edirol. Works pretty much as I expected, aside from clicks and a momentary audio dropout every few seconds - making it pretty much useless for audio.

All the usual XP audio tweaks have been done, BTW. I've also tried removing the wireless card to free up system resources, but the BIOS (upgraded to the latest version) does not allow me to disable other unneeded hardware at the BIOS level (like the built in soundcard, modem and PCMCIA slot) - I have to do that in Windows.

I had the same thing with the Travelmate, but cured it by changing the computer type to "Standard PC" instead of "ACPI uniprocessor PC" - I lost the use of one USB port doing so, but that wasn't a train smash. I've tried the same thing with the Aspire, but a conflict between the trackpad and "motherboard resources" causes the computer to lock up when the keyboard is used. BTW, I've tried it with the stock 512MB memory and also with the 1GB from the Travelmate.

So anyone else have any good ideas of anything else to try to cure this? The only other thing I can think of is to try set the computer type to "Standard PC" at XP install, rather than changing it after the fact. Worst comes to the worst, I carry on using the Travelmate and my daughter gets the Aspire.

Martyr

i have never heard this before,~~ALAN~~ has a problem ?

i never thought this day would come!!!to bad i can't help fix it ?

AlanRatcliffe

It happens to all of us at some point or another ?

I usually just futz with things until I came right or break them completely (either way is an educational experience ?). But I know there are others on the forum with much more knowledge in computers than I'll ever have, and if asking reduces the chances that I'll break something, it's worth a try. Know your limitations...

Martyr

so what is it that's the problem exactly?you trying to disable your onboard sound card?

could you put it in really basic english,sorry i'm trying to understand because my dad works at IBM and does repairs and works with laptops and will probably know what's wrong

AlanRatcliffe

I'm getting clicks in the audio (unrelated to latency, BTW) and dropouts (where the sound goes dead for a second. It's usually where the bus used for the audio interface is sharing resources with something else that is hogging the bus. Many computers you can force the computer to shuffle resources or turn off unneeded hardware, but I'm not having any luck doing so on this particular machine.

Martyr

ok,i'll ask him when he's not busy later on and see if he knows what's wrong

Renesongs

Have you tried:

1. Change sample rate (many sound cards perform better 48000 than at 44100)
2. Reinstall Edirol UA-25 drivers with aversion that is known to work (drivers don't always install correctly the first time, some updated drivers are worse than the originals)
3. Reinstall your motherboard chip set drivers in particular the USB 2 drivers.
4. A shot in the dark - Install and enable the laptops on board audio drivers - Windoze is a funny animal particularly when a piece that it expects to have goes missing - It may be dropping out because it is seeking the missing on board audio drivers

Hope one of those solves your problem if not I'll think of something else

AlanRatcliffe

Thanks Rene!

I'll try one or two of those.

1. The Edirol prefers the 44.1 setting over the 48 and the digital connection to the DAW works better too (I record at 24 bit, 44.1KHz).

2. Typically Roland, the drivers are still at V1.0 (not that they are lazy - they tend to only release them when they are right in the first place ?). I'll try reinstall them anyway as I integrated them into the install.

3. The chipset/USB drivers are all standard Windows ones - only LAN, VGA and audio drivers are needed for this model and there aren't other versions.

4. That's worth a try. Would never have thought of that one...

I've actually been fiddling in the meantime and have it running acceptably (but not optimally). By disabling Graphics acceleration and a few other additional tweaks I don't usually do, I have managed to get it running click free at a 7ms latency. I get a 1.5ms latency with the other laptop though, so I'm hoping to do better.

Michelle-Avenant

Edirol prefers the 44.1 setting over the 48

I noticed that on another Edirol USB interface - I thought was not setting it correctly - this on had a bollocksy little switch to change from 44.1 to 48 but I never got it up to 48 ☹

I have managed to get it running click free at a 7ms latency. I get a 1.5ms latency with

again that suggests to me that that you not at optimum sample rate, but if you can't change it you can't. Are you able to fiddle with any of the ASIO setting eg DMA buffer size. if so try halving or doubling the DMA.

Renesongs

In case you were wondering - The previos post was mine not Michelle's the kid has not got that savvy - yet ?

AlanRatcliffe

Geez, you really had me going there - for a moment I thought Michelle was even more of a chip off the old block than I'd realised.

Sorry I misspoke - the Edirol runs at 48K no better or worse than at 44.1, I just have issues when connecting it to my DAW via an optical connection as I am recording at 44.1.

I've now tried everything, tweezing the OS to within an inch of it's life and still no better than 7ms. I'm pretty sure that it's related to the IRQ sharing - all three of the USB hubs are on the higher numbers, as is the LAN, which means they are all sharing IRQ11. With the Travelmate, when I went to non-ACPI, the USB port went to IRQ6 with no sharing or conflicts and the problem disappeared.

So the final thing I'm going to try is to reinstall windows with the computer type set to Standard PC during install (rather than change it after install), which may allocate resources better.

Martyr

shame Rene....maybe you should've let her take the credit ?

Renesongs

Are you installing XP sp2 separately to XP, more importantly after installing drivers. The reason I say this is that the USB 2 drivers for XP only came out in sp2 and the order and availability of the IRQ's is determined on a first come first serve basis except for some special reserved IRQ's.

shame Rene....maybe you should've let her take the credit

Yeah then you guys would be well chaising her alright ?

Martyr

Yeah then you guys would be well chaising her alright Cheesy

lol...she's a bit young for me :-[ and i got a girlfriend already(also a muso ?)

Neps

just a quick question.. Your guitar rig is on the laptop, right? and youre recording to another computer via optical, right?

This could be that clocking issue we had a chat about a while ago. If your laptop runs on, lets say, 44.1 and the system youre recording to is running at 48, then youre going to have a problem. (but you know that!) However, who is the master in that link?

Audio clicks, sometimes can be because of clocking issues. The USB drivers can be stuffed, IRQ..I wonder.

Heath

Easiest way to reset the IRQ block is remove all the usb drivers from the device manager , restart the machine and go into the bios , select Reset PCI configuration , that will clear all of the PNP mappings . Then go back into windows .

some Considerations for laptops , Disable in the device manager devices you dont intended using such as wireless / NIC / PC CARD(loves to piggy back as well) / ON board sound and specially the firewire port (they love piggy backing off the USB host IRQ) . disabling them in the device manager stops windows from polling them . alot of notebooks share IRQ's by design and easy way to see and IRQ conflict is go into DEvice manager , click view and select resources by connection. if theres a conflict or shared irq , disable the device that is piggy backing off the IRQ .

Also the speed of the HDD might be a factor here as well , most machines have 5200 rpm drives , replacing it with a 7200 rpm will make a huge difference , since alot of buffering will occur on the Virtual memory (if you have one of cos)

Renesongs

What He said ?
OK Tailon you seem to be the man to ask re PC/Laptop stuff - feel free to jump in sooner with advice before we all make arses of ourselves *Rene bows to Computer master*

Neps

from now on im going to keep my mouth shut regarding computer issues... Tailon the computer god some might say..

AlanRatcliffe

Renesongs wrote: Are you installing XP sp2 separately to XP, more importantly after installing drivers.

SP2 with SP3 integrated using nLite. It's a USB1 interface, BTW (only 2-in, 2-out).

@Tailon. The Bios (Phoenix) is maddeningly "user-friendly", with no way to disable individual, unused hardware components like modem, cardbus or unused ports to free up resources (which is what I would usually do before installing XP) or reset the PCI bus. The only "reset" takes the whole BIOS back to default. About the only things you can do is choose how much memory the VGA takes (32 or 64MB), passwords and device boot order.

If I follow you correctly, I can disable the unneeded components in device manager, which will free up the IRQs they were using, uninstall the USB ports and then reboot, reset the BIOS, and reboot - at which time Windows will reinstall the USB ports, hopefully assigning them the freed up lower IRQs? I'm busy reinstalling XP now (the "Standard PC" thing was a disaster), so I'll give that a try. Otherwise, I'll give up and stick with what I've got that works already.

I'm also thinking maybe I should build a rack PC (with an Antec Take 3 case) that is powerful enough to run all my softsynths, Recording software and Guitar Rig all at once without falling over.

Renesongs

It's a USB1 interface, BTW (only 2-in, 2-out).

Using USB 1 protocol ??? I'm surprised your latency isn't measured in minutes ?