Problems with Audio drivers

Cubase
1

Hello Peeps,

For five years I’ve been running the various versions of Cubase (V4 then V5 then V6) on a Carillon AC1 music PC with a M-Audio 2496 Audiophile sound card. The main problem I have always had is that for some reason, quite often, Cubase keeps reverting to using the DirectX ASio driver and not the M-Audio driver. First symptom is of course a huge jump in latency, then the VSTs start to misbehave and now most recently (yesterday) Cubase 6 just shuts itself down with no warning!

Over the years, there have been other issues as well where the sound just cuts off for no reason and the only solution I have is to open a completely new project and then reselect the M-Audio driver in Cubase.

I’ve read that M-Audio’s drivers are not great, to be quite honest if this is true, I’m getting to the point where maybe I should get rid of this sound card and invest in a new one and not from M-Audio.

I’m running Windows XP SP3 with 2GB RAM.

Please does anyone have any idea what this issue is?

2

Hi,

Have you checked all physical connections especially the card itself? I don’t have same system, but it does sound like it could be something like a loose PCI card or poor connection. If Cubase or Windows ‘loses sight’ of the card, then the symptoms you describe will occur

P.

3

Hello Mate


Thanks very much for your advice, I will give it a try and report back…

krgds

mike

4

Strangely enough… when i had a Delta1010 cubase would do exactly the same thing, seemingly at random…
Since swapping over to RME it’s not happened once!
COULD be a link with MAudio drivers?

Been a long time since i’ve seen that album cover too! Do you have the original release with the blue cover and blue vinyl out of interest?.. worth a few quid now! :wink:

5

Hello Mat,

Actually, I’ve just finished doing the following;

  1. I completely de-installed all the M-Audio drivers and also removed the audio card from the PC
  2. I then downloaded the latest driver (2007!!) for the 2496 from M-Audio’s website
  3. I closely followed M-Audio’s instructions and then ran the driver WITHOUT the audio card plugged in
  4. I shutdown the PC and then re-installed the audio card
  5. Powered the PC back up again and Windows Wizard found the new hardware and by default installed the M-Audio driver
  6. Opened up Cubase6 and now immediately Cubase has chosen the M-Audio driver and it will not allow me to change to the DirectX driver. This is very enouraging as I have never seen Cubase do this before!

The M-Audio website categorically states that you should install the driver software BEFORE you install the card so as to avoid driver conflicts. It’s so long ago now that I really don’t remember if I followed this, hence going through the above steps…

I’ll keep you posted and thanks for your interest.

Oh, and regarding Tubeway Army, the Blue Album, sadly, no I don’t have it in blue vinyl but I do have the album with the original blue cover and a blue label on the vinyl. Apparently, that’s a Dutch import, I’ve no idea how much it’s worth, probably a fraction of the blue vinyl version!

Take care and thanks again,

Mike

6

Just a quick update, the problem with the audio driver switching to a DirectX one continued and then I found that my PC had another audio driver installed on it by Carillon called “Realtek”. I’ve since removed this one in “Add/Remove Program” and this morning at least, I couldn’t reproduce the problem…Fingers crossed…

7

That’s the motherboard’s bult-in audio. I’m afraid it’s unlilkely to be the source of your problems. But you should also disable it in BIOS, otherwise the missing driver will become an error in Device Manager.

(Maybe Carillion had done this already but put the driver on the computer just in case you wanted to re-enable and use it?)

8

If your PC is five years old and has only 2gb ram, that may seriously be your problem. You need to look at the task manager while you’re running C6 and get an idea of what you’re doing with system resources. If you’re running flat out, you’ll need to swap out your mobo/cpu and get more ram. C6 is only supported on Windows 7 and you might want to think about overhauling your machine to 64 bit capability. Best of luck to you.

9

Hello Peregrine


Thanks very much for your advice. Been playing about over the weekend and been no audio driver problems so far. Also upgraded the RAM after my post and now there’s actually 2 X 512Mbs, 1 X 2Gbs and 1 X 1Gbs in the system now, though I’m told that XP can only address 3Gbs?

No errors in the Device Manager either after deleting the Realtek program…

There are problems when I try to load up the biggest piano’s (Bosendorfer) in Ivory from Synthogy though, and this seem to point to the RAM still being maxed out. Error messages are; run out of memory… etc.

Strangely, I’ve been monitoring the system performance and both the CPU and memory don’t seem to spike, though the ASIO monitor in Cubase sits at about 45% when I load up an Ivory Piano, Gforce’s and VSM and Oddity and then start playing those recorded tracks…

If I have the money next year, I will probably upgrade to a new AC1 as Carillon are back in business and I’ve been happy with this machine. Next year it will be 6 years old and I think it’s time for a new PC, as daunted as I am about having to start all over again building up the software… :frowning: