UR interfaces audio drop outs (follow-up thread)

Steinberg Hardware UR Series
41

I am also unable to use the UR22 any longer due to dropouts so I deleted the newest UR22 driver and installed the driver for the UR12 from the disk and started using my UR12. The problem has been solved.

Although this is probably unrelated I thought I would mention it. The UR12 uses RCA connectors and my cable had 1/4" jacks going to speakers without any problems with audio. When I started using the UR22 which has 1/4" audio out, I used the same cable and plugged the RCA end into ROKIT unbalanced receptors, however, this wiring picked up the sounds of the computerā€™s activity. Going back to the UR12 has solved dropouts and all of the interference.

I have a Lenovo tower with AMD A10-7800 Radeon R7, 12GB Ram with Windows 10.

42

Hi all. I just created account to share with you how i resolved my drop outs problem. I have UR22. On my rig i have 2 components to connect to the internet: 1. WiFi PCI Adapter and 2. Internet Bridge NETGEARā€™s Universal N300. Both were turned on. When i disabled Wifi PCI Adapter drop outs were totally gone.

My rig:
Asrock Z77 Extreme4
Intel i7 4770k
8GB RAM
Windows 7 64bit

43

Hey ED,

hope you are well?

I couldn`t use the unit correctly since I received it on my birthday (13th March 2016) as gift from my family! Pretty sad;

I`m also not able to send it back, because 30 day money back warranty is over (and like I said, it was a gift from my parents in Germany and they bring it to me to NL).

i just request the refund of the UR22. I hope, there will be a solution from Steinberg related to this request!

Best regards,

Mike

44

I used my UR22MKII for a couple of months fighting with drop outs in BIOS. Then I completely reinstalled LAN drivers on my MOBO and since then I have not noticed any issues. I have tried stressing the system with AIDA 64, opening a few youtube instances, starting MP Classic, launching Cubase 7.5 at the same time :astonished: - no problems occurred. Have not experienced any drop outs for a couple of days, though. Hope it can help. :slight_smile:

Two weeks gone. The problem retuns. :angry:

45

After spending a ton of money upgrading to x99, you can imagine my near apoplectic rage when I discovered I had this problem, especially after nearly 4 years of flawless performance on the x79 platform.

However, I seem to have fixed my issue (will report back if I happen to be proven wrong any time soon), so for the sake of helping of even one person, Iā€™ll first post my system components, then detail my fix.


i7 5820k OCā€™d to 4.3ghz on an MSI Gaming7 X99a motherboard
MSI GTX 970 ME
32 gigs of G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series DDR4 RAM
Netgear A2600 wireless adapter
Windows 10 Enterprise edition
UR824 interface

I havenā€™t even installed my DAW or plugins yet, and I was getting dropout in playback from Foobar, as well as whatever the crap that new Windows music app is.

Two things appear to have worked for me, though I suspect the latter is probably the true fix.

Run this utility

and unpark your cores.

Also, go to Power & Sleep>Additional Power Settings>(select)High Performance, and then Change Plan Settings>Change Advanced Power Settings>Processor power management, and set minimum and maximum processor states to 100%

Now, itā€™s highly likely all I just did was provide you with a guide to unparking your cores and giving your system as much CPU horsepower as Windows will allow, but what I suspect mostly did the trick for me is, drum rollā€¦

Switching to a USB 2.0 port. Specifically one of the ones on my case front connected via the jumper section on the motherboard (not the moboā€™s hardwired 2.0 ports, which are occupied by my mouse and keyboard for the sake of cord length).

Will see what happens after I install audio software and put this puppy through itā€™s paces, but for now my problems appear to be solved.

At some point, I plan to try a PCIE USB 2.0 adapter card so I can free up the occupied 2.0 port on my case front, so I will report back with that finding as well, though it make take a while due to my current financial quagmire.

Hope this helps,

Cheers!

UPDATE

While this fix worked for several hours for me, eventually the problem returned.

Iā€™m going to to test the system with a Focusrite 18i20 over the next few days, will report back findings.

46

:slight_smile:ā€¦

I wait since 9 days for an answer from the support related to my ticket!

Unit not able to use without issues and the support donā€™t reply yetā€¦

Honestly?

Mike

47

It took over 2 weeks for them to reply my support request. And then i was directed to the forum and this thread. If that ā€œhelpsā€. :unamused: Not sure, i was always content with their support, usually it was quick and competent, but that was a bit weird i must admit. Donā€™t expect a solution, thatā€™s all i can say.

48

Not nice!

49

Update from my previous post:

Testing with an 18i20 was inconclusive, as I was unable to even get the 18i20 running.

HOWEVER, and I hesitate to even post this, lest I jinx myself, but I believe Iā€™ve located the issue and it is with Intelā€™s networking drivers for their integrated LAN hardware. Uninstalling the device from Device Manager fixed this for me (fingers crossed that I didnā€™t just jinx myself).

Hope this helps!

50

I found the solution for me:

First I used the UR22mkII with my ASUS N55SF Laptop without any issue ever. for months.

Then I upgraded my PC with a new motherboard/CPU and a new graphics card and connected the interface.

There I had drop outs pretty often especially while gaming, but also when just listening to music sometimes.

I tried powering the interface externally and got a quality USB cable but this didnā€™t help a lot either.

Then I got myself a new power supply. First a LC-Power. This already solved the drop out problem, but I had to exchange it because of noise.
Now I have a beQuiet 850W power supply.

I have since NEVER had any drop out anymore.

I really think you guys should consider a power supply, even if you are not on a limit power wise.

Hope this helps a few of you.

51

Thanks for the hint, tagomago! A faulty or even just insufficient power supply can be the reason for many errors and crashes on a system. Make sure to have a PSU with enough headroom.

52

I just bought a ur22MKII, and Im having same issues with a Dell laptop, integrated Intel graphics, Win 10 64 bit, 8 gb ram. My previous interface was a cheap Samson usinG asio4ALL, but it worked fine. Now I cant watch youtube videos without repeated dropouts, and the dropouts also occur in Bias FX. The USB light blinks when the audio drops. Ive disabled everything I can, all power management, Speed boosts, etc. Tried all 3 USB ports. Tried old driver and new. Different USB cable. I cant disable my wifi, because i use it. And my internal sound card can play videos and music fine, so this one should at least be able to do that. Disappointed so far. I hope theres a solution,

53

You could at least try it, and see if itā€™s working without dropouts then. Mind that you have to disable your wifi adapter, not your wifi.

54

Iā€™ve been researching/troubleshooting this audio dropout issue for hours, frustrated that I was getting the dropouts right out of the box. I was about to give up and get something else because I figure if you buy something thatā€™s ā€œsupposedā€ to be good, generally it should work properly and be goodā€¦ and Iā€™m obviously not the only one dealing with this issue. Anyway, I hope Iā€™m not jumping the gun here but after about giving up I switched out the USB cable that came with the unit for the one I was using previously with my Line 6 UX1 (because I knew it worked at least)ā€¦ and so far, after about 30-45 minutes of listening to audio I havenā€™t had any dropouts. I seriously hope it stays this way. If that was the fix, itā€™s good but very frustrating still, especially that something that seems so baffling could be so simple. Just throwing this out there to see if it helps anyone else.

55

Are you using the 22 or which model?

56

Hi guys,

I decided to make an account to share my experience with the UR22mkii.

I purchased one last week, and out of the box, it was dropping out.
The USB light would flicker at the time of dropout and was exactly the issue that was being described in the previous thread and in this one.

Sometimes it will last 3 minutes, sometimes 5 seconds, then a dropout, intermittently for 1-2 seconds.

I tried just about everything I could.
I followed various ideas in the thread, I tried using a wall adapter for the power, I tried updating drivers and managed to crash my OS of Windows 10.
I spent 4-5 days trying to work it out, I almost returned it as DOA.
Then I tested it on an old mac laptop running Windows 10, and it worked without issue.

After trying just about everything software wise, I decided to try a new PSU for my PC.
Just like that, the dropouts are gone.
I had a 500W PSU in my system (a few years old now).
I bought a cheap, new 600W PSU for $40 AUD.
Fitted it and the interface is running flawlessly in Windows 10 now.

Seriously, if itā€™s dropping out, try the power supply.
My machine was built in 2007, and itā€™s still going strong.

Donā€™t listen to anyone try to tell you itā€™s software/buffering issue, no.
I had someone trying to tell me it was the AMD processor/buffering issue.
Go with your gut.

All the best.

Cam

57

Hello,

I just bought this soundcard. I also have random cuts sounds

My system :

Windows 10 Pro (clean install)
Intel i5 3570K (no overclock)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 (last BIOS)
16 Go DDR3
SSD Intel 330 serie - 240 Go
2 HDD (1.5 To and 2.0 To)

Before buying the UR22 mk2, I listen my music on my integrated sound card to the motherboard (ACL892) with ASIO4All:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=28&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=284

Iā€™ve never had these cuts.

I followed the instructions on the first page but nothing changes. I tried changing the buffer as well as the sample rate. I also changed the USB cable that is bigger and has a ferrite around. The problem persists.

I just lost ā‚¬ 129 :imp:

58

Just had a weekend with audio dropouts (for smaller buffers <= 256) on my new UR22mk2, Optimizing Windows 7 improved things a little bit, but still too many dropouts. What really helped finally was to disable the ā€œuse multi-coreā€ option in Ableton. This is on an i7-4600U. Now, with multi-core disabled, everything runs fine, down to 64 samples as buffer size.
I donā€™t know if this is a problem with the Yamaha driver or with Ableton, but I thought I should let you know. Maybe someone else with problems can try this.

59

LatencyMon results:

REPORTED ISRs

Highest ISR routine execution time (Āµs): 43,981203
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y

2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0,336272
Driver with highest ISR total time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y

2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0,431453


REPORTED DPCs

Highest DPC routine execution time (Āµs): 168,454887
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: ACPI.sys - Controlador ACPI para NT, Microsoft

Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 3,828749
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y

2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 4,598727


PER CPU DATA

_
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 1,041409
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (Āµs): 32,778195
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 0,086024
CPU 0 ISR count: 51867
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (Āµs): 168,454887
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 0,848781
CPU 0 DPC count: 118734

_
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 0,831271
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (Āµs): 43,981203
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0,063129
CPU 1 ISR count: 17735
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (Āµs): 165,315789
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 0,740999
CPU 1 DPC count: 43013

60

Hello,

I have similar problems with my brand new UR22.

System description:

Dell Studio 1555 @2,13 Ghz - 4GB RAM - Windows7 SP1 64bits - Intel Mainboard - Yamaha driver 1.9.8

Things that I experienced:

  • Random audio cuts with Ableton Live 9.6 or Cubase AI 8.
  • Duration: 2 to 5 seconds, Rate: 1-3 per minute aprox @ 44100Hz, 1024bits. Sometimes they donā€™t happen for minutes and sometimes I have 2 or 3 in a 10 seconds interval. Normally the sound is faded out and in (no hard cuts).
  • Very rare audio cuts when using Winamp, Windows Media, VLC and other players.
  • No sound cuts with internal audio (disconnecting the UR22).
  • No CPU load problem: the VU meters are working and reproduction not stopped (with Ableton Live,
    Winamp, etc), but the audio is not reproduced by the UR22.
  • Same problem observed using the headphone output of the UR22.
  • LatencyMon results: USBPORT.sys and ACPI.sys (see details below)
  • I canā€™t see any related events or processes taking more CPU or memory when the sound cuts happen.
  • I canā€™t really see any relation of the audio cuts with midi or key events, but they happen more often when the activity is higher (recording instruments, play-stop, etc).
  • I canā€™t see any dependency between the audio cut rate and the buffer size.
  • There are lots of additional of audio cuts of different nature (shorter duration, with cracks and pops) if I activate multicore processor in Ableton CPU options.

Things that I already tried and didnā€™t help:

  • Loading the GPU (video acceleration) seems to prevent audio cuts for a while, but Iā€™m still not sure how to reproduce it.
  • Using different USB cables and USB ports (all 2.0)
  • Updating drivers, BIOS, disabling unnecessary HW (wifi) and Windows services, antivirus, windows
    update, etc.
  • Changing windows energy options (processor minimum state at 100%), etc. Selecting ā€œmaximum performanceā€ power mode didnā€™t help.
  • Changing Ableton process priority to high.
  • Using 5V power source of UR22.
  • Using laptop only with battery / AC adaptor.

Can someone help me, please? I am losing a lot of time with this issue!

Cheers.
Antonio