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Problem with my USB fed Micro DAC

post #1 of 25
10/23/07 at 6:26am
Thread Starter 
Actually, its almost definitely NOT a problem with my DAC. I have a laptop that runes XP SP2. Its a very good and powerful laptop but whenever i use my DAC (using the usb line in) i get sound "hiccups" every minute or so and once every 10 minutes or so Foobar will freeze up and have to be restarted. I get the same Foobar error log every time:

Illegal operation:
Code: C0000005h, flags: 00000000h, address: 7C918FEAh
Access violation, operation: write, address: 00000010h
Call path:

This is the first crash logged by this instance.
Code bytes (7C918FEAh):
7C918FAAh: 0B 64 A1 18 00 00 00 0F B6 4D 0B 89 88 84 0F 00
7C918FBAh: 00 38 1D 30 C0 97 7C 0F 85 CC 04 00 00 A0 48 C1
7C918FCAh: 97 7C F6 D8 57 1B C0 F7 D0 25 40 C1 97 7C 8B F8
7C918FDAh: 8B 46 10 3B C3 89 45 FC 0F 84 9E 00 00 00 8B 06
7C918FEAh: FF 40 10 8B 45 FC 83 E0 01 89 45 E8 8B 06 FF 40
7C918FFAh: 14 F6 05 F0 02 FE 7F 01 0F 85 E6 92 02 00 39 5D
7C91900Ah: E8 57 53 0F 85 AC DE 01 00 FF 75 FC E8 99 59 FF
7C91901Ah: FF 3D 02 01 00 00 0F 84 53 93 02 00 3B C3 0F 8C
Stack (0577FE14h):
0577FDF4h: 7C919B3F 7C97C0D8 7C919AEB 00FC1964
0577FE04h: 01023FE8 0000FFFF 7FFDF000 00266690
0577FE14h: 00000010 01023F28 00000000 00000000
0577FE24h: 00000010 00000010 01023F28 0001FE80
0577FE34h: 7FFD6000 7FFDA000 003C7F70 00000000
0577FE44h: 0577FDF4 FFFFFFFF 00000002 0577FDE8
0577FE54h: 0577FF1C 0577FEE8 7C839AA8 7C8095D8
0577FE64h: FFFFFFFF 7C809512 7C80A075 00000002
0577FE74h: 0577FEFC 00000000 FFFFFFFF 00000000
0577FE84h: 00000214 0577FEF4 7C90104B 00023F80
0577FE94h: 00FAB2BD 01023F80 FC88C4D5 0013F544
0577FEA4h: 0013F7C0 01023FE8 FFFFFFFF 80004B4F
0577FEB4h: 8053448D 00FF0002 FFFFFFFF 00000002
0577FEC4h: 0000000F 0000000A 01025700 A7FD6D14
0577FED4h: 00000220 00FF0002 00000000 0000000F
0577FEE4h: 0577FE9C 0577FF9C 00FBEDE8 FFFFFFFF
0577FEF4h: B8CCED91 0577F9C0 00000218 0000021C
0577FF04h: 0577FE7C 01023F28 00000002 00000018
0577FF14h: 00000002 00000044 504F5453 663D6320
0577FF24h: 000A6F6F 7C90EE18 0000000B 0000000F
Registers:
EAX: 00000000, EBX: 00000000, ECX: 00000214, EDX: 01023F90
ESI: 01023F80, EDI: 00000000, EBP: 0577FE88, ESP: 0577FE14
[/SIZE]

I get hiccups and freezes with any other audio program but not as much as with Foobar. I have tried using my laptop's audio out jack to see if it is just the programs, but they worked perfectly then. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
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post #2 of 25
10/23/07 at 9:16am
Ok, so you connect the USB dac to the computer, how do you call the DAC from within Foobar?

With Directsound, Asio, Kernel Streaming?

What DAC are we talking about?

Does it happen on every USB port?

Have you tried putting a USB hub between the PC and the DAC?

If you give a bit more information we can at least narrow it down a bit.
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post #3 of 25
10/23/07 at 10:28am
I believe he is using the Headroom Micro DAC.
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post #4 of 25
10/23/07 at 11:22pm
Thread Starter 
Yes, its the Headroom Micro DAC. I have tried multiple ports on my computer and all have the same result. I put a hub between the comp and the dac and that *seemed* to help but i cannot be sure that it wasn't in my imagination. I'm using a plain-jane direct sound output from foobar.
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post #5 of 25
10/26/07 at 4:13pm
Thread Starter 
bump. Please help. Also, I am thinking of getting a Echo Indigo DJ PCMCIA sound card but I want to know how good it is. I have a good setup and I really want to have good equipment but I as I stated above, I never heard much improvement between my laptop's built in DAC and the Micro DAC. Is there supposed to be a huge improvement? Is there a more laptop friendly DAC solution that sounds as good (preferably better) than my current DAC?
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post #6 of 25
10/30/07 at 7:33pm
Thread Starter 
Bump again. Please help me get my DAC working.
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post #7 of 25
10/30/07 at 7:48pm
I hate to suggest this, but... try a reformat?
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post #8 of 25
11/1/07 at 10:33am
Ok, so I think you should try to mix this up a bit more to see where the problem originates.

I have seen similar issues with USB out when using ASIO when more then one card was enabled, but that is not the case for you.

Anyway I suggest you try to use a different player and see what happens.

It doesn't matter which one, just use the windows media player and see what happens.

If the other player stutters or cuts out as well then it is hardware, if the other player works it is the foobar player (or one of its components).

Try it and respond back to what happens.
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post #9 of 25
11/3/07 at 9:42pm
Thread Starter 
It still happens regardless of what media player I use. I used WMP and VLC and they both stuttered and hiccuped. As with Foobar, the hiccups mostly happen when I minimize or manipulate (change window sizes) tasks. The hiccups do not always happen during these events though.
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post #10 of 25
11/4/07 at 7:05am
Ok, stuttering but no more crashes...

This sounds like a standard Windows problem, that regardless of how powerful the machine is it has problems with distributing the load, so that during times of higher load on the IO system (NOT really the processor) it does not serve the player as much as needed.

Can you try and give the player higher priority and see what happens then?
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post #11 of 25
11/4/07 at 7:47am
Stuttering sounds like a Kernel Streaming problem. I just tried that plugin for Foobar and it caused that problem. Go to Foobar's site, download the ASIO plug-in, download ASIO4ALL (I forget what the link is), and see if that works. It takes a bit of setting up, but there's a thread on that here, too.

It could also be that your DAC is getting a low-voltage signal from your computer, OR, silence in your audio tracks is not being read by your DAC.
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post #12 of 25
11/4/07 at 1:42pm
Thread Starter 
How do I change the priority of my media players?
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post #13 of 25
11/4/07 at 2:35pm
Cyarron,

you need to go to the task manager, select the player, right click and select go to process, on that process right click again and select priority, set to above normal.
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post #14 of 25
11/4/07 at 3:57pm
The problem is not with the MicroDAC but with the drivers and most likely your laptop latency setup. What do you use for playback? Get ASIO4ALL and set it up properly, there is a thread floating around explaining how to do that, search for "ASIO4ALL" in thread title.
You need to play with latencies, try to turn off your network card, esp wi-fi, if you have one, and see if that helps.
If that's latency problem you need to adjust it to prioritize USB a bit. http://www.geocities.com/phileosopho...cilatency.html

Another useful resource
http://members.optushome.com.au/skinah/clicknpops.htm

On more, USB cable, depending on you amp PSU topology, might close the ground loop. Try to lift the amp ground with the cheater plug, that should help with buzz and clicks.
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post #15 of 25
11/5/07 at 3:38am
Thread Starter 
Changing the priority of Foobar didn't help. For playback I use direct output to the MicroDAC. What is ASIO4ALL anyway?
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