[CSMR]

A lot of USB soundcards including my current E-MU one have bugs related to Windows power modes (sleep, hibernate particularly).
People are not only having problems with E-MU (Amazon.com: C. Roddie "croddie"'s review of EMU 0202 USB 2.0 Audio Interface) but also TASCAM (Hangs Windows Computers on Standby or Hibernate - Tascam US-122 (tasus122) MIDI Adapter - Epinions.com) and M-Audio (No sleep/hibernate after driver install).

Does anyone know of one with drivers that don't have problems here? (On Windows 7.)

 

[Hybrys]

I still don't understand why people use rest/restore functions... Why not just power down when you're done? Or get an app to power down for you after an hour, if you fall asleep to it?

Rest/restore functions are terribly inefficient, cause lots of problems, and wear down your hardware faster than on offs... Is all that really worth the extra 3 seconds you gain from restoring?

 

[CSMR]

Well I guess I could explain it to you, although don't want to get sidetracked.
Sleep and hibernate modes preserve memory. Therefore you don't have to close applications and reopen when the system turns to normal. Applications retain their state. This is the key benefit.
They are not inefficient because they perform functions and save time and power... that's efficiency.
They don't cause problems if software is written correctly. The only thing that has caused problems in my experience is USB soundcard drivers, a combination of lazy programmers, and Microsoft not being strict about certification.
They will cause the hard drive to spin down... like turning off. That's the main piece of hardware that "wears down".
They save more than 3 seconds. Resume from sleep may take 2-3 seconds and I don't know anyone whose system boots up completely in 5 seconds. Even with an SSD and modern hardware you are at >20s boot-up and that's without loading apps (or remembering what you were doing with those apps and bringing them back to that state for that matter).

 

[Hybrys]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well I guess I could explain it to you, although don't want to get sidetracked. Sleep and hibernate modes preserve memory. Therefore you don't have to close applications and reopen when the system turns to normal. Applications retain their state. This is the key benefit. They are not inefficient because they perform functions and save time and power... that's efficiency. They don't cause problems if software is written correctly. The only thing that has caused problems in my experience is USB soundcard drivers, a combination of lazy programmers, and Microsoft not being strict about certification. They will cause the hard drive to spin down... like turning off. That's the main piece of hardware that "wears down". They save more than 3 seconds. Resume from sleep may take 2-3 seconds and I don't know anyone whose system boots up completely in 5 seconds. Even with an SSD and modern hardware you are at >20s boot-up and that's without loading apps (or remembering what you were doing with those apps and bringing them back to that state for that matter).

I can get from power button push to Firefox open in 12s on my dated P-7805u.

Most applications have SAVE functions to save the state.

Going to sleep causes large amounts of data to be written and read to/from the harddrive and ram, deteriorating the hardware faster than a responsible on/off cycle would. You're misunderstanding how sleep works. It doesn't just remember it. It takes a picture, then recreates it exactly. It's inefficient because while in sleep mode, the computer will still draw vampire power, where as powered off (and, ideally, removed from power source) it draws less/none. It doesn't save power, it uses more, unless you only take short breaks from your computer, instead of 4-10 hour sleep cycle breaks.

I used to be a computer technician, and sleep functions are the first things I disable when I get a new computer / repair a computer, then I teach the client responsible power management.

REGARDLESS, to pull your topic back on track, you'd need to find a USB sound card that completely releases the sound drivers, instead of maintaining them constantly. That's a start, I apologize for not being able to find something specific for you.

 

[CSMR]

OK I take the point on hard drive use, that's true for Vista which saves some data to hard drive. But I'm sure it's not a significant problem for hard drive failure, they can churn away all day (in some systems) for years without failing so churning for an extra few seconds a day can't be significant.
Applications rarely have a "save state" button, normally just save documents.

On topic:
Yes, turning the sound card off and on normally fixes any problems. That means it must be easy to write a working driver, no?

 

[Hybrys]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif On topic: Yes, turning the sound card off and on normally fixes any problems. That means it must be easy to write a working driver, no?

Yes and no. It SHOULD be simple to add a bit that makes the card go into a powersaving mode after 10 seconds of non-use, and thus suspending the driver until post-system wakeup. But, that depends on a LOT of things. I would expect the issue solved in a few months, and not taken as a high priority issue, but to be present in nearly any constant communicative USB device.

 

[CSMR]

Does anyone here have a compatible USB soundcard?

 

[gbacic]

It would be more effective to just get a cheap soundcard with optical/coax out so that you don't have to use drivers, and don't have to get a new DAC, no?

 

[CSMR]

I don't know what you mean, soundcard without drivers?
Looking for a normal USB soundcard with the basics: mic input, headphone and line outputs.

 

[Armaegis]

gbasic meant to get a sound card that didn't plug in directly via usb, taking input instead via optical or coax. However, this would require that your computer already has a digital out, otherwise you'll need another device to convert and that will likely have the same problems as a usb sound card in the first place.

 

[Canon]

I'm using a Firestone Audio Fubar II USB DAC with Windows 7 and I have not had any issues with suspend/resume functionality.

Just out of curiosity right now I tried putting the machine into sleep mode while music was playing. Upon resuming, the player was paused, I hit play and it works just fine.

 

[ericj]

I'd just like to state for the record that M-Audio devices are equally problematic in this regard.

 

[Armaegis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'd just like to state for the record that M-Audio devices are equally problematic in this regard.

I had an M-Audio Firewire Solo and it completely died after my computer went to sleep. Reinstalling didn't even work. I eventually just sold it.

 

[Writers Quill]

I got a dragonfly 1.2 and when I stop or pause the sound it misses the first few seconds of the audio when restarting a song or video. It almost acts as if it was asleep. It is lit up and getting power and my other USB sound cards don't do that when I use them on the same PC and ports. Any suggestions?

 

[castleofargh]

I'm going on a limb here, but did you try to tweak your usb power options?
I know it's easy to say like that, as it could be in your energy settings, in your device manager under the specific usb plug options, in the bios, or even some old jumper on a motherboard. all depending on what motherboard you hav (don't ask me I'm a noob for anything post 2002).
but I guess you could start by having a go at stuff saying something like "allow this computer to turn off this device to save power" or maybe "allow this device to wake up your computer".  now what setting is the right for you? I have no idea, maybe the DAC keeps getting 5V and uses that to know it's ON, maybe it's the opposite, because the 5V didn't stop coming, the DAC never knew the computer was ON again? I suggest trying both and see how it goes.
 
of course with proprietary drivers you never know exactly how things work, maybe asking the manufacturer would be the best way around this(given that they actually thought about it themselves)
 
 
on a side note, I'm also not a fan of sleep mode. it will always eats up some of my precious FPS in games and I'll have to reboot to get full perf again.(yeah first world problem ^_^)