Old 07-22-2009, 10:05 AM   #1
jtnavia
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Default Will installing DuXP help me?

Hi I'm new to the forums and I know many of you must know the slipstreamed and stripped XP that Dux made. Right now I am running an regular installation of XP and have been experiencing dropouts outside of my DAW as well as inside. I recently found out it was the wireless adapter and I have to disable it in the device manager in order to not get dropouts. I want to be able to use wireless at the same time as do music, so do you think Dux's XP would help? Thanks in advance.

Last edited by jtnavia; 07-22-2009 at 07:00 PM.
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Old 07-22-2009, 10:22 AM   #2
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Welcome to Reaper!

I don't think so, those W-LAN dropouts are usually caused by high DPC counts and at most drivers (for WLAN, chipset etc.) and/or BIOS updates can fix that, in some cases only changing the W-LAN card helped, in other cases nothing helps and sometimes (on multiband W-LAN adapters) disabling the obsolete "A" band helps a bit. OTOH a lean and freshly installed OS may help improving some things though but if and how you can get rid of your W-LAN DPC spikes depends on the specific computer. Let me guess, you have a Dell laptop?
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Old 07-22-2009, 11:16 AM   #3
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Nah...it's an HP. I think that's worse haha. Well, these audio dropouts only occur with my USB audio interface and not my onboard soundcard. I have already updated my BIOS and WLAN drivers but I noticed that the WLAN and USB are on virtual IRQs. Does that make a difference? They aren't on the same one, but the USB's IRQ is higher than the WLAN. Perhaps reinstalling either normal XP or Dux's XP will put them (or at least the USB) on physical IRQs and that will solve the problem?

Edit: I recently found out that if two devices are on virtual IRQs, there may be a conflict regardless of the number because they may be sharing the same physical IRQ. I think the solution to this problem is to disable devices in the BIOS I do not need in order to free up physical IRQs, then reinstall XP with Dux's XP or the regular one (probably Dux's). Then I can hope the USB controller as well as the wireless NIC are on separate physical IRQs.

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Old 07-22-2009, 03:19 PM   #4
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If nothing else helps, installing Windows 7 RC may just fix your problem, it fixed the audio dropouts and glitches on my laptop when using my USB audio interface.
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Old 07-22-2009, 04:09 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtnavia View Post
Nah...it's an HP. [...] I have already updated my BIOS and WLAN drivers but I noticed that the WLAN and USB are on virtual IRQs. Does that make a difference? They aren't on the same one, but the USB's IRQ is higher than the WLAN. Perhaps reinstalling either normal XP or Dux's XP will put them (or at least the USB) on physical IRQs and that will solve the problem?
Hmm... if a new BIOS doesn't do the trick, installing XP or maybe W7 may help (see here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=36464, there are/were a few HP models (what is your model exactly?) where a borked HW resource configuration caused audio trouble in lieu of the usual DPC problems).
Virtual and shared IRQs are usually not a big deal as long it's not 2 bus bandwidth munching devices that share but many computers really suck with Vista and maybe you're lucky.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jtnavia View Post
Edit: I recently found out that if two devices are on virtual IRQs, there may be a conflict regardless of the number because they may be sharing the same physical IRQ. I think the solution to this problem is to disable devices in the BIOS I do not need in order to free up physical IRQs, then reinstall XP with Dux's XP or the regular one (probably Dux's). Then I can hope the USB controller as well as the wireless NIC are on separate physical IRQs.
AFAIK there's no way (at least not on modern laptops due to the lack of BIOS support or means to change bus "slot" positions) to change the IRQ assignment in a controlled way and disabling services doesn't affect that at all. Physically disabling (in the BIOS) devices (cardreader, webcam, bluetooth etc. all less important onboard peripherals) before installing the naked OS and turning them back on one by one in the course of the remaining installation steps may or may not have more influence on that, but again not in a predictable way.

I wouldn't invest too much time into this though since W-LAN and low latency audio is an absolute no go (you'll have to live with some clicks at least) on 7 of 10 computers (educated guess). If you must use the good old NIC instead, they are often less nasty.

Edit: Did you ever check that laptop with DPClat.exe (http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe)?

Last edited by Ollie; 07-22-2009 at 04:12 PM.
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Old 07-22-2009, 05:36 PM   #6
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Yeah I decided it's too much of a hassle to re-install XP. It's more trouble than it's worth as I have many software that would be a PITA to re-install. Regular wired LAN works perfect anyway. My exact model the HP Elitebook 6930p, so it's pretty high up there. I've used DPC latency checker and when my wireless is on it would stay consistently at about 50 - 150 with the occassional spike of about 500, which probably causes the brief dropout/click/crackle. Now, after disabling wireless, I get about 40 - 120 without any small spikes. This stays the same after disabling all network devices.
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Old 07-22-2009, 05:47 PM   #7
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The easiest way to test some stuff is to make a new hardware profile.

Control panel System > Hardware > Hardware profiles

Copy your current profile and rename it to something like "Audio"

Restart pc and boot in to the new "audio" profile.

Go to Control panel System > Hardware > Device manager

Disable your internet wlan ethernet webcam and anything else you don't need. BE CAREFUL!

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

DL the latency checker and run it in both profiles and notice the difference in latency.

In my audio profile with the dux xp I make simple batch files to start and stop services that aren't needed when recording.

Make sure "hide extenstions for known file types" is UNTICKED in : My computer > Tools > Folder options

Create a new .txt and paste the following :

net stop "Dhcp"
net stop "TrkWks"
net stop "Dnscache"
net stop "Netman"
net stop "Nla"
net stop "lanmanserver"
net stop "SSDPSRV"
net stop "LmHosts"
net stop "TermService"
net stop "SharedAccess"
net stop "stisvc"
net stop "lanmanworkstation"

Save the file and rename it to "stopnet.bat"

Make another new .txt and paste the following :

net start "Dhcp"
net start "TrkWks"
net start "Dnscache"
net start "Netman"
net start "Nla"
net start "lanmanserver"
net start "SSDPSRV"
net start "LmHosts"
net start "TermService"
net start "SharedAccess"
net start "stisvc"
net start "lanmanworkstation"

Save the file and rename it to "startnet.bat"

You will now have two batch files that will start and stop the main services used for your internet.

Go to Start > Run > type services.msc and you can look up each service in the above batch files for a description of what each one does.

If you are unsure, make a back up, use at your own risk!

I normally set all the above services to "Manual"

When you run the stop batch file a cmd window will pop up nd show the progress, a couple of the services will ask you if you want to stop then, type a y and press enter for each one.

Test your latency again with all the services stopped in your new hardware profile. When you go to your normal profile, use the start bat to restart the services so you can use the internet.

It also helps a lot to disable all programs that are running at start up in your audio profile, you can do this with a program liek startright :

http://www.joejoesoft.com/cms/showpage.php?cid=113

You can enable and disable programs at will using this simple prog, instructions on the site.

This post is a bit random and should point you in the right direction, it's been a long day but hopefully some of the above helps! I will try to add some more tomorrow if I have time!
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Old 07-22-2009, 06:09 PM   #8
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Update: I tried updating the quick launch buttons in the thread that Steindork posted earlier...it didn't make a difference.

Thanks for the tip Coerce. I'll be sure to try it out and see what happens.

Update (again): Running the batch files still caused crackles in audio. I think it more has to do with the actual wireless device being enabled rather than the services that run it. I don't think there's anything I can do besides disabling the wireless on my laptop while I record. At least I know how to prevent the crackles. If there are any other suggestions I have missed, please enlighten me!

Last edited by jtnavia; 07-22-2009 at 07:00 PM.
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Old 07-22-2009, 08:18 PM   #9
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If you have the space you could dual boot using Dux's xp pro. I used an HP dv8000 laptop, Pentium 4 3 ghz , 2 gigs ram, for 3 or 4 yrs and dual booting into Dux's XP pro for recording was a godsend. I highly recommend it and I'm sure anyone else that uses it would recommend it also.

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Old 07-23-2009, 02:30 AM   #10
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.................

Last edited by Coerce; 07-23-2009 at 02:49 AM. Reason: Double post
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Old 07-23-2009, 02:48 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtnavia View Post
Update: I tried updating the quick launch buttons in the thread that Steindork posted earlier...it didn't make a difference.

Thanks for the tip Coerce. I'll be sure to try it out and see what happens.

Update (again): Running the batch files still caused crackles in audio. I think it more has to do with the actual wireless device being enabled rather than the services that run it. I don't think there's anything I can do besides disabling the wireless on my laptop while I record. At least I know how to prevent the crackles. If there are any other suggestions I have missed, please enlighten me!
The first part of my post was to set up a hardware profile to disable it so by rebooting whilst recording you can shut off your internet. The service tweaks should free up some resources after the internet hardware has been disabled. I don't think you can get around disabling your wireless so the best thing to do is set up the hardware profiles like I suggested.
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