How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Topic: How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web (Read 10856 times) previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

2009-07-12 02:59:39

I've recently started using a USB device (Artcessories USB Phono Plus V2) to listen to audio on my laptop a lot. I have found that when I'm surfing the Internet and pages are being painted I will hear glitches in the audio. It doesn't happen all of the time and the glitches are brief (they sound like pops). They are annoying though, especially since I think they shouldn't be there.

Is this a common problem? Anything that can be done to resolve it?

I'm running Windows Vista home with 3GB of RAM on a Dell laptop. I use IE 7. I seem to recall that using Firefox didn't help.

Thanks for any help!
Rich

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #1 – 2009-07-12 12:36:29

See here and here. While not all of the information relates to your problem, some of it is quite informative about why these problems exist, and how to deal with them. Of some interest is the following from the latter website:

Quote

In order for you to hear music from your speakers, data needs to be delivered to your audio hardware approximately every 10 milliseconds, or 30 times in the blink of an eye! The challenge is that your PC is usually doing a lot of other things at the same time you’re listening to music, such as streaming that YouTube video or downloading that new song, and many of these other tasks have complex timing requirements as well. As you can imagine, it doesn’t take much – a slow network driver or a graphics driver that requires plenty of CPU time – to prevent your audio from reaching your ears in a continuous fashion

.

One practical way to reduce the glitches could be to browse using Firefox and the Flashblock add on because Flash does like to use-up a lot of resources. Also, be sure to have smooth scrolling turned off, and, if you're using a wireless connection, be sure to read the PC Optimisation guide linked to in the first site I've given.

Hope some of this helps .

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #2 – 2009-07-12 14:24:18

If all of the USB ports gives you the same problem you might try a PCI to USB card.
As it is PCI, it will get an exclusive interrupt.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #3 – 2009-07-12 15:32:26

I am also having this trouble, and there are many different things that could be causing it. But from what you're saying, what we have may be the same. It's actually not caused by CPU usage, it's caused by internet traffic. I have it on my laptop with two USB devices, I think I have it too with the integrated IDT chip, but I have to do more testing on that. Running Windows 7 RC 64-bit. With my HTPC running Vista 32 I experience the same thing, with an ATI HDMI device (no other audio devices installed).

Here's the thing though. When I start up the computer it's fine. It's after a long time of being on (possibly more than a day, it could vary with internet usage, I don't know) that the problem shows up. Even then, I can work around it by using WASAPI exclusive. After even much longer, I start hearing glitches in exclusive mode too, and it just gets unbearable without exclusive mode. A restart will fix it.

It seems starting with Vista MS tied a network throttling service to multimedia playback. The Multimedia Class Scheduler (MMCSS) actually is supposed to throttle network speed and prioritize multimedia playback. Perhaps there is a bug there, but it's been there forever. See here for more info on that.

By the way, I've tried modifying the NetworkThrottlingIndex and SystemResponsiveness registry entries, tried disabling MMCSS (you need to un-link it from the Audio service), and none of those work. They would presumably stop throttling the network, which is what most of the people do, but they don't improve multimedia playback.

I'm also not sure about this, but the player might also have to be able to use the MMCSS properly. Have you tried with Windows Media Player?

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #4 – 2009-07-12 18:03:55

Quote from: Hengest on 2009-07-12 12:36:29

One practical way to reduce the glitches could be to browse using Firefox and the Flashblock add on because Flash does like to use-up a lot of resources. Also, be sure to have smooth scrolling turned off, and, if you're using a wireless connection, be sure to read the PC Optimisation guide linked to in the first site I've given.

I like Flash, but it really wrecks havoc on my now ~5 year old computer. I don't think I'd be able to visit many of the websites I visit if it wasn't for Firefox, turning off Java applets, adblock, etc. Flash really eats up CPU cycles.

Java applets are even worse!

So yes, do everything in your power to block Flash content and Java applets!

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #5 – 2009-07-12 20:16:12

I've even found with my Dell laptop (seems like the Dells have these issues) that using a different internet browser makes a difference. I use Opera and experience less of the pops and clicks than I would if I opened the same pages in Firefox. I also find that built in wireless cards cause more problems than a direct connection to a cable modem or a usb wireless card. There are many ways to try and cut down on these issues.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #6 – 2009-07-12 20:32:08

i can confirm that dell workstations have similar issues with onboard audio (chirping).

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #7 – 2009-07-12 22:40:06

Dell has a reputation to lose for shipping crippled audio drivers.
Go to the sound panel and "Disable All Enhancements" often helps

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #8 – 2009-07-12 22:56:07

I just tried lowering hardware acceleration on my graphics card and am happy to report it solved all the popping problems I was having with my usb soundcard. I only knocked it down one notch from full. You can read about how to do it here: http://www.m-audio.com/?do=support.faq&...6a92af04c4dc0d2

Couldn't believe that was causing the trouble.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #9 – 2009-07-12 23:33:36

Quote from: andy o on 2009-07-12 15:32:26

Here's the thing though. When I start up the computer it's fine. It's after a long time of being on (possibly more than a day, it could vary with internet usage, I don't know) that the problem shows up. Even then, I can work around it by using WASAPI exclusive. After even much longer, I start hearing glitches in exclusive mode too, and it just gets unbearable without exclusive mode. A restart will fix it.

Very interesting - I have the same problem. Vista 32-bit SP2, M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB audio interface. Glitches and pops due to certain activities typically start after roughly three days of uptime. System restart fixes it. (and I have my reasons not to restart for as long as possible). Restarting the USB card (power cycle, or unplugging or repluging USB cable) does not help.

The activities that cause glitches are also browsing Flash-intensive pages, but also many display operations. Switching between windows may cause it, or scrolling through a long playlist in foobar. Screen dimming due to User Account Control almost always causes a huge glitch. Disabling Aero changes nothing. The glitches occur in all playback modes (ASIO, exclusive WASAPI, DS).

I spend quite a lot of time with M-Audio support, trying different solutions (which was time consuming, given that I have to wait three days for the problem to occur). Nothing helped. Or nothing I could do helped (for example, I can't move the display card to another slot, because I have only one PCIe slot).

I also tried ATI support (because glitches seem to be display-related), again no success. I haven't tried very hard with ATI, because the problem occurs with boath onboard and PCIe display - they are both ATI Radeons, but different models. So I think it's either Vista/USB thing, or M-Audio thing. Now, as other people started reporting it with non-M-Audio cards, I am leaning towards a Vista(and Win7)/USB or multimedia problem.

Also, I had similar problems with my older computer (different OS, disk, display adapter), using the same sound interface. In that case I did three things, after I did them, the problem was gone. I moved the card to a different USB port, corrected UDMA mode of the hard disk, and increased USB poll rate from 125 Hz to 500 Hz.

Now, UDMA is set properly, the problem occurs in all USB ports, and on Vista I can't change USB poll rate.

I wanted to try lowering hardware acceleration, but the display driver does give me access to these settings. I guess an equivalent action could be done by the Catalyst Control Center application, but I have no idea which settings should I change. Any suggestions?

Though I in general like M-Audio Fast Track Pro, I am starting to consider replacing it with a Firewire interface. This would cost me though, even if I am able to sell the M-Audio interface, and I am even not sure if this is going to help, if, for example, the glitches come from the multimedia system, not from USB.

Thus, if anyone can offer a working suggestion, I'd be very grateful.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #10 – 2009-07-13 01:33:02

Thing is I don't have it only with USB. My Vista 32 PC does it with the ATI 4670's HDMI device. Drivers don't help. I haven't noticed anything graphics-related, but it's the internet traffic that causes the glitches (possibly all network traffic, but except for transferring files once in a while, that's only what I use the network for). It happens with different routers (home, work).

If I disable the network connection, the glitches go away, I don't know if completely, cause I haven't disabled them for a long time to test.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #11 – 2009-07-13 01:52:04

Thanks. So it looks it may be a problem with the Multimedia Class Scheduler Service.

I made some changes to registry values described here trying to force higher priorities and lower clock rates:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684247(VS.85).aspx
and I am testing it now. I'll post results, but it may take me up to a week before I can confirm an improvement.

By the way, does anyone know which of the "tasks" described in this article is audio playback with foobar? So far, I fmade changes to "Audio" and "Pro Audio" (because I use ASIO for playback), but maybe I should modify settings for "Playback" instead? Any ideas about this?

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #12 – 2009-07-25 03:33:03

I think that I have solved this problem with my onboard sound by having enabled these options in the BIOS setup:

PCI1 Master 0 WS
PCI2 Master 0 WS

but now I had to disable it in PCI1 because this setting enabled causes weird instability effects on my entire system when having multiple pci cards connected to the mainboard, it seems a known problem that affects older systems (i686) with non intel chipsets

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #13 – 2009-07-29 01:02:58

Here is what I tried over last days.

I modified settings of the Multimedia Class Scheduler (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684247(VS.85).aspx)
I wasn't sure which "Task" is foobar using, so I modifed "Audio", "Playback", and "Pro Audio"
I set Scheduling Category to High, SFIO priority to High, Clock Rate to 3000.

I updated my GPU driver (again)

I disabled indexing on all hard drives

I have a feeling that it might have helped a little, glitches seem to appear more rarely. There is no breakthrough though, I even cannot be 100% sure that it's not a placebo effect.

The problem seems to be related to scheduling. I use a program which performs disk and/or processor-intensive operations, and it caused playblack glitches sometimes - until I set the program's priority to low. So I think that there is critical process (proceses) related to audio which need to be set to a high enough priority to stop the glitches.

Any dideas how to do it? Any other suggestions?

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #14 – 2009-07-29 02:09:44

I remember that I read something about ATi power saving feature that led to glitches in the audio when scrolling text in a browser.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #15 – 2009-07-29 05:04:15

Quote from: lvqcl on 2009-07-29 02:09:44

I remember that I read something about ATi power saving feature that led to glitches in the audio when scrolling text in a browser.

ATI PowerPlay? If I only knew how to control it...

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #16 – 2009-07-29 08:01:42

Quote from: pawelq on 2009-07-29 01:02:58

The problem seems to be related to scheduling. I use a program which performs disk and/or processor-intensive operations, and it caused playblack glitches sometimes - until I set the program's priority to low. So I think that there is critical process (proceses) related to audio which need to be set to a high enough priority to stop the glitches.

Any dideas how to do it? Any other suggestions?

Thanks for testing and reporting. I did not try those registry hacks since it's not a big problem to restart and I mostly use WASAPI exclusive in that PC anyway. Our problems seem a bit different though. WASAPI exclusive gets rid of the glitches, except when they become unbearable without exclusive mode after a LONG time of not restarting the PC. Then in exclusive mode I still just get one or two pops when using the network (don't know if it's just the internet or anything in the network).

Another difference is that in my case, it doesn't seem to be CPU usage, it seems to be network (internet) usage. Have you tried disabling your network connections and see if anything improves? With mine, glitches go away when I do that.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #17 – 2009-07-29 13:25:23

I haven't, I'll try in a few days. I restarted recently for updates and need to wait three days for the problem to show up.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #18 – 2009-07-29 15:24:20

Thanks for all of the informative responses. I hadn't realized how large of an issue this was. I was hoping it would be something simple.

I've read over everybody's resonses and appreciate the input. My main take-away with this is "what a PITA" :-). I've looked in to a few of the suggestions and nothing worked out. ASIO doesn't work with my ArtCessories device, so that isn't an option. But I learned about what it is and why you'd use it.

I only listen via my laptop occasionally and do my serious listening via my squeezebox. So, for my laptop listening, I'll take the "it hurts when I do this...well then, don't do that" approach.

I did notice that java script on web pages are the biggest culprit.

Thanks,
Rich

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #19 – 2009-08-04 03:16:04

I solved the problem in my environment. I'm using media monkey as a player. Originally, it was configured to use "MediaMonkey DirectSound output" for the output device. It provided no means of configuring buffers.

I changed it to "waveOut output". Its default settings were for a buffer length of 2 seconds, and a buffer length of 0 for the prefubber and .2 seconds buffer-ahead on track change. I still experienced problems with this, including gaps in the track transitions.

I changed the buffer settings to be Buffer Length of 2 seconds, prebuffer length of .5 seconds, and Buffer-ahead on track change to 1 second. My track transitions are gapless and the glitches that appear while I am suring the web are gone!

What gave me a clue was I was trying out J.River Media Jukebox and it allows you to change buffer sizes. I decided to dig deeper into the MediaMonkey settings and found this.

I like the interface of MediaMonkey better, so I'm going to stick with it, especially now that I've resovled the "audio glitches while surfing the web" issues.

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #20 – 2009-08-18 19:26:45

Quote from: maggior on 2009-07-29 15:24:20

ASIO doesn't work with my ArtCessories device, so that isn't an option. But I learned about what it is and why you'd use it.

I wanted to provide an update since I've discovered that my above statement was not true.

My problem was that I did not have an ASIO driver installed, which I found in the form of ASIO4ALL. This worked great, except that I could not get it to play gaplessly with MediaMonkey. Gapless playback is an essential feature for me, so I backed away from it.

Last night I fired up J.River Media Jukebox again and anabled ASIO playback. There, it plays gapless!! SUCCESS! I also have noticed that there are no glitches.

So, now I can listen to gapless glitch-free audio on my laptop using my USB soundcard and know that Windows isn't inserting some processing into the audio stream. :-).

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #21 – 2009-08-18 19:30:16

Quote from: maggior on 2009-08-18 19:26:45

This worked great, except that I could not get it to play gaplessly with MediaMonkey. Gapless playback is an essential feature for me, so I backed away from it.

This seems to be a MediaMonkey problem. I did not play gaplessly with my ASIO driver (from the sound card manufacturer, not ASIO4ALL).

How to get rid of glitches in USB audio when surfing web

Reply #22 – 2009-08-18 19:58:59

Quote from: pawelq on 2009-08-18 19:30:16

Quote from: maggior on 2009-08-18 19:26:45
This worked great, except that I could not get it to play gaplessly with MediaMonkey. Gapless playback is an essential feature for me, so I backed away from it.

This seems to be a MediaMonkey problem. I did not play gaplessly with my ASIO driver (from the sound card manufacturer, not ASIO4ALL).

I agree since I was using the same driver (ASIO4ALL) in both cases. I just wish J.River Media Jukebox was a little more intuititve to use. There will never be a single tool to satisfy all needs :-).

Notice