Audio Turning Into Farts

[dawman]

Last summer I had my 1st ever problem performing live
using Scope XITE-1 and PCs.
At first I just bought an i7 5775C CPU as I was told
excessive heat throttled down the CPU.
Since then I had this happen a few more times.
This made me buy 2 x more new designs.
Supermicro C7H170-M w/ i5 6500.
And an ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 mATX w/ i5 6500.
Windows 10 finally boots without having to disable
driver signing after every boot up.

But last night I noticed only 1 core of the CPUs maxxed at 80%.
They are not the problem.
Everytime I have this problem a reboot fixes things.

But after monitoring CPUs in Task Manager
can conclude that this is a Scope issue.
I put XITE-1 in a 4U with with the hot top lid
open for ventillation.
Have new PSU new HDMI new PCI-e 1X card.

I believe I am over driving the STM 1632 and causing op-amps
to sound terrible.
This never happened before.
Is it possible to replace op amps locally....?
I cant be without the XITE-1 for more than a few weeks.
Maybe Black Lion Audio...?

Maybe tonight I remix all instruments and see if it helps.
But I fear I might have damaged the op-amps.

Anyone ever stressed thier mixers and encountered this...??

Ankyu....

[JoPo]

Farts ?? As bad as that ??
Does it fart with any sound source ? I mean any Scope synth source, asio ?
Did you try on several monitors/amp/mixer ? Still fart ?

How can you be sure it's Scope issue that maxed your computer CPU at 80% ? (or I don't understand well something..?)
STM1632 is a software, you can't damage it ! And why STM 1632 would damage any op amps ? I don't think it's possible any software can damage hardware inside Scope.

This is really strange ! What did you take in the last hour ?

[dawman]

Tonight I will play until it turns to shit
and before rebooting check audio
outs for headphone, monitor and FOH Snake.
But I am pretty sure I have eliminated
The CPU Cores.
FOH had to boost my signals to compensate for db loss and confirmed
it sucked.
But IEMs come from headphone outs.
We'll see tonight I guess.

[JoPo]

Yep ! You've got a lot of analog outputs, don't you ? Are they all farting ? Pooah ! Are you using an A16 ?

[dawman]

I was using the A16 but went with ADA8200 for live as the Mic pres are more important, but I don't use that either as Solaris sounds better using AES/EBU converted from TosLink.
In 15 years of PC Audio I've never heard this.
Changing CPUs PSUs PC's and Scope PSU HDMI and PCI yet still getting watttery farts has me baffled.
Scope XITE-1 and PCI cards served me so well I have no problems buying another.
Just want to know wtf is causing this.

[JoPo]

!! If you already tried all what you say, it sounds more bad than I thought !!
I don't understand a detail : you get the same bad result with either PCI or Xite ??
If you do -> it's not S|C product issue !

[JoPo]

To be sure it's an Xite issue, the best thing is to try the same configuration with another Xite. Easy.

[jksuperstar]

So it seems the headphones don't go to shit while the main outs do. That sucks. The only other thing I'd check is an AES > Audio converter. 2 out of 3 working proves it's the audio outs.

The hard thing, is that this sounds like it's intermittent. That could mean a power supply heats up, and eventually shuts itself down. Does any other analog I/O seem wonky, like the preamps or the analog inputs? I'd expect these to share the same power supply, separate from the digital stuff. If that's not true, then the only other things in question include the D/A converter, op-amps, or dc-blocking capacitors.

Any decent repair shop should be able to handle it, but the intermittent nature makes it difficult to isolate the issue to be positive. If you can figure out how to recreate the problem reliably, that would be helpful for the repair shop.

[happycritter]

So it seems the headphones don't go to shit while the main outs do. That sucks. The only other thing I'd check is an AES > Audio converter. 2 out of 3 working proves it's the audio outs.

The hard thing, is that this sounds like it's intermittent. That could mean a power supply heats up, and eventually shuts itself down. Does any other analog I/O seem wonky, like the preamps or the analog inputs? I'd expect these to share the same power supply, separate from the digital stuff. If that's not true, then the only other things in question include the D/A converter, op-amps, or dc-blocking capacitors.

Any decent repair shop should be able to handle it, but the intermittent nature makes it difficult to isolate the issue to be positive. If you can figure out how to recreate the problem reliably, that would be helpful for the repair shop.

He may be onto something here concerning power supplies. Perhaps you over-taxed the PS on an auxiliary device that now presents an intermittent fault. I highly doubt the X-box is faulty because it is easy, at the design stage of the DAC (eg. 127=all freqs full-up), to provide ample headroom to guard against just such a situation.

[dawman]

Headphone out gets juicy fart audio.

I do believe I discovered the problem though.

I watched CPUs last night in Task Manager and discovered that Windows 10
ignores the Core Affinity assignments made in Bidule.
3 cores see 7% probably from PianoTeq Pro 5.
Cores using that app. change which core is used, no pattern but no problem since
the usage is so low.

Kontakt 5.5, Zebra2 HZ and Omnisphere 2.1 are all thrown onto a single core.
That core is never the same either and as soon as it maxes out the Task Manager
Meters stop providing information.

I dont know whats up but its not the XITE-1.
I should have known better.
But hearing the farts then going to Task Manager revealed nothing.
Monitoring it while playing showed the isolated cores hitting 100% then
disappearing so watching it was the way I finally saw the lack of efficient Core Affinity assignments.

Micro$oft can blow me....
Thats the whole problem IMHO.

Once I get back I can look for a fix.

But that sound I described...has anyone heard similar liquid shit by the CPU.
EIST and Turbo Boost are disabled.
Perhaps I destroyed this CPU already...

[JoPo]

Incredible. I never had that king of farting.

If it's computer CPU's fault, the farts happen with any computer audio analog output, right ?

I'm wondering why/how did you suspect computer cpu ? How did you conclude they are the cause ? That is a mistery for me ! Tell me !

[dawman]

Well I replaced everything.
Even XITE-1 PSU HDMI and PCI-e 1X card.
Then just was lucky enough to have this happen while running Task Manager.
And also hearing the liquid shit audio through a Space station SSv3 stage monitor, FOH & PA as well as IEMs.

The CPU is the problem but the fix is coming for Bidule.
Windows 10 didn't recognise the CPU Core Assignments and slammed everything onto a single Core.

That's made my gigs a nightmare.

But S|C support in Germany must have overnighted the PSU for Solaris and XITE-1, and Gary B overnighted the HDMI and PCI.

So that support was crucial in helping me get through the gigs and made troubleshooting much easier.

Anyone wanting an XITE-1 should know it's a stable workhorse.
I have punished this rack for almost 7 years with well over 3,000 jobs and it is the most stable piece of gear I own.

Wish my hardware synths had this level of stability.

[tlaskows]

Hmm,

I didn't think you could damage an op-amp. The ones I've always used had a +15/-15 power supply so they can up to those levels. But these are old designs. The new ones are probably low voltage...

What other gear do you have that's unreliable? My M3 is always on never crashes, same with the good old DX7.

-Tom

[garyb]

duh.
he just said that the XITE is also reliable, just like your keyboard synths. isn't that nice?

[tlaskows]

Yeah, Scope is pretty reliable. I was just wondering why hardware synths had bugs

-Tom

[fra77x2]

Did you tried to overclock your hardware synths?

[tlaskows]

Not me man, and I'm pretty sure Dawman didn't lol...

The only reason I keep my Korg on is because it takes like 5 minutes to boot up, disaster

-Tom

[JoPo]

The CPU is the problem but the fix is coming for Bidule.
Windows 10 didn't recognise the CPU Core Assignments and slammed everything onto a single Core.

So ?
If I undertand everything correctly, it's just a Bidule issue ? That must be reproducible with another computer using the same softwares ?
Are Bidule developers aware ?

[dawman]

Prologue guys are awesome.
They help rebuilding projects and request log ini. files
for fast fixes.

There's even a discrete audio version I will try out.

Life is great and support from S|C, Plogue and members here is Sterling.