Hi all,

Just bought a Komplete Audio 6 between Christmas and New Year. All seemed well (not used it much, mind) but I am now getting huge issues with pops and clicks. This isn't just happening in my DAW, but also when I do something as simple as play a .wav file using Windows Media player. I get a click when the audio starts, another one when it stops and little random ones here and there. It'll sometimes go 10 seconds without a click or a pop but not always.

To all the world, it sounds like a classic 'buffer underun' thing like I used to get in the old days on a 2496 and a much slower computer. But I've cranked the buffers up as high as they'll go to exclude this and it still does it!

It's a Windows 7 64 bit system with 12 gig of ram and an Intel Core i7 950

Here is a copy of the support ticket I've raised with NI which will give more details, but I think I'm more likely to get an answer here!

I have just bought Komplete Audio 6 and am having bad problems with clicks and pops on playback.

Any WAV file that is played back via Windows Media player has the problem, as does anything I play back in Reaper or iTunes. It's fine mostly, but you get random clicks and pops and this is making it unusable.

It does this via the main outputs AND via the headphone socket, so it's nothing to do with balanced cables etc. No inputs are being used so there is no possibility of this being an input problem.

So far I have tried:-

1. A different USB cable
2. Changing USB ports
3. Setting the buffers to the maximum, and even at 27ms of latency it still does it, so it's not buffers
4. I have updated firmware to version 37 (it was on V.29). There is no difference.
5. I have been working with the latest drivers, but I've now tried rolling back to the 2.99 that shipped with it. No difference

I would appreciate your help please - when it works it's brilliant but this issue is making the product completely unfit for use....

Thanks

Gary

First task is to download and run DPC latency checker

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

please run it and recreate whatever your doing when it clicks a pops then grab a screen shot and show us if you can. If it's in the yellows and reds a lot then you'll need to start poking at drivers.

What machine/motherboard do you have?

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Thanks for your reply, Pete - very helpful and a lot quicker than NI who have yet to respond

I think I've got at least 2 different things going on here, but I'll tell you what I've now done. Certainly improved it but every time I think I've fixed it, it comes back again

DPC Latency installed - thanks for the link to this very useful program. It was showing some yellow spikes of around 1.2mS and, as the usb buffer was set to 1mS that would explain a source of problems.

I found a USB Route Hub driver update on the Asus website (this is an Asus P6X58D-E). Under 'usb drivers' on this page, there was nothing newer. However, under 'utilities' there is a 'USB 3.0 Host Controller Utility'. This showed newer drivers. So I installed these and it's stuck a little utility in my startup menu as well! Anyway, since that has been on there I can see nothing but green bars on my DPC Latency checker. It does say that the 'absolute maximum' setting it has got is 1.14mS so I'm leaving the USB buffer in the Komplete control panel at 2mS just to be sure and exclude this from the equation.

So away I went and all well. But Windows Media Player still seems to be doing it. Open a wav file that plays perfectly, and play it. Then go and do something else (such as browse on here) with the media player still open in the background. Going back to Media player, it then typically has the glitches. Restarting media player seems to be getting rid of them.

So this is why I say I think I have two things going on.... I certainly seem to have cheered up the DPC latency and also turned up the usb buffer 'just in case'. Still something else going on. I'm multi-tasking at the mo so I'll try Reaper out extensively tonight and see how that goes!

TBH, if Reaper, Maschine and iTunes are OK then I'll be OK - I can live without Media player as other players are available

Currently downloading an updated graphics driver just in case anything there is amiss - it's not 'old' but it's an NVidia card and they do tend to bring them out fairly regularly.....

I'll keep you posted, and if you have any more thoughts I'd be very grateful to hear them

Gary

I wouldn't have expected the nvidia drivers if DPC is clear but always worth a punt. I'd also go through and update any other drivers if you did the inital install a while back / off cd originally with the Chipset (get a fresh one from the Intel site) being the prime suspect.

You can also try disabling power saving junk in the bios if you haven't already (C states - C1/C3/C6, EIST, anything with spread spectrum after it) which may help, and you can check the power options in windows and lock everything to 100% for testing.

If your finding out through it's only affecting media player still and nothing else then I wouldn't worry about it. Many, many fine media players out there that work and sound far better than the native one!

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Have you tried disabling network stuff, especially wireless?

Thanks Pete and Pink,

I appear to be OK now, but it's still at the stage where I won't 100% trust it for a bit!

As to the power saving options, I'm the chap that had the bad problems with (what appeared to be) RF interference every time my hard drive ran, and this turned out to be the power saving options in the BIOS. Those were all turned off.

The odd thing was that I found some MORE power saving options in Windows over the weekend. These were still on. I didn't realise that, if they were disabled in the BIOS, that Windows 7 could still decide to do things with power saving.

Anyway, the quietness of the system when plugging a guitar in has improved once more so that is a happy accident side-effect of the fault finding here!

I do think that the main offender was the USB driver that ASUS had cunningly hidden in a part of their support site in a place that didn't mention USB Once that was on, it improved. I then updated the Komplete audio driver (I had rolled it back prior to finding the USB driver). Those two combined seem to have done the trick. I'll leave it for a while now and use it to see how things go as I'm a great believer in 'if it works, leave it alone!'

Starting to realise that, whilst I was more than up to the job of building a PC and getting it working perfectly a few years back, that might not be the case anymore....

Gary

Apologies for dredging this up again, but it's still doing it! Any help gratefully received....

In a nutshell, the system will work 100% perfectly. Until it doesn't After 10 mins worst case, 2 hours best case, the crackles will start.

I can get rid of them by going into control panel and disabling the Komplete Audio 6 device. Once I re-enable it, it works a treat. For 10 mins worst case, 2 hours best.

Reaper seems OK. Ish.

Youtube, Soundcloud and other web content cheeses it off no end.

Obviously, many folks out there are running these without issue so it'll be 'something' with my system. But the nature of the problem is proving to be a tricky little fellow

So far I have:-

Set all buffers sky high to get that one out of the way.

Tried a new usb cable in every USB port I have

Tried connecting via a powered USB hub just in case it was drawing too much oomph from the system

Ensured that the drivers are up to date for my audio interface, my USB 2.0 hub, graphics card, USB Mouse and Keyboard. I have nothing else plugged in to this Asus P6X58D-E. The Komplete has also been updated to the latest firmware

I have installed the latest BIOS for the motherboard

I have run DPC Latency Checker. My latency is between 100 and 150, so well within the green bit I was getting latency spikes which were cured by the new USB driver but still the crackles remain.

I've turned off all the power saving stuff in BIOS and in Windows 7

I've turned off C1E and spread spectrum.

I've always gone for ASUS motherboards in the past and found them to be very good. Either I'm getting a bit daft and past it or this one is a PITA!!

Any more obvious places to look? I've done everything on NI's checklist for faultfinding and the next stage is contacting their tech support. I've done that and so far had no response from them!

Thanks

Gary

The's some very odd symptoms in that lot.

So is reaper not doing it still? Is reaper set up for ASIO? The web based streaming issues might suggest doing a LAN driver update if you haven't already, but I'd also suspect that the web based stuff isn't using asio rather something like direct sound which wouldn't grab hold of the cpu in the same mannor of that ASIO would. Is the anything running that could be chewing up CPU cycles randomly? Perhaps antivirus or something else running in the backgroud?

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Hi Pete,

I appreciate your reply.

Reaper still appears to be OK - I can't be 100% as life is getting in the way of serious recording at the mo! But on the occasions where I've dipped into Reaper it has seemed to be glitch free. Obviously needs a decent session or two to be sure so watch this space on that one!

You are correct on the driver front - I'm using ASIO. When I was first having issues, Reaper gave problems as well but the USB Driver update seems to have cheered that up.... prior to the USB update, I was getting latency spikes in the DPC checker so it made sense as to why it was giving issues. I'm all green now, though. Very green

I agree it seems to be some kind of direct sound thing that is doing it. When the issue appears, it is so bad the even the little test tone within the Komplete control panel (the ping ping poooong that bounces between the speakers and sounds like an airline tannoy) gives the crackles! A restart fixes it.

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=158807 is the thread I started on the NI forum about this issue. 3 others on the thread also having issues with this interface on web-based audio!

As you've suggested, I'll look at the LAN driver (it's wired and works a treat but could be the culprit). I do have a virus checker running. If the issues were always a certain length of time after starting, I'd point the finger that way..... Seems that it's fine till you do web-based audio and at that point it'll go nutty

I know there's an answer to that (don't use web based audio!) but that seems like a fair old step backwards in this day and age!

If it is a direct sound issue, I don't really know where else to look - my drivers for the Komplete are up to date and Windows 7 recons that nothing else needs doing at present and lord knows it furtles around often enough so I'm inclined to believe it.... But of course I'd be delighted to be pointed to a likely candidate there!

Quote Gary_W:

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I do have a virus checker running. If the issues were always a certain length of time after starting, I'd point the finger that way..... Seems that it's fine till you do web-based audio and at that point it'll go nutty

---

That could still point at anti-virus. A lot of packets of data to inspect when you are streaming content.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Thank you. A good point well made - I'll shut it down and see what happens with the streaming.

Thing is, when it's upset, even the local test tone in the Kontrol preferences panel does it and that won't be subject to a virus checker..... will it??? Once it's thrown its toys out of the cot, it's like 'something has upset my driver and I'm going to remain upset until you reset me. And then I shall calm down once more'.

I've not thrown any more time at this tonight but I did manage to get a reply out of NI tech support. They suggested:-

1. Making sure that all of the inputs and outputs are configured to the same sample rate or else it gets upset (mine are all at 44.1 so it's not this)

2. Installing a hot fix from MS for a known issue 'There is high CPU usage when using a USB audio device connected to a USB 2.0 EHCI host controller:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981214

I downloaded the fix. Windows told me I didn't need it.... Looking at the date of the fix suggested, I'm of the opinion that SP1 for Windows 7 sorts it. So it's not that.

3. Setting my USB buffer to 4mS. If I do this, the control panel then follows this through and sets a buffer size of 192 samples and gives me a whopping 11.7mS of latency. Surely this cannot be what I need to do to get this card working??? If I take it down to 32 samples then it still gives me over 8mS of latency. Which isn't great.

I'll give it a crack and see if it fixes it, but can anyone explain why, when DLC Latency Checker recons that I've got a latency of well under 150 microseconds, should I have to set a USB Buffer to 4mS!

I will still play with the virus checker on and off as well.

Gary

Despite having a 4mS buffer set as NI suggestd, it's just started glitching again.

I was watching this Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFxaIAP5mjA&feature=g-vrec&context= G29c95a1RVAAAAAAAAAA and it was fine.

I paused it, had to go and do something else for 20 mins or so.

When I came back, I restarted it. Immediate glitching

Still working on crazy stuff in the background line of thought try removing Jave/Adobe Air/Flash for testing purposes. I had a system a while back with the same symptoms and it was the Adobe Bridging software (Air) that was causing the headaches!

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

I really appreicate your reply, Pete - thankyou.

I have just been running with my virus checker disabled and I also stopped all processes related to Adobe.

Worked fine for about 1/2 hour. Now the crackles are here.

What seems to really uspet it is the following:-

1. Start watching a Youtube video - it works fine
2. Pause it
3. Go away for 10 minutes because life is like that
4. Come back and restart the video. Crackles are there!

Don't get me wrong - it must sound like I'm more interested in watching Youtube than making music - that's not the case However, it's a PC that besides its recording duties has a range of other things I expect it to do that includes Internet use, movies, iTunes etc. Not unreasonable for a PC like this with a decent interface! I am testing it in this manner as I know that these things upset it so am wanting to draw the fault out!

Anyway, when it's in its fault state (which it is as I type) the following things are noticable:-

1. The test tone in the Windows Control panel glitches and crackles
2. iTunes glitches and crackles
3. Any Internet sound glitches and crackles
4. Any movie file that I play in any media player program glitches and crackles
5. Starting up Reaper and playing a recording works perfectly!!!
6. Whilst in the fault state, DPC Latency checker is still claiming a latency of 115 microseconds or so with no spikes.

Sooooo. We have an audio interface that works perfectly for recording but (on my PC at least) is pants for anything else. This is an issue for me as I'm doing my best to learn a bunch of covers for a live show in a few months and it's not unknown for me to play along with Youtube using a VSTi for the guitar. If I do this now, I get the glitches at some point and it drives me potty!

So it's clear that ASIO is fine. The Windows drivers are not - they are getting themselves upset on this system for some reason. Restarting the Windows driver sorts out the problem. I don't know if this is a dodgy driver from NI or a faulty unit or something with my PC. Yes, I know traditionally the last of these is almost always the culprit and I really hope it is, but I'm running out of places to go here.

I've heard back from NI again today - their tech support seem to be pretty much out of ideas now but I hope to hear back tomorrow (asked me to check again my settings were all at 44.1KHz, which they are). The shop I bought it from are happy to refund me or exchange the unit - I've copied them on all correspondance to NI and they agree that I'm doing my best.

That's the awkward thing - I really don't want to exchange it - when it's not glitching, it's a fantastic device that's well worth the £169 I paid for it. Not sure what else I can get at that kind of price that will touch it? I may start another thread on this....

I've told them that I'll persevere till early next week then make the call on exchanging it. Obviously if I can sort it out in the meantime that is my first choice!

Gary

I suppose my next two lines of action would be to firstly try it on someone elses machine and see if it replicates the issue. If it does then faulty unit, if not it's something in your windows either codec or driver wise.

If it's the later I'd partition off a section of drive or get a fresh one and try a clean install with nothing on but the basic drivers and the interface.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Hi Pete,

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Trying it on an equivalent machine isn't really possible - I'm running in Windows 7 64 bit. Got quite a few friends around the area but none are quite as modern as me

As for doing plan B, I appreciate that it would be a good way forward but I don't think I can cope with going to that extreme to get it working!

The last thing I could think of which I was investigating last night.....

The Renesas USB 3.0 chipset on here has firmware level 3021 and driver 2.1.28.0

The driver is the latest, the firmware is not. I cannot find concrete answers as to what the later level of firmware brings to the table but updating it seems like a good idea.

I've downloaded the latest firmware (not easy as the Renesas site isn't helpful!) but I have it. It refuses to flash. Further research suggests that the Renesas flash utility for this chipset does not work under Windows 64! Don't suppose you've any ideas on that? It could be a contender for the problem but it just does a 'computer says no' (or 'non' actually as it's French) when I try.

There are stories of people doing all kinds of weird and wonderful things including booting their PC from a bootable USB drive and flashing it from there etc. I'm OK on PC's these days but again if that's what I need to do then it's a bridge too far for me!

Gary

If you think it's a USB3 driver issue then you could just switch it over to a USB 2 socket to test that theory. They USB3 ports are connected via a bridge chip where the USB 2 should be native to the chipset itself.

Have you got the latest LAN driver and if so where from? I suspect it's a Intel ethernet soultion on that board so the latest via the Intel.com site might be more effective. The's a tool on there to autodate chipset/lan etc... might be worth a run to see if anything newer crops up.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Hi Pete,

In the USB part of device manager, I have the Renasas USB 3.0 hub controller.

For USB, I just have the ICH 10 things - I searched as a 2006 driver from Windows (which these show as) doesn't sound good. But looking here http://communities.intel.com/message/149074 seemed to indicate that this was normal! Do you agree? The only updatable driver I could find with my USB was the Renesas one (it was originally called an NEC USB driver....).

Anyway, I originally started out with the Komplete on my USB 2.0 ports. I've noticed that some are high speed and some are full speed, but it's been irrelevant to the problem which still occurs no matter where I connect it!

After I'd tried all the 2's, I thought 'why not try the 3's - at least that has an up to date driver'. But here we still are!

As to the network, yes I updated the Marvell Yukon driver. The driver date is 20/1/12. The fault occured before the driver update, and the update didn't fix it

Thanks again for all your thoughts on this

Gary

One more thought.....

It is true that this unit works perfectly. Until it doesn't.

Once it's upset, it stays upset until you re-start its driver.

Does this not point the finger at a driver problem on NI's part or am I missing a deeper point here? All of the things I'm looking at could cause glitches, but at some point the NI driver is what is going over the cliff. If that wasn't the case then restarting the driver would do nothing.....

Forgive me if that is the ramblings of a fool but I've gone beyond the realms of sanity on this one

Just like to thank everyone who has tried to help here - especially Pete.... Beyond the call tips and thoughts to help with this. It's very much appreciated.

I've pulled the plug - the shop offered me an exchange and I'm going back to Focusrite with a Saffire Pro 24DSP. Final straw really was NI sending me a link to their troubleshooting page (which I had already told them in writing I'd done) and that they were otherwise out of ideas. I can't fix it, they can't fix it and the wealth of help I've had from here (which has been fab) has not fixed it.

Whilst my PC is now fully up to date with everything and is turning in a performance that DPC latency monitor believes is just peachy, I still had problems with this USB 2.0 interface. I personally believe that it's the robustness of the NI driver that is the issue here but of course I could be wrong - I know it feels like I've 'done everything' but with a PC you can never discount 'something' still being amiss.

For this reason I'm going back to FireWire. I know that, on paper, it's slower / worse / older etc but (on my system at least) it worked perfectly. I regret getting shot of the Komplete as, when it's working, it's a little cracker...... I think the top end was a touch more pleasing on the ears than the Saffire LE I sold on..... However, the Saffire LE 'just worked' and I live in hope that the 24dsp will do likewise..... Making music is so much nicer than all this nonsense

Saffire should turn up Tuesday, courier and weather forecasts being kindly.

Gary

The very best of luck with your new interface Gary - let us know how you get on!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Thanks Martin - I will do

I don't admit defeat easily..... Looking on the positives here, I've learned a lot about USB so at whatever point in the future I have to jump on that bandwagon I'll hopefully be armed to the teeth and ready.

And also there have been some great tips on this thread in general - I live in hope that someone out there has benefited from the advice that the folks here have given.

speaking as someone who has used a ni komplete audio 6 for the past few months on both a i7 x58 (albeit on a gigabyte motherboard) computer and i7 z68, i've not had any of these problems at all with it. If anyone is reading this thread and being turned off getting an interface, i'd like to stick up for it, because we've definatly had a load more problems with the dice based firewire interfaces than USB ones.

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www.theautobots.com / www.scan.co.uk

Hi Tombot,

As an interface, I'd like to stick up for it as well - I've said many times in this thread that I think it's a fantastic little box, albeit a fantastic little box that didn't work for me.

There are obviously lots of people out there using it without any issues, but then again with any audio interface there are those that work pefectly with a given PC build out of the box, those that need tweaking and then on very rare occasions we have a situation like the one I've had where you try for weeks then give up.... I've been one of the very rare unlucky ones and I agree that most people will be OK. There are others on the NI forums that have the same issues I've had (pops and crackles despite DPC latency being fine and no buffer issues) so whilst I'm a rare case I am by no means unique Entirely possible that me and the others having issues would have problems with 'any' USB interface due to 'something' being amiss with our PC's - without another brand of USB 2 to plug in I don't know.

What can be said without question is that NI tech support isn't exactly well thought of (this is obvious from their own forums).... The only way I got my support ticket answered at all was writing to one of the mods at the forum there who got the ticket escalated after they had ignored me for a fortnight. For this reason, if you buy any NI product and you are unlucky enough that it happens to not like 'your' system then you're pretty much on your own.

So I think if anyone is buying one (or any interface!) it's best to buy from a vendor you trust who can give help (such as you folks at Scan and Andertons that I bought from have been very good too) or to have a look at 'how and where' you can contact tech support. I've rung Focusrite a few times (not only the old interface, but also I have a Liquid Mix 16) and you get a human being on a phone in the UK. I know that answering the phone is not the same as 'fixing your issue' but it's a really good start!

Gary