USB Stability question:

slwiser · « **on:** 17 Apr 2006, 09:29 pm »

USB Stability:

Does anyone have any clue to how to get my USB rock stable? Every four or five minutes or so, my light on my USB hub blinks and the sound comes in and out on my HagUSB. Every once in a while it is a little worst than that.

Any help is appreciated. I am using a Dell 8100 with a uprated 2.8 gHz P4 with 1 gigs and plenty of hard drive space. I am using an external USB drive as my source for FLAC files to my HagUSB into a Lavry DA10 to my headphones. OS Is WinXP SP2 with latest updates. Norton system works and Internet security is running. The player is Nero Player. I could not get the Winamp working. I also have Media Center and Foobar2000 latest version. Is any one of these a bit more reliable than the others?

Thanks

hagtech · « **Reply #1 on:** 17 Apr 2006, 10:14 pm »

System tweaking is always a joy. There could be a number of things here.

1) Does the hard drive suck power from the bus?
2) Is hard drive plugged into hub?
3) What powers hub?
4) Are both drive and HAGUSB plugged into same hub?

Basically, you can have either power problems or timing issues with the hub. Audio works best when plugged directly into a host USB port, not an expansion hub. All it takes is one or two missing packets to cause a glitch or 'tic'. The hard drive likely has multiple buffers in the path, so it can be on the non-critical hub port.

jh

slwiser · « **Reply #2 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 09:12 pm »

My USB Hard drive is pluged into a Adaptec card with 5 USB ports.

The hub which has the HagUSB is pluged into my Adaptec card. This hub has its own wall wart power supply.

My computer has an Adaptec USB card that has the HD pluged in directly. The Kensington Hub is pluged into the Adaptec and the HagUSB is pluged into the Kensington Hub.

I have two USB 1.1 ports on my computer unused. I mistakening was thinking that the Adaptec card would be the best supply, maybe not. I will attempt to use one of the USB 1.1 ports on my motherboard that are in the back of my Dell 8100 2.8 ghz 1 gig of main memory. I will get back with you on this.

Thanks for the help.

Quote from: hagtech

System tweaking is always a joy. There could be a number of things here.

1) Does the hard drive suck power from the bus?
2) Is hard drive plugged into hub?
3) What powers hub?
4) Are both drive and HAGUSB plugged into same hub?

Basically, you can have either power problems or timing issues with the hub. Audio works best when plugged directly into a host USB port, not an expansion hub. All it takes is one or two missing packets to cause a glitch or 'tic'. The hard drive likely has multiple buffers in the path, so it can be on the non-critical hub port.

jh

slwiser · « **Reply #3 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 09:28 pm »

I am still having drop outs using the USB 1.1 ports on the back of my Dell 8100. It may be a little worst that before.

Using task manager I have 56 processes running at about an average going between 9% and 20% CPU useage on a 6 second interval spiking every once in a while to 100 per cent during mail check or my opening some other program. I can say the drop outs relate to anything in particular after watching the task manager.

I am using a power conditioner and UPS which is the Tripplight OMNI1100LCD I got from Costco.

IronLion · « **Reply #4 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 09:38 pm »

I'm guessing you playing FLAC files or some other uncompressed format? I also use an external USB drive but I use USB 2.0; personally I would guess that when the music pauses, you're hitting the wall of the data rate of USB 1.1. You could try doing what I did, which is to get a USB 2.0 card that will fit your laptop's PCMCIA slot and use a USB 2.0 comptible drive. This is what I use to play buffered FLAC files out of Foobar with no drop outs at all.

slwiser · « **Reply #5 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 09:56 pm »

That was another reason that I had used the Adaptec at first since it is a 2.0 USB spec. Note that as I understand it, the HagUSB is only USB Spec 1.1 capable. So I do not think that this is the problem.

Quote from: IronLion

I'm guessing you playing FLAC files or some other uncompressed format? I also use an external USB drive but I use USB 2.0; personally I would guess that when the music pauses, you're hitting the wall of the data rate of USB 1.1. You could try doing what I did, which is to get a USB 2.0 card that will fit your laptop's PCMCIA slot and use a USB 2.0 comptible drive. This is what I use to play buffered FLAC files out of Foobar with no drop outs at all.

hagtech · « **Reply #6 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 11:20 pm »

I'm thinking it is a power supply issue. If the HagUsb LED blinks, that means there is a loss of power, and the device drops off the bus. Then it renumerates (a reboot).

Perhaps the USB drive is sucking down the wall wart of the hub? Is there any combination of connections that work? What about when the USB drive is disconnected? Do you experience drop outs then?

jh

slwiser · « **Reply #7 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 11:55 pm »

All my files are on my external USB hard drive. I would have to move some over to an internal drive and disable my external, something that I really do not desire to do. I may do this check this weekend if I continue having problems though.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I think it is a powe problem too. But my thinking is getting closer to my computer power supply may be close to being on the blink. It is only 5 years old afterall.

Edit:

MY problem has been a poorly install wall wart that has caused some power instability problems in my power supply. I can shake my floor and at times reproduce this. So simple a solution and so hard to find an intermittent issue.