[Folsom]

I bought an Audiophile USB and guess what... it is impossible to stop my USB devices to top sharing with videocard and network card. I get crackling and pops all the time.

I am so clueless what to do now.... Sell my computer to buy a cd player?

Just a warning to you guys, do not use a USB device for audio unless you know that your IRQs are not shared.

[jermmd]

it is impossible to stop my USB devices to top sharing with videocard and network card.

I'm not sure what this means. Try uninstalling the device, reloading the latest driver, and reinstalling. Maybe you just got a bad piece of equipment.

[Carlman]

I believe he means that his devices' interrupt request locations are being shared.  However, I think there is probably a way to solve the problem.. I just don't know Windows well enough to say how.
-C

[Folsom]

They share IRQ's and the only way to solve the problem if even possible is if IBM (Lenovo) would put out new Bios that make it work well. The thing is why on earth would they care at all?

I turned the buffer down for Foobar2000 and cranked the one for the M-audio so that helps some.

[Folsom]

I take it back it just fucking sucks regardless..... There is nothing I can do but realize I have no fucking source to play my music from.

Oh yeah when ever the harddrive does something it gets screwed up too.

Screw USB...

[jqp]

I have always hated USB and hated to see it become the standard over Firewire. USB polls all the time so with a USB KVM switch there is always that delay. PCs are going to give you consumer grade features for USB and the BIOS that provides optional settings. I think serial ports are going away and parallel also.

In my mind a PC used for audio would have to be designed for audio from the start - the power supply, the BIOS, the i/o etc. norh has those silent PCs and the squeezbox is a dedicated PC I believe. To build your own you would have to research the MoBo etc. also

[Folsom]

Going silent is easy. Research? nope...

Money yes...

I have a laptop and it is all and what I have. I might try an adapter card.

[Tirade]

Just some ideas to try..

You said the bios doesnt allow IRQ mapping? If not is there an option in the bios where it says "Plug n Play OS" or "PnP OS" if you have that option, turn it to No.

If you have IRQ mapping then you can manually change your IRQ settings in the bios if not, there is a way to tell windows that you want to assign IRQ's yourself (you have to tell it that you do not have an ACPI compliant PC) there is possibly a registry edit for this depending on your OS of a software download for it. Because its a laptop this would affect energy saving possibly, but look into it and see if it works.

[JohninCR]

I have always hated USB and hated to see it become the standard over Firewire.

Does that mean I need to buy a few Firewire cards for backup in case they aren't
available in the future?   I went from an onboard M-Audio Delta Dio to the offboard
Firewire 410 for the multiple outs and to get rid of the last bit of electronic hash the
onboard card picked up.  I couldn't be happier, not a crackle or pop, even with my
computer based XO is running, and I run quite bit of stuff at the same time.

I just use a PC that began life as a tower server.  I damped the cabinet and use
isolation of the entire unit for sound control with better air flow than the raw computer
had.

[Folsom]

JohninCR the problem is with laptops and USB IRQ sharing or sucking a, exactly how does one suck a? (DD)

This is such a stupid problem to have. Freaking ridiculous that there is NOTHING I can do.

[lcrim]

I've run into similar problems but the laptop I use is dedicated to audio only so I can mess about with IRQ prriorities and latency that can cause dropouts and crackles and such.
Try this site, http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3/index.html
There are a couple of programs here that can be very helpful.  Doubledawg in particular allows you to reorder IRQ priorities and since using it,  I don't get the small stutters when running Foobar that can be so annoying.  Since this is loaded on a dedicated audio PC I don't get concerned.  You should be cautious with it and take snapshots of your previous settings  so that you don't screw yourself up.   Slimserver isn't such a resource hog and and will port to just about anything as a possible alternative but then you would need a Squeezebox, if you can find or afford one.
Hope this helps.

[Folsom]

No luck so far... I would try that program if it would let me change IRQs... I think I am just screwed.