Still having immediate USB dropout with serato

Was given a handful of advice from this site a month ago regarding USB dropouts on a brand new HP laptop running Vista with 4 Gigs of RAM. I read the attached article and went thru the changes line by line....the bluetooth is disabled, wireless is off, uninstalled norton antivirus altogether, fiddled with the sleep mode etc etc.

No changes. The USB dropout occurs as soon as the first track is played, without fail. I have a mobile gig in three weeks and my frustration is growing exponentially. I dropped a G on this machine and my older HP running XP performs better! I checked CPU usage while Serato is running and it stays right around 50% (plus or minus 5%).

I see a recommendation to download and run this RATT program....as a poor excuse for a technophile I am always a little leery of downloading these programs, but if you guys need that info to help diagnose I'll do it.

Desperate in DC.

Thanks,

Carter

Hello Clark,

Unfortunately the Ratt Test can only be done on a XP machine.

Where is your usb audio buffer set at?
If you raise it do the dropouts stop?

Have you turned off your User Account Controls (UAC)?

If not:

Go into the Control Panel

Choose User Accounts

Click on the option towards the bottom "turn user account controls on/off" and uncheck the "use UAC..." option.

Restart your computer and test your setup again.

Are you using an external drive?
If so, if you unplug it and any other usb devices other than your Rane hardware, do the dropouts still occur?

Do you have all the latest Windows updates from Microsoft's website and all the latest chipset and bios updates from the manufacturer of your computer's website?

If not, download, install, and test again.

Let us know your findings;)

I have the USB buffer set at what I suppose is "1", it's one click from maximum buffer speed all the way to the left. I have not really fiddled too much with backing the USB buffer speed way off. I certainly don't want any latency issues and the entire reason I upgraded to a machine with this CPU speed/RAM was to be able to set the buffer speed at the max. It's the principle of the thing, know what I mean??

I do not use an external drive as I have a 500 gig internal HD. I Don't know whether I have all of the latest downlaods from HP and microsoft, but I will check both sites and downlaod what I can find.

I will turn off the UAC as well and report back.

Try it at 10 and see if the dropouts go away. If they do, then keep inching it up until you get dropouts and then back it off until you don't.

This is one of those areas where it helps to be a technophile because the more unneeded stuff you disable in windows, the better the system will perform. The difficult part is knowing what to disable ;)

Actually, it's IMPOSSIBLE for many of us to know what needs to be disabled in Windows. Mainly because I didn't have to disable ANYTHING on my older laptop running XP. It was plug and play. Kind of disheartening when you buy this much RAM, I just expected that I could max out the buffer speed, leave the wireless on, etc etc without any USB dropout issues.

Went to the windows website and they did have Vista service pack 2 available for download, whereas the laptop has service pack 1 installed. Fiured I would try everything else before doing that.

You know, it's not impossible to try and lower it and see if it goes away - in fact, it's probably the easiest test you can do. I'm not suggesting it as a permanent change, but at least you might get a heads up on what's causing your problems. Whether you end up liking that answer or not, it's one step closer to that answer ;)

I know you that you said that you have already done all the normal tweaks that are usually suggested on the boards, but have you tried some of the things in the following article? serato.com

I have had my SL3 for a little over two months and I am always looking for new ways to streamline. I just happened upon this article yesterday, which leads me to believe that others might not have seen it right away also. I have been getting USB dropouts @ the beginning mix seshes, too - either because of internal processing glitches or because I have failed to plug in my external HD before attaching the SL3 box - but now it is running smoother after following the directions found in the link.

If you read the article, I think Steps 2, 5, 9, 11 would be most beneficial if you haven't done them already... :)

Clark,

The downside of using Vista is that most Vista machines, regardless of how powerful it is, can't run the buffer at the lowest setting.
Most can't run lower than 4 or 5 without getting dropouts.
We've posted a link to this warning in the minimum system requirements (click the red 'read more' link to get to the FAQ) --> scratchlive.net

You may be able to install XP on your machine to get a better buffer setting but make sure you check with the manufacturer of your computer to make sure that the hardware on your computer will be compatible with XP.

Aaaahhhh....now we're getting somewhere. I missed the thread where it was revealed that Vista has issues running Serato regarding buffer speed. I had no idea. Well, what are you gonna do? All new Pc's are loaded with Vista and HP will no longer support XP. I will check the serato article and see if there is anything left that I have not already tweaked. If I have basically done it all, then I may have to start cosidering throwing Vista overboard and install XP on this laptop.

... that's assuming you can still get XP drivers. We just bought a new laptop for an employee and you can only get Vista/7 drivers :(

As I said, you may be able to put XP on your machine without problems.
If you can't then I would deal with the higher buffer setting until we're sure Windows 7 is good to go and have you update to it.

btw, are you guys seeing better buffer settings in your testing with Windows 7?

Well, read the article above and realized I had already come across it and done most of what it advises. I stopped short of getting into the "msconfig" stuff but did do most everything else. I tried out serato again and it seems I can now get to a buffer setting of 4 or 5 without USB dropout. I find that buffer setting to be right on the edge of signifigant latency issues...anything above 5 and forget it.

Serato is still acting up though. Files will load on a deck and play for 20-30 secs and then just drop out. The waveforms simply disappear and I get a "serato not responding" message in the toolbar. Just weird stuff. One red box continues to flash on and off on one of the virtual decks. It's enough to make you want to throw the laptop across the room.

What is a PC user supposed to do, really? If you buy a new machine they are all pre-loaded with Vista. My older laptop with XP is great with Serato but it only has an 80 gig HD. For some reason I prefer to have all of my music on the internal HD vs using an external. I have never tried serato with an external HD. Just fear of the unknown I suppose.....

Well, if I were you, I'd wipe out the machine and do a fresh install of Vista with nothing else on it. That will help ensure that you have a clean slate and you will probably end up with a faster platform.

As far as boxes flashing, is that because there is an error box "under" the SSL window, or is it SSL flashing a red box? A little more description there would be helpful.

Also, I'd make sure that the taskbar is not showing and that SSL is maximized and full-screen. I have found (in XP) that SSL uses more memory when the taskbar is showing - it might be because it's being considered a background app by the OS? I'm not totally sure why it does it, but it does.

Anyways, that's some stuff to think about...

When did you purchase this laptop? I thought all laptops that were purchased close to the Windows 7 release date qualified for a free upgrade.?.?.?

If you want reliability, I definitely wouldn't go with 7. Let everyone else be the guinea pigs ;)

Reliability has been fine for the past 2 months of me using it and even prior to that when I was beta testing the RC's. And no, I didn't have to wait for the retail version in Oct. to find this out =). Windows 7 is better than Vista and can also run programs in Windows XP compatibility mode quite well. Like Vista and XP (if you so chose), tweaking the settings will produce better results with any program you use. IMO, when using my laptop for Serato, that will be it's MAIN job/focus. I don't load it up with stuff/programs that I would use on my home computer. This way, I can turn off all the lipstick window dressing and run it lean just for Serato and related programs.

It's all a risk factor - you obviously are willing to take the risk that it might crash on you which probably means that you do this as a hobby or just like living life on the edge (which I would not recommend to anyone doing this professionally). Is it a calculated risk? That's anyone's call, but Serato doesn't think it's a good thing to use it during a performance otherwise they'd seal it with their blessing.

You might consider 2 months a lot, but a year's worth of solid error-free performance is usually the marker of a solid OS. This is also around the time when you see the first service pack come out and when most businesses start to move. If you're looking for reliability, XP is your best bet, followed by Vista.

Yes, it's a red box blinking around one of the virtual decks. I know I could go back into the users manual and prolly figure it out, but you guys are usually quicker. I do qualify for an upgrade to 7, but from what I've read on here there's no way I would upgrade to it with all of the issues I've had with Vista already.

If I can't get this under control, I may have to see if XP is compatible with this machine and try and install XP and kick Vista to the curb.

Vista is not a bad OS, so my guess is you have something funky running on your machine. I'd try doing a clean install and see how it runs then...

If SSL is "not responding" while your playing then its probably due to corrrupt files in your library.

To find out if you have any corrupt files in your library you will need to analyze your files.
First click on the 'files' tab underneath the right virtual deck, and click the 'rescan id3 tag' option in the lower left of the files window.
This will remind SSL of what files have been analyzed and which ones haven't.
Once its done scanning, unplug your Rane hardware and click the 'analyze files' tab on the left side of the SSL screen.. above the word 'all'.

After its done analyzing for all necessary files you'll need to look through your library and delete any files that have a corrupt file icon next to it. This looks like a cd with a crack down the middle of it.

Its important to delete ANY corrupt files that SSL finds. Know that even corrupt files you never play can still cause SSL to freeze or crash.


There is an option in the Hardware tab of the setup screen to turn off/on 'flashing deck indicator".