Thanks Popmann

1.Can't pull the network card because this P4 serves as a slave, and all midi data is via Midi-Over-Lan.
With that in mind, which slot would you recommend for the NIC?

2.Is there some way to see which slots share resources?

Sorry for the misleading info re the graphics card - I'm on the learning-curve from Hell.

Mike.

i should have seen this, of course an MX4000 is AGP ... it actually says PCI bus 1, whereas the other devices are on bus 0 and 2 ... although the N6200 should be slightly better, there is no reason to change it ...

also the motherboard must be different from the one i've found, because i don't see an onboard ethernet now (model is often printed beneath the RAM slots or between the PCI slots, sometimes near the edges of the board) - as long as we don't know the model we have to somehow grope in the dark ... (hopefully it is not an MSI board, i found them to be very poorly designed)

in any case you should move your gigabit card to another slot - my feeling says the network card should sit in slot 2 or 3 and your soundcard in slot 4 or 5

christian

CAUTION: always remove main power cable before changing cards in slots - a screw might accidently fall on the board and destroy parts leading standby voltage.

OK here are some test results.

I installed Cubase on this P4 so that I could test without using the network card, and used the offending midi sequence from the Host PC (ie. using the P4 as a host, rather than a slave).

a) With a buffer setting of 512, the Delta card played flawlessly on PCI slots 2, 4 and 5. Slots 1 and 3 broke up.

b) With the Gigabit card connected to PCI slot 3 (but no network activity), playback was still flawless.

c) When I play the sequence from the Host PC to the slave P4 viaMidiOverLan, bad audio breakup occurs.

So the problem seems to be caused by the Network (Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet).

I'm only using 6 midi channels with modwheel data, slow note tempo, nothing frantic - should be a piece of cake for the network to handle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike.

Is there any audio "sync" going on? Word clock? Are you sure the break up is NOT digital misclocking? Clicky buzzy "breakup"?

I've got no experience wiht MIDIoverLAN. Know what it is...but, since I've found USB MIDI interfaces to suck compared to old serial boxes...I just figured MOL would just be another step in the direction of problems. [;)]

If 1 and 3 broke up...don't put ANYTHING THERE--probably shares with the USB controller or something else on the motherboard.

There's a physicality to the resource assignments...(based on what you've posted), I'd try the audio in slot 2 and the network in 4 or 5. I actually miss having ISA slots for network cards. You could always manually assign those resources elsewhere if they got in the way. Oh well...give that a shot.

My Maudio card has issues as long as my wireless Linksys card is in there. Never had an issue with the 3com NIC. FWIW.

Hi Popmann

1.No digital clocking issues with the slave P4s. Audio is hardwired back to the Host with balanced audio cables, no sync at all. This breakup is more of an audio-dropout type of breakup than the classic clocking clicks & pops.

2.I will swap the audio card to PCI slot 2, and NIC to slot 5 as you suggest.
Yes, I will put NOTHING in slots 1 and 3.

3.MOL works very well indeed. I've used it for years without problems. I've only had problems since I started using Vienna Instruments on the slave P4. I think the streaming demands of the perf leg instruments are testing the limits of the P4, with the NIC pushing it just over the edge. It's not a RAM issue, more of a buss bottleneck problem (I think).

I'm hoping that a higher-spec NIC will somehow solve this.

The significant issue here is that the P4 can handle the sequence fine on it's own, but not via the network.

Keep the ideas coming! I've got a studio to run... [:(]

No luck.

Put audio card in slot 2, NIC in slot 5.

Same breakup.

[:'(]

Plays fine without the network though...

years ago i've changed all network cards to 3Com (for performance reasons) 3C996B and 3C940, the newer ones are displaying broadcom (as newer intel NICs do btw), and we are using also 3Com gigabit switches (unmanaged) for all networks.

you should in any case look for updated drivers fro your realtec card (possibly even a firmware update) and please have another look for a label on your motherboard - without the IRQ table we have 200 possible combinations to equip the PCI slots ...
christian

Thank you Christian.

1.I will definitely try a driver/firmware update for the Realtek NIC.

2.First thing tomorrow, I will renew my efforts to find the label for this motherboard.

Mike.

This is all I can find on the mobo (close to the memory chips):

865PE-A Rev 2.0
15-H70-012004

Hope this is helpful.

thanks,
Mike.

thx, unfortunately 865PE is only related to the chipset, rev 2.0 points either to MSI or Elitegroup - it can't be an ASUS because they label their mobos very well.
for the second term i found only chinese sites so far, which of course was not very helpful to me too [;)]
tbc, christian

Ha! that's the chipset in my machine. Ironically...I've had a billion issues with the wireless NIC (so much that's I've removed it all together)--it's a Linksys, FWIW.

[[:D]] [[:D]] Problem solved.

Disabled "Hyper-threading" and Voila! no more glitches.

Incredible that something this simple could do so much damage.

My sincere thanks to Christian, Popmann and everyone else for their kind assistance.

CM, I will PM you regarding upgrading this PC to a dual-core. From now on, I only buy what VSL recommends. Then we will never again have this "what mobo/chipset" waste of time. My apologies for using so many forum pages.

Mike

I don't think you can go dual core with the 865PE. I could be wrong...I know I can't on my Intel board with the chipset.

Hey popmann
No, I'm planning a new mobo, chipset and ram. All that will survive from the old P4 is possibly the case and the DVD writer [[;)]]

I can get an ASUS motherboard with nForce 5 chipset 200MHZ x4 bus speed. I believe this chipset will support DDR2 800 RAM

Graphics card – a cheap AGP

3GB DDR2 800 RAM

I've asked them for specific model numbers so I can post here for comment. I'll go with whatever CM recommends.

Regards,
Mike.

Let me know what performance gain you see between the two. I'm about to bump mine from 1.5gb to 3gb. I just don't see my CPU getting hit hard, still. I mean, there's some--the instruments like Akoustik Piano that include an impulse verb as part of the instrument...but, it's also not my fave piano I've got, and you can always just clikc the impulse off.

Sure thing, popmann.

I also intend to do the /3gig switch thing...

but only after I've done my homework [[;)]]

sorry mike, i am late ...
i'd take one of those asus boards with 2 x 2 GB RAM (leaves the upgrade path to 8 GB open) - don't take one with the newer DDR3 chipsets, it is too early for the current chipset generation.

alternatively choose intel, eg. this one

if you wait for 2 or 3 weeks the quad-core CPUs will be available at a reduced price (i've read something about $ 266.-)

grafic card is of course PCIe then, but there are still *normal* PCI slots for conventional audio cards

you should actually be able to *transfer* or image your current system and just update/add the needed drivers - i have done this successfully with an older and a newer shuttle lately.
christian

Thanks Christian.

Should I go for IDE or SATA drives? Or is there not much performance difference these days?

All your advice is being carefully noted - much appreciated.

Mike.