Fast Track Ultra 8R restarting computer

[Al1G]

Hi
I am setting up a broadcast studio for a radio station using the Fast Track Ultra 8R as the main soundcard. The Fast Track is connected to the computer through a 15ft usb cable to a belkin PCI USB2.0 card. Both the Fast Track and the computer are connected to the same UPS. The computer runs Win 7 64bit. The automation software only uses WDM so I cannot use ASIO. The problem I am having is that I leave the computer playing songs and come back hours later (generally the next day) to find that the computer has restarted. In the Windows Event Viewer, I find a kernal error saying that the system rebooted and was shutdown improperly. Analyzing the dump file points to the Fast Track driver as the cause of the shutdown. This has happened twice. Any ideas? Here is the Sandra report:

SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : AM
Workgroup : WORKGROUP

Computer
Model : OEM System Product Name
Serial Number : System Ser**********
Chassis : Desktop
Mainboard : ASUS P7P55D-E LX
Serial Number : MT7014K********
BIOS : AMI (OEM) 1701 09/27/2012
Total Memory : 4GB DIMM DDR3

Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz (2C 4T 3.34GHz/3.48GHz, 2.41GHz IMC, 2x 256kB L2, 4MB L3)
Socket/Slot : FC LGA1156

Chipset
Memory Controller : ASUS Core (Arrandale) DRAM Controller 2x 3.22GHz (6.43GHz), 2x 2GB DIMM DDR3 1.34GHz 128-bit

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Kingston 99U5471-011A01LF 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Kingston 99U5471-011A01LF 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : AOC International 2269W
(1920x1080, 21.7")
Monitor/Panel : AOC International (Europe) GmbH AOC 2269W (1920x1080)
Video Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 4350 (Microsoft Corporation WDDM 1.1) (SM4.1, 512MB DDR3 64-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)
Video Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 4350 (Microsoft Corporation WDDM 1.1) (SM4.1, 512MB DDR3 64-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor

Storage Devices
WDC WD1001FALS-00E3A0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache) : 932GB (C:)
ADATA USB Flash Drive (7.9GB, USB2) : 7GB (E:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk : 100MB (NTFS)
Removable Drive (E:) : 7GB (FAT32) @ ADATA USB Flash Drive (7.9GB, USB2)
Hard Disk (C:) : 931GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1001FALS-00E3A0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS P55 LPC Interface Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : T0 B3-53
Audio Device : Pine Technology RV730XT Audio device [Radeon HD 4670]
Disk Controller : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS JMB361 AHCI/IDE
Disk Controller : ASUS 88SE91A0 SATA-600 Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 3 : ASUS Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller
USB Controller 4 : Belkin Root Hub
USB Controller 5 : Belkin Root Hub
USB Controller 6 : Belkin Root Hub
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Printer : Foxit Reader PDF Printer Driver (300x300, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Peripherals
Media Player : ADATA USB Flash Drive (7.33GB)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller (Ethernet, 100Mbps)

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 6.01.7601 (Service Pack 1)
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 4.5

[albee1952]

Your computer is barely up to the task(IMHO), but moving forward; what automation software cannot use ASIO? It would be my preference to start with the M-Audio driver(latest version) for the interface. If that did NOT work, then I would try ASIO4ALL, but that is an ASIO driver(which does work for many as a last resort). Your computer also NEEDS an approved hard drive for recording(recording to the system drive, or a partition of it, is a recipe for failure, though that is not your immediate issue).

[Al1G]

Thanks for your reply!
The automation sofware is called ZaraStudio. I do not care about latency as long as it is reliable. What computer would you recomend? The driver is the latest from Avid (6.1.9) What do you mean by approved drive? This computer is not going to be recording much; mainly its for playback.

Not sure if its related or a different problem, but with on this and another computer I tried the interface on, when I extended the cable to 8-10ft. the fast track started geting distorted audio on the outputs. The Belkin pci USB card was the only thing that worked with the 15ft. cable. Also, the computer originally had a NVidia Geforce 210 graphics card but, the audio would cut out for about .5 sec when the screens would turn off (not sleep just turning off the screens) sometimes the audio would drop out for good and not resume until minutes later or a program restart. Again these may be unrelated problems.

[JoelG]

For testing, can you try using a shorter cable, maybe under 10ft? At 15' you're at the max allowed length for a USB cable. Also, try going through the Optimization Guides and make sure to especially disable any power saving.

Joel

[albee1952]

Most of us on the PC side, build our own. The "hot setup" these days is based on a socket 2011 motherboard with the X79 chipset, a socket 2011 intel i7 and 16/32GB of RAM(4 matching sticks for quad-channel operation).

[Al1G]

Ok, I have been testing the Fast Track with a 6ft. cable to a USB port on the Mobo to eliminate the possibility of a bad PCI card, and it crashed this morning.
The mini-dump says DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with a bug check code of "d1"

[Al1G]

Forgot to mention I have disabled USB power saving. The computer does not Sleep; it only turns off the monitor. I will try the rest of the guide.
Thanks

[Al1G]

Ok, I did as much of the optimization guide as possible, and we, so far, have not had any more BSODs. However, The automation software is locking up several times per day. The only thing that can fix it is to restart the program. Until today I was blaming the software. Today, however it locked up and restarting the program did not help. The DJ on air tried to play a song on Windows Media player and that did not work. He ended up having to restart the computer.
I have a gut feeling the problem lies in the WDM driver buffer being set to low. Is there any way to adjust this? The control panel buffer settings don't seem to change anything. Could this be the cause? Any other suggestions?

Andrew

[JoelG]

Have you tried contacting the software manufacture? http://www.zarastudio.es/en/contacto.php Perhaps they can help with any suggestions. I don't see anywhere on the site a list of known bugs or a change log between versions. What version are you running btw?

Joel

[Al1G]

We are running 2.2.16. The latest is 2.2.18. I am trying to update it, then if the problem continues will contact them. We have run this version on this hardware (minus the Fast Track) in the past and it was very stable.