frequent popping and clicking in HD 8

[tallman333]

Ever since upgrading to Pro Tools HD 8, I have been experiencing pops and clicks that show up in the audio. Sometimes they occur when recording and will record onto the tracks. Other times, they occur during playback and do not end up saved on the track. It has also happened during mix down. There is no pattern as to when they happen, but there will be a pop or a click at a constant interval when it does, usually about 1.5 seconds in between pops.

I am running Pro Tools HD|3 on a custom built computer with an I/O 192 with an add on card for 16 track input and a C|24 control surface. The computer has the following specs:
Motherboard - Asus P5Q
Processor - Intel Xeon quad core processor
Graphics Card - nVidia Quadro NVS 440
System Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda version 10 250 GB SATA
Audio Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda ES2 750 GB SATA
OS - Windows XP Pro SP3 32 bit
RAM - 4 GB of DDR2 installed

Since the problem started, I have checked to make sure everything was seated properly in the computer. I have tested the temperature in the computer, and neither the system nor CPU temperature ever rise above 40 C under full load. I checked all the cables between the computer, I/O, and control board. I reviewed and rechecked that the computer settings matched those in the guide at the top of the forum. I checked to make sure there was no conflicting background programs running on the computer and that there are no automatically updating programs. I double checked that I seated the expansion card correctly in the I/O. I updated the latest drivers, bios, and firmware of all the computer components.

This started when I installed Pro Tools version 8 back on March 3rd, but because I have not been able to get the pops to show up on demand, diagnosing and fixing the problem has been a slow process as I cannot tell if a fix worked for several days or into a session for a while.

The pops and clicks do not seem to have any connection to any plug ins open, and sometimes will happen without any plug ins used. It usually occurs after working for some time, but has occasionally happened within the first minute of use. It does not happen consistently on one track, nor has any connection to the number of tracks in use. It will record on all the tracks that are recording at the time, and will play on all of the output channels when it occurs during playback.

The expansion card in the I/O was installed after upgrading to version 8 and after the popping had started.

I had been running this hardware setup with HD version 7.4 for a while and did not experience any of these pops or clicks at that time.

Does any one have any ideas as to what might be causing this or what I could do to fix it?

[x9blade]

tallman333, i've been troubleshooting this problem for the last 4 days. i'm running hd5 on a custom pc myself
i think it all started but, not 100% sure, when i installed analog bundle by duy. only other change i made at around the same time was, i installed the latest version of quicktime.
do you have any duy plug ins or, install the latest quicktime?
i just went back to an earlier image before i installed the above listings. i will post my findings.

pops and clicks were just as you described on my machine

[tallman333]

Originally Posted by x9blade

tallman333, i've been troubleshooting this problem for the last 4 days. i'm running hd5 on a custom pc myself
i think it all started but, not 100% sure, when i installed analog bundle by duy. only other change i made at around the same time was, i installed the latest version of quicktime.
do you have any duy plug ins or, install the latest quicktime?
i just went back to an earlier image before i installed the above listings. i will post my findings.

pops and clicks were just as you described on my machine

Dear x9blade,
Were you able debug your system. I don't have duy plug ins and i don't have the latest version of quicktime, but did get rid of quicktime. I don't think that will help, let me know what you have found out. Thanks Tallman333 Ps I was hoping more people would have responded to my post.

[Fullsound Recording]

I spent days and days on this and it for me turned out to be a UAD-1 card in a PCI slot. When i removed it all was perfect. When i added it back the pops clicks returned.

[Venture Studios]

I just installed quicktime and McDSP bundle yesterday, now im having random clicks and pops on playback. Its odd cause theres no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes its fine, then i'll hear crazy click and pops then i'll listen again and they're gone. Its very annoying. Someone help.

[x9blade]

tallman, last i heard,protools relies on quicktime being installed. i am still getting pops and clicks
kinda seems like the old days when you had problems with protools. make a change the problem goes away. you think you just troubleshooted the problem but, it comes back the next day.

with that, i was in a session lastnight , it started popping and clicking when i made an akoustic piano instrument track active. i turned processors down to one..... the pops and clicks went away,for now.

[x9blade]

small update... was working in a 112 track session. i was making track show hide markers to get a better handle with session. i got up to the first ch and all was well
when i went back to show all tracks and started playback from the beginning, massive pops and clicks appeared all of the suden. strange.
ihit my first track show hide config which showed about 20 tracks, stated play from song start the pops and clicks went away. clicked on show all track, no pops and clicks.
can anyone confirm if this is only happening on bigger sessions? its seems to be the case on my system,for now

[x9blade]

Originally Posted by x9blade

small update... was working in a 112 track session. i was making track show hide markers to get a better handle with session. i got up to the first ch and all was well
when i went back to show all tracks and started playback from the beginning, massive pops and clicks appeared all of the suden. strange.
ihit my first track show hide config which showed about 20 tracks, stated play from song start the pops and clicks went away. clicked on show all track, no pops and clicks.
can anyone confirm if this is only happening on bigger sessions? its seems to be the case on my system,for now

happened again in one of my sessions tried my show hide markers trick, it didn't work

this time it happened while recording gtrs. on plaback of the gtr track, pops and clicks came out of nowhere. i made the gtr track fit to window and watched it as i recorded gtr again. i could swear the artifacts form on the track after its recorded as in some sort of wave recalculating problem. i'll post more if i can confirm

[Gravyblue]

You're right, I have the same problem, it seems to be worse if I have aux channels as fx returns. I just had a tracking session, for 10 days with no auxes and had no pops. But when Vocalising the project, which was nearly mixed ( with auxes) the problem returned. I also seemed to make improvements by reducing the bus count in the i/o dialogue. 16 is enough for me. Its frustrating, and I've had to repair a "once in a lifetime" lead vocal, because on playback it was corrupted.
I'd like to downgrade to 7.4 but can't find anywhere to download it

[x9blade]

yes it seems like regions get corrupted. i will check out your no aux theory.thank you for your feedback