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[jesseinsf]

Today I just received my Sound Blaster AE-9 sound card. I triple checked and made sure all is installed properly. Windows recognizes the card and all applications functions properly except JRiver Media Center. I put the card in to Direct Mode within the Sound Blaster Command App. In jriver, Music plays wonderfully for a few minutes and then the music just mutes. I have to click stop and then play for the music to play for a few more minutes again. I've tried direct sound mode, Both WASAPI modes and both ASIO modes and the same thing happens. What can be causing this? I have tried all Audio Devices in the photo attached

[wer]

Try the ASIO setting, and if that doesn't clear things up, try WASAPI.

WASAPI can have issues with SB cards, but I'm not familiar with that particular card.

[jesseinsf]

Try the ASIO setting, and if that doesn't clear things up, try WASAPI.

WASAPI can have issues with SB cards, but I'm not familiar with that particular card.

Thank you for the reply, however, I think you overlooked my post where I did say that I tried all modes which includes both ASIO and WASAPI.

[wer]

Yes I did! 

If you're using DS, MC does not have exclusive use of the card.

When the music stops improperly, at that moment can other apps make sounds?  Do you get sounds from the sounds control panel applet at that time?

If not, it's not an MC problem, it's a driver problem.

When you say other apps work fine, does that mean you've tried another app playing the same duration of music at the same sample rate and bit depth as MC?  A quick beep is not the same as continuously pushing megabytes of digital audio.

[enb141]

What are your Direct Sound settings, this are the problems that I have right now on 25.0.89 x64:

- Sometimes ASIO doesn't works so I have to switch to Direct Sound or use 32 bit JRiver and go back to 64 bit
- If I chose Direct Sound, the sample rate has to be on 192k (382k doesn't works)

[jesseinsf]

Yes I did! 

If you're using DS, MC does not have exclusive use of the card.

When the music stops improperly, at that moment can other apps make sounds?  Do you get sounds from the sounds control panel applet at that time?

If not, it's not an MC problem, it's a driver problem.

When you say other apps work fine, does that mean you've tried another app playing the same duration of music at the same sample rate and bit depth as MC?  A quick beep is not the same as continuously pushing megabytes of digital audio.

Actually I see that the music is still playing but no sound and the only time I hear other sounds from the OS is when MC is in Direct Sound mode All other modes I don't hear anything. I will be calling Creative today to make sure it's not the card/ driver that is doing this. However, I will reformat my PC so that I have a fresh install.

[JimH]

Did you try unchecking the setting for the device's exclusive mode.

Tools > Options > Audio device settings.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Exclusive_Access

[jesseinsf]

Did you try unchecking the setting for the device's exclusive mode.

Tools > Options > Audio device settings.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Exclusive_Access

Hi Jim, I finally was able to re-format my PC. I needed to test this issue on a clean, non-overclocked and non altered system with no added applications other than J.river 64-bit and all windows updates and all the latest drivers. Just to be clear, my music is on a 2 TB external HDD that is connected to my Asus router via USB 3.0.My router is an Asus Rapture GT-AC5300. I beleive my PC specs are in my signature.

I did not enable anything in MC except that I changed the output mode to the regular ASIO (Not the DSD ASIO). Everything worked great for an hour and then the music just paused. I had to click the stop radio button and then click play again to play the music again. It happens much less than it did yesterday. Anyway, before I continue this test, I will be contacting the manufacturer because I noticed that my card is getting quite hot about an inch from where the power connector is on the card. It gets about 130 to 135F.

[wer]

It's interesting that you mention heat.  The sort of symptoms you describe are more commonly associated with a heat or memory problem, but I didn't suggest that because I've never seen that in a sound card.

But I see that particular card is a new fancy one that has an additional connection from the PSU to power an external control pod.

So overheating is a good thing to test.  You could try running the machine with the case open and a desk fan blowing at the card.  That will keep it much cooler and will at least allow you to exclude heat as the cause.

[enb141]

Maybe the power supply is getting hot after a few hours of use and that is creating false voltages that makes the sound card unstable, or maybe you have memory leaks, could be a lot of things, just my 2 cents.

[jesseinsf]

Update: I think this issue may be Motherboard specific. I'm using the ASUS Maximus XI Extreme.

I've been active on the SoundBlaster Subreddit site and I "may" have determined what was causing this issue. I cannot say exactly what is causing it but it is not a power issue, nor is it a JRiver issue. All I can say is the steps that I took seemed to have fixed the issue (I'm still testing it). This was tested on a Z390 intel Chipset.

Anyway, I was asked to install the Beta drivers that are supposed to fix this issue. Apparently that didn't fix it because the issue kept happening hours after.

So, this morning I kept digging for a solution and couldn't find anything that could fix this issue.

I decided to turn off all unnecessary CPU and PCIe features related to Virtualization in the BIOS that I didn't need. There were 3 things that I turned off. they were  "PCIe SO-IOV Support", "Intel VT-d" and Intel Virtualization. Lastly, do not overclock your PC With ASUS AISuite until a fix is out (whether it's a BIOS update or driver update). I made this decision because if I cannot use Overclocking and hardware monitoring software then I have to believe it's a PCIe issue with my Motherboard Model and/Or Sound Card Driver.

[JimH]

Thanks for posting that.

[jesseinsf]

Thanks for posting that.

Hi Jim, I re-seated my AE-9 in to a different PCIe slot and am using the beta drivers for this card which are suppose to fix the Audio dropouts. I'm also using mostly default BIOS settings. Now I can play music through any other ASIO/WASAPI audio player with no audio dropouts but MC still has audio dropouts. It happens through all output formats (WASAPI, ASIO, Direct Sound, ext). Now creative labs says they are going to release new drivers this Friday which they say will fix this issue permanently. Anyway, I thought you should know this and I will let you know the results of the new drivers when they are released (hopefully this Friday like they said).

Update Friday Aug 23, 2019

Creative didn't release a driver today for the AE-9. I cannot point fingers now but what I can confirm is at this point my Audio Dropout issue only happens on JRiver Media Center. This issue doesn't happen on other media players such as AIMP and Foobar2000 using ASIO or WASAPI event and Direct Sound.