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[Matt]

From MurrayP:

here's some further details.  BTW I opened JRiver a couple of times after the last crash as I tried to make the emailer work with gmail (gave up and copied via wordpad) so it may not show anything interesting.

1) It seems to be processor load related - it happens much more often in theatre view.  It happens more often when running dsp processing (Voxengo Pristinespace convolver).  But it happens also when not in these modes too.

2) crashes randomly – up to once per album. May crash in five minutes or three hours.  If not in Theater mode it may last 2 days.  If not in theater mode and no DSP it may not crash at all.

3) Usually exhibits as a full lock up – screen freezes, output stops and playtime indicator stops. Sometimes music continues but the rest locks up.  Usually won't respond to infra-red controller. Computer usually still responds to mouse though (mouse moves on screen OK, so MC is frozen rather than the screen) and keyboard, but task manager can't close Media Centre. Sometimes MC still responds to a mouse control but despite being able to select a track, it won't play. Usually if more selections are made MC freezes completely within a few selections/instructions. Task manager can never close MC in this case and the computer won't shut down or even respond to its "power" button – I have to remove power to crash out.

4) Computer is ASUS EB1501 running Windows 7. I have updated video drivers and loaded the latest Directx.

5) Does not seem to be related to any particular track.

6) It may be triggered by other computer activity – incidence seems to be less if I turn off the network adapter for instance. There is no virus protection or similar installed (that I am aware of).

7) I've uninstalled, restarted computer, reinstalled - no difference

Would appreciate any hints,

best

Murray

[Matt]

If you're still using a DAC with WASAPI, please try the newer WASAPI mode available here (testing build 111):
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59460.0

Also, it would be best to separate Theater View and audio playback to see which causes the issue.  If you use Theater View with no playback, does it ever crash?  How about vice-versa?

Thanks.

[murrayp]

Hi,

I've loaded 15.0.113 and am using the new Wasapi mode.  Set to the recommended 50ms buffer with my dCS USB, resulted in multiple clicks / pops happening.  Adjusted to 10ms, and all appears to be well.  The system has run a day in Theater mode while playing without any issues.  Murphy suggests I should never say this but it seems to have overcome the crashing problem and the odd click that still made its way through in the earlier Wasapi mode (and I haven't shut down the various other services to keep latency as low as possible, that I normally would). 

Oh, one thing I did do before this new version though was install a program called "Prio" ( http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html ) - this allows one to set and retain program priority in Task manager - I set JRiver (2 places) to realtime.  This seemed to help a little before 15.0.113 was installed - I think.........  It's still there.

BTW, the EB1501 makes a rather cool little music server, despite only scoring about 400 on your benchmark.

Excellent thanks guys. 


 

[Matt]

I've loaded 15.0.113 and am using the new Wasapi mode.  Set to the recommended 50ms buffer with my dCS USB, resulted in multiple clicks / pops happening.  Adjusted to 10ms, and all appears to be well.  The system has run a day in Theater mode while playing without any issues.  Murphy suggests I should never say this but it seems to have overcome the crashing problem and the odd click that still made its way through in the earlier Wasapi mode (and I haven't shut down the various other services to keep latency as low as possible, that I normally would).  

Good to hear it's working.  It seems that the new WASAPI mode is better for USB DACs.

Oh, one thing I did do before this new version though was install a program called "Prio" ( http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html ) - this allows one to set and retain program priority in Task manager - I set JRiver (2 places) to realtime.  This seemed to help a little before 15.0.113 was installed - I think.........  It's still there.

I do not recommend this, as it may have the opposite effect that you want.  Media Center is very careful about how it sets thread priorities.  If you boost _all_ of the threads by changing the process priority, what can happen is that the user interface (or a background task in the program) can become too prioritized and steal CPU cycles from the playback threads.

[murrayp]

Hi,

just an update 10 days on.  All is well.  I ditched Prio as recommended.  The system runs pretty much 24/7 and hasn't crashed once (or glitched) with the new Wasapi mode.  Excellent result at last. Other dCS users will be pleased with the new Wasapi mode too I suspect.  Also it sounds darn good.  Many thanks

Murray