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USB drop out problems on pretty good speced laptop
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USB drop out problems on pretty good speced laptop

Product
Scratch Live
Version
1.9.2
Hardware
Rane TTM 57SL
Computer
PC
OS
Platform
-
Dj Supagi 8:04 PM - 16 December, 2009
Product: scratchlive
Version: 1.9.2
Hardware: rane-ttm57sl
Computer: pc
OS Version: win7
---

Hi, i've just recently purchased a Toshiba Sattelite Black Onyx with Intel Core 2 Duo t6600 at 2.20Ghz, 4G DDR2RAM. Windows 7.

And it's already giving me USB drop out. Not constantly, but probably in about 20-40 minute intervals, 1 hour intervals if i'm lucky. I'm praying to god that its not a factory defect or a mistake they've made while making this laptop. But then again when i get home and plug in my usb speakers and mouse into the slame slot i used for serato, it works fine. I turn off my wireless, and disable my Norton Anti Virus, but it still gives me drop outs.

I dj at a club which has a Rane TTM 57SL mixer, and the USB cord is brand new, and with previous laptops i've borrowed that are pretty much the same spec as my newly bought laptop didn't seem to give me USB drop outs. And i'm sure that it can't be vibrations from the bass or loose connection because the previous laptops were running fine with no drop outs, and the connection is pretty secured. But then again they were running Windows Vista.

Majority my music is stored in the internal hard drive, which is about 60+gigs, expected to expand to about 100+ gigs of music. My hard drive is 500GB HDD running at 5400rpm i believe, so i'm wondering if that can cause the usb drop outs?

please help
Dj Supagi 8:23 PM - 16 December, 2009
On other note, my set up for Serato

Usb Buffer Size(Latency) is set all the way to the right, at 20 i'm guessing.

And For Display

Maximum Screen Update is set at 30, and Audio Cache is set at 15.

Not sure if that has anything to do with the drop outs but i thought this info might help you all in figuring out what's wrong with my laptop =/
Dj Supagi 8:37 PM - 16 December, 2009
One more thing, i always run it battery powered, but on high performance speced, which maxes all processors and such
Dj Supagi 8:43 PM - 16 December, 2009
Sorry if i'm flooding, but this will be the last one, i just wanna add in what's on/enabled when i'm running on high performance settings for the new laptop. I'm really not a computer wiz or have little knowledge about computers and softwares, so i'm not really sure if this will help.

Hard Disk: Turn Off Hard Disk After : 20 minutes

Sleep : Never

USB Selective Suspend Setting: Enabled

Processor Power Management: Both Processors Set At 100%

MultiMedia Settings: When Sharing Video : Prevent Idling To Sleep

and thats pretty much it.

Greatly thankful for help!
Rane, Support
RafaelM 9:03 PM - 17 December, 2009
Set the hard disk to never turn off

Also Im not sure what this is but try disabling the USB Selective Suspend setting. See if this helps.
Dj Supagi 8:16 PM - 18 December, 2009
still doing it, but not as much. What would happen if i go to task manager(ctrl alt del) and make serato process "priority", would that mess my comp up? cuz it gave a warning saying that it'll cause instability within my computer, so i didn't wanna chance it.
Rane, Support
RafaelM 8:53 PM - 18 December, 2009
It shouldnt mess anything up necessarily. If it does - you can set it back. It should just give ScratchLIVE more priority over other programs running.
Zebo 2:51 AM - 20 December, 2009
Supagi, let me know if the priority thing helps. I am having similar issues with Windows 7 on my VAIO.
Dj Supagi 6:04 AM - 20 December, 2009
Putting it on priority mode did help alot. But once in awhile it would still give me a minor usb drop out like always. Is it a glitch within the software when running it with Windows 7? Because i know its still not fully tested yet.
Dj Supagi 6:05 AM - 20 December, 2009
oops, i didn't mean usb drop out like ALWAYS. I mean't as in it gave me little usb drop outs now. Probably 3-5 times in 1 night(6hours djing)
DJ2811 6:18 AM - 21 December, 2009
Hey. I might have something you can try...

Bring up your laptop 'battery' on the device manager and right click on it and 'disable' it. What that does is turn off the power management part of the battery which shows the logo on the bottom right of your screen.

Think this disables the ACPI driver on it which always uses up too much processing power.

I did this to mine nad my drop outs stopped immediately. The battery still works and charges except you don't get any warning that it is going flat except for the small LED light in the laptop.

I also try to run a mains power also, so it doesnt bother me not having the icon.
Hope this helps.
Dj Supagi 4:37 PM - 21 December, 2009
ok i'll try that out. But what i don't get is why am i getting USB drop outs in the first place? The laptop is specced above minimum requirements. Is it an actually bug in the software that they're trying to fix with Windows 7?
Rane, Support
RafaelM 5:53 PM - 21 December, 2009
There is no acknowledged issue with Windows 7 and drop-outs. There have been known issues with Vista however - and this could be related to Win 7 somehow. Although there havent been a huge amount of people reporting drop-outs on simply windows 7 - it seems to be Windows machines in general.

When it comes to Windows/PC machines - even if the machine says it should run ScratchLIVE - sometimes it cannot. It comes down to simply trying it and seeing how it responds - then trouble shooting the issue.

Here is a program that might be able to help you solve dropout issues on Windows machines: www.thesycon.de
Dj Supagi 4:48 PM - 22 December, 2009
DJ2811 thanks, it does work, disabling the battery.

But i am definitely going to check out that program RafaelM.

Its just pretty crazy, the past laptops i've borrowed where lower specced than mine, running Windows Vista, and have never given me USB drop outs. This was pretty new to me.
Dj Supagi 7:12 PM - 23 December, 2009
Oh and i wanna add that i didn't need to do all these things, like disabling the battery, turning off anti viruses, wireless, etc. for those laptops. Unlike my computer, which is weird seeing as how its way better specced than the past laptops i've used, and yet i have to do/turn off more things on it just to make serato run good.
Dj Supagi 8:39 PM - 24 December, 2009
I have one more question that just caught my attention earlier when i was at the club.

While setting Serato priority on high when on task manager, i noticed that it said "ScratchLIVE.exe 32*

And my version of windows 7 is 64 bit.

Can that be a reason why i'm getting USB drop outs? Because i didn't install the 64bit driver of serato?>
Rane, Support
RafaelM 12:41 AM - 29 December, 2009
No. The 64 bit driver installs automatically - a 32 bit driver would not install to a 64 bit system.
Dj Supagi 1:16 AM - 29 December, 2009
ahh ok, i thought i messed up the installation or something. thanks!