Pops & Clicks in Audio

AA2GF
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Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby AA2GF » Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:15 pm

Purchased a 7000DLE MKII (no embedded PC) last month and have been having a wonderfull time with it (OpenHPSDR mRX v 3.4.9).

I have one annoying problem that I cannot seem to iron out. At times the audio output (speaker) will have click and pop artifacts in it. It occurs randomly and doesn't seem to correlate to anything as far as I can tell. The PC is a mid level WIn 10 gaming box running a Ryzen 7, 2700 8 Core CPU overclocked to 4.2. The maximum PC CPU load that I see is about 30% when I run WSJT, DXlab & JTAlertX, & Firefox. OpenHPSDR shows 18% CPU% with NR2, NB2, MNF, ANF & SNB all on for a worst case test.

I suspect this is related to the buffer size because if I lower it (say from 2048 to 1024) it gets worse, I'm running at 2048.
I also set the OpenHPSDR priority to HIGH in the task manager and it does reduce it somewhat but not eliminate it completely.

Here's what makes it go away...... re-importing the database. Always goes away completely when I do that, but sometimes comes back in time.

Any ideas on what I can do to kill this problem ?

Thanks,

--aa2gf--
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Tony EI7BMB
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby Tony EI7BMB » Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:29 pm

I use Ryzen 1700 myself and the CPU load you are seeing looks a little high. Have you tried latency monitor software ? This might help you identify any program causing an issue. Lots of good info from Scott here http://wu2o.dyndns.org/wu2o_vac_tutorial_2.html
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w-u-2-o
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby w-u-2-o » Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:45 pm

AA2GF
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio - Fixed!

Postby AA2GF » Thu Aug 08, 2019 12:02 pm

Just a quick post to let folks know that the problem was resolved by providing a dedicated network adaptor for the 7000.

I had been using a switch, but using the "WhySoSlow" tool noticed a bottleneck occuring everytime FT8 went through a decode cycle.
The recommended latency tools showed I had plenty of headroom for audio processing.

With this configuration no artifacts whatsoever on the audio regardless of the size of the buffer and all the apps running that I typically use.

--AA2GF--
K9RX
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby K9RX » Thu Aug 08, 2019 12:56 pm

here we are again .... "dedicated network adapter"... forgive my ignorance - what exactly is that?!

I am using a network switch because I don't see any way around doing it this way. The computer only has the one ethernet port - so I can't use the internet AND the radio at the time ... so I use the switch, the radio, the internet and the computer all 'share' this ...

but you're suggesting a switch is potentially a problem - how do I do this otherwise?

Are you saying you bought a separate ethernet card and are using it from the radio to the computer - and then the internet goes to the in-built ethernet connection? If so any suggestions on which card to get/try?

Gary
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w-u-2-o
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby w-u-2-o » Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:28 pm

I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying, Gary.

It is very unlikely that it is the switch that is the problem. Most modern switches have a backplane or "fabric" that can switch the maximum wireline rate on all ports. More likely it is a problem sharing the single NIC for multiple data streams. That is the bottleneck, not the switch.

I only have a single NIC and don't have any suggestions for an extra that might be "better" or "best". However they are typically dirt cheap, between $10 and $20 on Amazon, so you are not out a lot of money if it doesn't work out for you.

73!

Scott
AA2GF
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Re: Pops & Clicks in Audio

Postby AA2GF » Thu Aug 08, 2019 7:12 pm

Yes Gary I purchased a second NIC card and I'm using it like you stated, one NIC goes to the rig and the one on the MB goes to my switch.

While I cannot say with certainty what changed under the covers I can say with certainty that before the change when I decreased the buffer size in the Audio tab the clicks and pops got worse and when I increased it the situation got better, but never went away completely.

With the NIC going to the rig clicks and pops are gone completly no matter what the buffer size is, and the "WhySoSlow" app no longer shows the bottleneck when using FT8. This one in particular I don't understand .... perhaps my assumption about the data buffer transfer occuring during the receive cycle is incorrect.

Nevertheless my audio is artifact free and I'm a happy camper :)

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