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Problem with USB audio

About a week ago, when I tried to play music using my Asus A8 laptop and Benchmark DAC1 USB, music would play for a few seconds, and then drop out completely after a sudden, unpleasant noise, regardless of whether I am doing anything with the laptop or not.

I used my Asus laptop, which was less than two years old, to feed data to the Benchmark DAC1 USB via a USB cable. Before last week, I had no problem with USB audio at all - even when I am doing many things on my laptop at the same time. I have tried an IBM PC and a Macbook Pro after the problem arose, and they both worked fine, so the DAC1 USB and the USB cable are cleared. I use Foobar 2000 v0.9.5.6; however, I also tried Windows Media Player, with the same result - after a few seconds of music, the music stopped completely while the WMP indicates the music was still playing (like Foobar did).

So, apparently there's something my laptop was doing wrong, does anyone know what? Any comment/advice is greatly appreciated!
chenc
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Horseface - makes me cringe to call you that - the Benchmark and Empirical Audio products use the native windows drivers. There is no driver to load. No ASIO to load.

However, there are still some hurdles, namely kmixer on XP. To bypass this, either unmap the device or use Kernel Streaming. It is bit-perfect with this. Vista is bit-perfect with these devices also.

Steve N.
chenc OP
23 posts
 
During my conversation with a Benchmark engineer, I was told to stop processes that I don't use. I googled the ones that seem to be taking more resources, but read that they shouldn't be removed. I did give all the priority of Foobar "7" (1-7, I assume 7 is highest). The good news is, when I'm NOT running anything else AND NOT moving the mouse, USB audio works. The bad news is, it is impractical.
chenc OP
23 posts
 
Does anyone think upgrading the RAM from 2G to 4G will solve this problem?
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