Windows 7 can't handle external sound cards!!

This is very strange. I've been working with windows 7 since 2014, prior to that i was using a macbook pro. But somewhere along the way I noticed that my m-audio fast track pro had drivers issues. It would disconnect itself suddenly, or it would sound distorted or the system wouldn't recognize it. But that was something that happened randomly. A few days ago I bought a pci usb 3 card, and my system wouldn't recognize it. The person who sold it to me told me that it was a problem with my windows 7 version, that I needed to reinstall windows or run windows update. So I updated it, and ever since that day the sound card would do all the things i wrote about, but all the time, until I couldn't use it anymore. The sound gets distorted, or sounds choppy, or doesn't sound at all, you name it. I thought as the fast track pro has been discontinued, maybe the drivers wouln't work properly, so I bought a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, but I found I have more or less the same problems. Maybe not as constant as the fast track pro, but it's more or less the same. I've searched for viruses, nothing. Checked if my drives are in good health, top notch, uninstalled unnecesary software, problem persists, I checked cpu temperature and it seems to be fine. The only conclusion I came up with is that is must be a compatibility problem with windows 7 or some of the things it updated, but I'm not really sure. I really don't understand much about this. The only thing I know for sure is that I have to switch back to mac as soon as I can. ANY IDEAS??? I need the computer for my work, I'm kind of desperate here..

Hi Fireberd,
Thank you so much for your reply. Latencymon told me this: (I cut out a lot of it, if you need me to post the entire report please ask)

CONCLUSION
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Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:34:33 (h:mm:ss) on all processors.


CPU SPEED
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Reported CPU speed: 3492 MHz
Measured CPU speed: 1 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.

WARNING: the CPU speed that was measured is only a fraction of the CPU speed reported. Your CPUs may be throttled back due to variable speed settings and thermal issues. It is suggested that you run a utility which reports your actual CPU frequency and temperature.



MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
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The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started execution. This includes the scheduling and execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait state in response to that event.

Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 48047,754815
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 5,188758

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 46535,257062
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 1,537520



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REPORTED ISRs
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Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs): 46690,216495
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y 2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0,032063
Driver with highest ISR total time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0,055758


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REPORTED DPCs
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DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished execution.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs): 47780,280069
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y 2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0,040003
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: USBPORT.SYS - Controlador de puertos USB 1.1 y 2.0, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0,104865




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REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
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Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count: searchindexer.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults 11227
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 6093
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs): 173858,758305
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%): 0,277273
Number of processes hit: 15


SO!! Summing up:
- ISR routines are USBPORT.SYS (this could be caused by the pci card I installed) and dxgkrnl.sys (i don't really understand what that is)
- In dpc routines we have USBPORT.SYS again
- the process with the highest pagefault count is searchindexer.exe, but how do I stop that? Isn't that like some vital windows thingy?
So, what would be the steps to follow? Should I uninstall the pci card and then what? try and update the bios?
Thank you so much for your help!

Hey! So far so good! I unistalled the damn pci card and things seem to be running smoothly. I'm gonna wait and test my system a little more before I mark this post as solved, but I think it's gonna be alright now (I hope!). I can't thank you enough for your help, you literally saved my ass haha! Cheers!

Double click the speaker icon in the lower right hand of the desktop, this will bring up the mixer, or single click to bring up the volume control.
But in case the volume is missing, corrupted, or the audio is otherwise non-functional:
you check whichever audio was installed:
click start, control panel, add remove programs, look at the list...
which audio software is shown on the list? delete it, restart the computer.

Thanx Pommier45. I tested my computer for a few hours and I think at this point I can mark this post as solved. The solution was to install Latency Mom and that gave me an idea of where the problem was. Cheers!

I had this problem when I first started using the fast track on my Windows 7 VAIO. I tried all kinds of convoluted crap to stop the clicks then a sound engineer mate of mine looked at it and had it working within 15 mins! He didn't have anything extraordinary to tell me about what he did. Reinstalled Ableton and the Fastrack drivers and it's been fine since.

marceloan41 said:

Thanx Pommier45. I tested my computer for a few hours and I think at this point I can mark this post as solved. The solution was to install Latency Mom and that gave me an idea of where the problem was. Cheers!

Nice to hear that your problem solved.