DAX Kills IDT Audio

Paul Burton

I'm using a FLEX 6300 with SmartSDR V1.3.0.  When I installed this on my 64-bit Windows 7 laptop computer including DAX, I noticed the IDT audio control panel which controls the audio on my laptop was missing in the taskbar.  I tried to start it from Control Panel but it would not start.  In trying to reinstall the CODEC it gives an error.  So, I removed SmartSDR and DAX and was able to reinstall and run the IDT Control Panel.  Somehow one of those programs is killing it. 

The same thing happened when I installed Smart SDR on my 32-bit Windows 7 desktop, although the Audio Codec is VIA, and  in that case I was able to reinstall the VIA CODEC and it functions normally. 

Has anyone seen anything like this or have suggestions?   Am I missing something?  Thanks

Neil K2NF

Have you checked your IDT drivers and any app that may go with the IDT audio control panel to see if they are up to date for your OS ?

SikkRikk Stevens

Same thing here. The VIA control panel no longer works. Even after I reloaded the operating system from scratch onto a new SSD drive and the same thing happens.. No VIA control panel.

Don Singer

Interesting.... this did not occur on my Win 8.1 HP Desktop....definitely check the Driver to see if is up to date.

Don KF7DS

Paul Burton

After several tries, I was able to reinstall the VIA codec while SmartSDR was installed, and it seems to work ok.  But since then I have gotten a couple of BSD and wonder if it has to do with VIA/SmartSDR together.  I'm hoping FRS will address this after Labor Day.

Paul Burton

Yes, I totally reinstalled the latest IDT drivers and codec several times.  It seems to not coexist with either SmartSDR, CAT, or DAX.  If I uninstall SmartSDR and components, IDT can then be installed and works fine.  But installing the SmartSDR always kills the IDT codec, and my computer audio soulds ****.  When I try to install the IDT drivers while SmartSDR is already installed (with DAX), it always throws a mysterious installation  error and complains about a COM port.  So I'm wondering if it has to do with CAT. 

Paul Burton

I have also noticed that when I try to listen to the DAX RX audio channel on the PC, the audio is very broken up and sounds pretty bad.  This happens on both my desktop and laptop Windows 7 machines.

SikkRikk Stevens

No sound issues here just no VIA control panel access.. Latest updates and win7

Neil K2NF

when you are listening to the corrupted  dax audio, do all sound devices  ( usually 3 DAX plus a couple of high definition audio devices ) under sound controllers in the devices section of the win 7 control panel show " device working properly " in their general status tab ?  also under same conditions  is there any task in task manager consuming high levels of any resource ?

 

Neil K2NF

is the VIA audio manager showing in your control panel or program list ?

Paul Burton

Neil - on the system with VIA audio (which I was able to get working with SmartSDR), the DAX audio is somewhat broken and distorted when listening via the PC.  Device Manager shows all DAX channels working normally, and the only processes using elevated resources are SmartSDR at 23% CPU, DAX varying between 2% and 6%,  and some sidebar gadgets and VIA at 1 or 2%.  None of that seems unreasonable.  But the audio has a rapid breakup.    I have tried various combinations of audio gain on SmartSDR and the PC and various playback devices, but all have the distortion.

Neil K2NF

looks pretty normal based on my average config here. Assuming your actual DAX RX audio stream is good ( eg you can use it to drive HF RTTY receive using MMTTY for example ) , my guess is that the breakup you are hearing when playing back through your PC is due to the audio latency introduced by processing through multiple sound cards. If the actual DAX audio stream is unusable , I would continue to investigate interference between VIA / IDT and DAX audio drivers and also open a help desk ticket with Flex.

Paul Burton

OK Neil, thanks for your help.  The only exceptional thing I can  see is that I have two VB Audio Cable virtual audio connections, but the DAX audio does not go through it.  It's not being used.  There's lots of shotgunning I can do to try to find the cause of this, but I just need time and energy.  Let's see if FRS has some ideas. 

SikkRikk Stevens

yes it is in the control panel and trying to access it brings up nothing..

Neil K2NF

audio control panel should have loaded with the VIA Driver. did you try to  reinstall the driver and get an error message ?