sdr# audio popping

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

Hey guys, I'm not sure what is going wrong with my setup, but every so often with an Airspy R2 using SDR# the audio will start popping. I have to stop the RX stream and restart it and the audio popping goes away. My computer is a fast gaming computer, I am running at 10 MSPS sample rate. Anyone have this problem? Anyone have a solution?

jonwienke · May 21, 2018

Typically that indicates your sampling rate is faster than your USB connection can handle reliably. Try a slower sampling rate.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

jonwienke said:
Typically that indicates your sampling rate is faster than your USB connection can handle reliably. Try a slower sampling rate.

Yeah, that is what I'm fearing. The Airspy is connected to a USB3.0/2.0 port. Shouldn't it work fine on a USB 3.0 port? To get the airspy closer to my antenna to increase SNR, I connected two USB cables in series. Maybe that is too long and affecting the USB error rate? I just removed a USB cable and shortened it's length and added more antenna feedline. I'll let you know how that works.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

Well crap, it just did it again. WTF! I guess my motherboard sucks?? Is 10 MSPS too fast for USB 3.0?

jonwienke · May 21, 2018

Max data transfer rate is limited by the slowest component in the chain The USB chip in the AirSpy may be the bottleneck, or it could be the cable or motherboard. Try the shortest USB cable you have, then turn down the sample rate until it works reliably. Eliminate any USB hubs, make the connection as short and simple as possible. Check driver settings to see if something is forcing USB 2.0 instead of allowing 3.0.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

Yeah, I'm determined to figure out this problem. I have what I thought was a good motherboard, I kind of doubt that's the problem. Could it be the Airspy? If so, that would suck because I want another one for HF. I can try using the OEM cable and completely eliminate my USB extension cable. I will do that today. It just did it again to me while I was listening to the NOAA weather station, I turned off the Audio Noise Reduction and the popping stopped. I'm going to leave it off and see if the popping comes back.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

I think it may be related to the Audio Noise Reduction. I can replicate the problem now. If I set the Audio Noise Reduction to custom and adjust the FFT Size to max, popping starts happening badly. If I turn the FFT Size down, the popping goes away. And if I turn the FFT to the middle and turn up Quality, popping will begin.

mancow · May 21, 2018

I never go above 131072 resolution.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

mancow said:
I never go above 131072 resolution.

The FFT size in the Audio Noise Reduction only goes to 8192. I'm not talking about the FFT display. I can crank up the FFT resolution on the display past 131072 and it doesn't cause popping like the FFT size in the Audio Noise Reduction plugin.

RogueSteward · May 21, 2018

Well, I'm quite positive that I had a misconfigured SDR# settings that were causing the popping. If I adjust either the Audio Noise Reduction or the IF Noise Reduction to max settings, I get audio popping/dropping. I guess I need to learn more about those plugins and optimal settings. I'll see what I can find!

jonwienke · May 21, 2018

Noise reduction tends to be CPU intensive. If the plugins aren't written to be multi-threaded, then it's likely they were maxing out whatever CPU core was executing that code, and causing the popping.

mancow · May 21, 2018

RogueSteward said:
Well, I'm quite positive that I had a misconfigured SDR# settings that were causing the popping. If I adjust either the Audio Noise Reduction or the IF Noise Reduction to max settings, I get audio popping/dropping. I guess I need to learn more about those plugins and optimal settings. I'll see what I can find!

I see. I thought the extra cpu load might be dragging things down.

spongella · May 23, 2018

I have used up to a 6 ft USB cable with an SDR-Dongle, never had a problem with audio popping. As was stated previously try lowering your sampling rate. Also make sure your squelch is off.

RogueSteward · May 23, 2018

spongella said:
I have used up to a 6 ft USB cable with an SDR-Dongle, never had a problem with audio popping. As was stated previously try lowering your sampling rate. Also make sure your squelch is off.

I only have two settings, 10 and 2.5 MSPS. When the audio starts popping and I'm at 10 MSPS, I can just restart the stream and it doesn't start until I either start scanning again or navigate through the frequencies. I'd of course like to be able to use the airspy at it's full 10 MSPS data rate. I think I'm going to order a PCI-E high speed USB card and see if that solves the problem because it's still doing it... Very frustrating!

spongella · May 23, 2018

This may help out: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/sdrsharp-users-guide/

RogueSteward · May 23, 2018

spongella said:
This may help out: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/sdrsharp-users-guide/

Thanks, I've been using that guide. Are there any other good guides? I ended up going to the airspy forums and ordered a recommended USB 3.0 pci controller, that should hopefully do the trick!

RogueSteward · May 25, 2018

I'm about ready to throw the airspy out the window! I ordered a recommended high speed USB 3.0 PCI-E card and still getting popping! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CPU is only at 27%, memory at 13%, super fast gaming rig can't even run this airspy WTF. Maybe something is wrong with my airspy? I'm going to go post this on their official forums...

mancow · May 25, 2018

Do you have a solid state drive?

RogueSteward · May 25, 2018

mancow said:
Do you have a solid state drive?

There are two SSD's in the computer, there isn't a disk drive in my PC.

Anyway, there may be a solution! I went to the airspy forums to ask for help and found that a new firmware update was just released today a few hours ago! I flashed the firmware in the Airspy and the popping/stuttering hasn't happened since! I'm going to keep my fingers crossed though because the last time I thought I fixed it problems started happening again but this is the longest it's went without the popping/stuttering.

mancow · May 25, 2018

SSDs really helped when using it with my laptop. Thanks for the info about the firmware. I'm going to give it a try too.

sdr# audio popping

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