# Severe noise / interference problems with RME HDSPe AIO.



## Andrew Aversa (Mar 10, 2014)

I've posted about this on Gearslutz, Facebook, and the RME forums, but I wanted to post it here as well for everyone's benefit.

Recently I purchased a new RME HDSPe AIO card after seeing its high benchmarks at dawbench.com. It installed in my custom-built W7 64bit system without a hitch, but I noticed that both the headphone and monitor outputs suffered from very noticeable digital noise. I could best describe this as a high-frequency, crunchy, intermittent static... imagine the sound of a fax machine or an old-school printer, filtered and sporadic. Not white noise and not 60hz hum or anything like that.

As it is, the noise level makes the card useless for monitoring. Here are the things I have done to isolate and identify this problem.

1. Checked my monitoring equipment. None of it has any noise whatsoever using any other audio interface (Firestudio Project or onboard sound).

2. Made sure all of my gear was plugged into the same surge protector (APC)

3. Disconnected all USB etc. peripherals and LCD monitors.

4. Swapped the video card's PCI slot.

5. Purchased an entirely new video card.

6. Purchased an isolation transformer for the audio outputs.

7. Uninstalled, reinstalled all drivers.

8. Used electrical tape to completely isolate the card from the case metal.

9. Built a makeshift faraday cage using triple sheets of aluminum foil sandwiched with cardboard and tape, like this:

http://www.overclock.net/t/571718/how-t ... sound-card

10. Tried the card in a completely different computer with completely different parts.

11. Tried THAT computer on a different floor of the house, different electrical system, different outlet.

... *none of the above worked.* It is safe to say I have tried literally everything. Either this is a defective card, or it's SO sensitive that despite everything above, it had the same problems in *two* unique computers. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up the phone and call RME support - if they have it, their forum admin gave literally 0 useful help - but I have a feeling I will just have to get a refund.

I can't express how frustrated and disappointed this has been. I've probably wasted 10 hours swapping parts, computers, trying every solution possible, and buying hundreds of dollars in additional equipment - all to no avail. I thought RME made better products than this.

A few other details about the issue, for those curious...

* The noise is MOSTLY constant but slightly intermittent
* It only begins when Windows starts up, not in BIOS
* It is mostly not correlated to what I'm doing except...
* Running a 100% GPU stress test actually removes the noise completely (of course, my PC is mostly unusable at that point)
* Opening Textpad (????) also removes it completely for 3 seconds


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## kfirpr (Mar 10, 2014)

Are you using stock *unbalanced *breakout cable?


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## SymphonicSamples (Mar 10, 2014)

Hey Andrew , clearly you've done everything you could to try and resolve it . Out of curiosity , what firmware version is your card . When I bought mine I had some noise issues , nothing as bad as that though , but my firmware was old , I must have been old stock . After updating it the card's firmware , it's been fine since . If not , maybe they will replace your card ?


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## Vin (Mar 10, 2014)

Hey Andrew, it's maybe a ground loop. I had that problem when I bought new monitors, it was driving me crazy until I accidentally found this: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_ar ... loops.html

This $25 Behringer DI box removed the problem completely and saved my sanity.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 10, 2014)

Andrew,

I feel your pain.

That being said the RME cards are usually flawless by themselves. Many here use them. And their support usually is very fast ... I see that they answered your question at the same morning. 

You should perhaps check whether your card is one of these:
http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3263

Then: An isolation cage does only help if it is grounded, and also it only helps against electrical fields. Unless you use a (quite expensive) magnetical shield material it will not be of use against magnetical fields.

My guess is that some unit in your computer emits a magnetic field that is then picked up at some point. Possible candidates are the CPU, the graphic card, a hard disk or other processors on your mainboard (like the south bridge).

If the noise is magnetically induced then it should change, at least slightly, if you change distances. Double the distance means 1/4 of the problem. So if you use a different PCIe slot for the RME card that is either nearer or farer away from the emitting part this effect should be obvious. With other words: If you change your distances in the computer and the problem intensity changes then it has something to do with radiation into your sound card, and if the sound intensity does not change then not (and might creep into the signal electrically). A good idea would be to record the signal and compare before / after.

Then: Does your mainboard have an own video output in order to remove the graphic card for a test?


Also: Another possibility is that you have an electrical shield leakage in your breakout cable. 

Hope that helps.


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## Andrew Aversa (Mar 10, 2014)

kfirpr @ Mon Mar 10 said:


> Are you using stock *unbalanced *breakout cable?



I'm using the stock breakout cable yes. However I've tried it with multiple pieces of monitoring gear, different cables, and even an iso transformer for the RCA outs with no effect.



> Hey Andrew , clearly you've done everything you could to try and resolve it . Out of curiosity , what firmware version is your card . When I bought mine I had some noise issues , nothing as bad as that though , but my firmware was old , I must have been old stock . After updating it the card's firmware , it's been fine since . If not , maybe they will replace your card ?



Not sure what firmware version it is, but the card itself is a new model rev 1.4 (the latest)



> This $25 Behringer DI box removed the problem completely and saved my sanity.



I haven't tried a DI box yet but I did try a 2x female to 2x male iso transformer which I think should have the same effect. Then again it sounds nothing like any ground noise I've heard, nor is it present during BIOS or high GPU load. Wouldn't a ground issue be present at all times?



> That being said the RME cards are usually flawless by themselves. Many here use them. And their support usually is very fast ... I see that they answered your question at the same morning.



Their support response was to return the card and blame a "noisy" PSU, but what are the chances that TWO high-end workstations with totally different parts and manufacturers BOTH have the same problem? Maybe then it's time to blame very finicky electronics?

Regarding testing the gpu (etc), again I have tried MULTIPLE video cards, and multiple computers, none of that has any effect. Also, stress testing the GPU to 100% load eliminates the noise - it doesn't increase it. I have this same thread going on Gearslutz and someone there has convinced me that it's a mobo capacitor specifically. But this is of little comfort given that the same problem happens on two PCs. If I buy a THIRD computer what is my guarantee that the RME will play nice there?


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## Vin (Mar 10, 2014)

zircon_st said:


> I haven't tried a DI box yet but I did try a 2x female to 2x male iso transformer which I think should have the same effect. Then again it sounds nothing like any ground noise I've heard, nor is it present during BIOS or high GPU load. Wouldn't a ground issue be present at all times?



In my case, it was responding to clicking and opening new folders. Whenever I clicked or opened anything, extremely annoying high-pitched squeaky sound was going out of my speakers (?!). It completely disappeared after I patched it through the DI-box. This DI-box I've got even converts unbalanced signal to balanced, and it's crazy cheap.

Hope you'll find a solution, good luck!


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## Hannes_F (Mar 10, 2014)

Andrew, the fact that the noise is gone while stress testing the GPU probably means that some emitting component is inactive during this test.

Can't you exchange the RME card with another example? Or put your card into the computer of a friend for a test?

Regarding ground loops: A transformer in the output does not necessarily solve all ground loop problems. They could be elsewhere. The quickest test would be to detach everything from the computer including lan cables etc. except monitor, mouse, keyboard and a pair of headphones into the breakout cable.

Still loving Impact: Steel, that is why I try to help


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## Andrew Aversa (Mar 10, 2014)

Thank you all for the suggestions & support. I just spoke with Synthax support and they recommended switching off things like Speedstep in the BIOS. Of course I already had that stuff off for DAW purposes, BUT... I took another look at my BIOS power settings. Sure enough, I had near everything disabled *except* for something called "C1E State". As soon as I disabled that and booted into Windows, BOOM, the noise was gone. Just like that.

So my best guess as to what was happening is that the C1E state (which is a form of power saving) was causing voltage fluctations in the mobo. These were being picked up by the card. No power saving = CPU runs at max voltage at all times, no fluctuations, no noise. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

While I'm beyond thrilled that this is working now (I've been trying to fix the issue for about 5 days straight) I do have to say that I'm shocked the card is so sensitive to such an obscure setting. But I am certainly glad it's (seemingly) fixed now...


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## Hannes_F (Mar 10, 2014)

Great to hear, Andrew. Direct contact with the support (not in forums) is sometimes the best if there is somebody experienced on the other side.


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## kgdrum (Mar 10, 2014)

Glad you're making progress,Synth Ax has always been great for any issues or questions i've ever had with my FF,I usually deal w/Jeff he s very knowledgable and always helpful. o-[][]-o


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## kitekrazy (Jul 26, 2016)

I would. RME is all about quality.


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## Andrew Aversa (Jul 26, 2016)

Frankly I decided to abandon this overly-sensitive PCI card in favor of the Fireface UCX, which is working much better with no noise issues whatsoever... you might consider the same!


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## chimuelo (Jul 27, 2016)

PCI 32bit 5 volt slots are no longer native on motherboards.
I broke out an old Scope DSP card just for the Reverb and 48 stereo channel mixer and it was noisy.
Fine for a blues biker bar gig but not for recording.
I was told it was the Bridge used on i7 boards.


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## tack (Aug 3, 2016)

I have the original Babyface and love it. I can't speak to the Pro but the original suffers from intermodulation distortion at 96/192 so if the placebo effect of high samplerates is your thing you may want to look elsewhere. (Or maybe all the better, as the presence of IMD will help to provide a healthy dose of confirmation bias. )


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## tack (Aug 3, 2016)

No problem! That's why we're all here. 

If you're not recording, I dare say the extra millisecond won't be noticed. For VI stuff, I'm forced to run at 512 samples which isn't a failing of the Babyface but more a consequence of CPU-hungry VIs like Sable. Except for piano I don't notice difference between 256 and 512 and if it matters for a performance I'll drop it down to 256 where most of the time it's happy anyway. (It really is just Sable that forces me to 512.) But again this is more a reflection of the demanding VIs I use than the Babyface. So at a buffer of 512 samples, or even 256 I think, a 1ms difference on the interface isn't worth any extra aggravation IMO.

In general it has been the perfect interface for me. Stable, featureful, and TotalMix is great. I do a bit of voice recording, and it does provide phantom power if needed. For VI work it's been flawless for me.

The IMD problem does bug me in principle but of course doesn't matter to me at all in practice.


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## RCsound (Jan 7, 2018)

This is an old theme, but for curiosity I can say that in an old Asus mobo, i install a 9632 that was totally silent, later I adquired an asrock and put an RME AIO, the AIO card was totally silent, well, the AIO in the asus creates these electric noises that only happens once started windows. Tested the aio in another MOBO different from the Asrock and Asus and also created these annoying sounds, later i sold the 9632 and the buyer returned it because the 9632 make noise in their system.

You can not say that the culprit are the motherboards or the RME cards, but the RME PCI PCIe cards are extremely sensitive to something out of the ordinary and is a lottery.


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## camelot (Jul 22, 2018)

I know, I should not answer to this thread as it is stone old, but others did as well anyway and I just stumbled upon this. 

I use my RME HDSPe AIO for many years now on a Gigabyte mobo and never had any problems like noise or similar. Maybe I got lucky here. But it is a very fine audio card and still in daily use.


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## pderbidge (Jul 23, 2018)

Actually this would be a great thread to bookmark as it contains various ways of dealing with this problem. Some may work and some may not depending on your setup. To add to the possibility of solutions- I had a similar issue with a focusrite usb soundcard and it came down to having the front audio ports on my machine plugged into the motherboard (gigabyte). Once I removed the connection (which I don't use anyways) which was acting like an antenna that the Scarlett was picking up then all the digital noise went away.


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## Divico (Jul 23, 2018)

pderbidge said:


> To add to the possibility of solutions- I had a similar issue with a focusrite usb soundcard and it came down to having the front audio ports on my machine plugged into the motherboard (gigabyte). Once I removed the connection (which I don't use anyways) which was acting like an antenna that the Scarlett was picking up then all the digital noise went away.


Wow. Strange error you had there. Did you disable the onboard audio in your BIOS earlier?


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## pderbidge (Jul 23, 2018)

Divico said:


> Wow. Strange error you had there. Did you disable the onboard audio in your BIOS earlier?


yep, but the cable itself was still acting as an antenna just by making contact with the mobo. A USB filter also worked but it would cause the Scarlett to constantly lose sync with Windows.


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## Audio Birdi (Jun 18, 2020)

An old thread I know, but recently got an RME AIO a couple of days ago, the latency and driver stability is amazing! such a shame that it sucks in terms of static noise and interference, even when scrolling pages! Tried every single PCIe slot, all spaced out compared to the GPU and it's a no-go. It's going to go back unfortunately :(

May resort to a Babyface Pro at some point or check out the Audient USB devices since they look sturdy and the pre-amps / internals look great!

The hunt for a stable and reliable interface continues!


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## NYC Composer (Jun 18, 2020)

I’m happy with my Babyface Pro on Mac.


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## JamieLang (Jun 19, 2020)

I feel your pain.

If you're wondering why in a geek sense:

This is one of those things where you building a computer out of rando price competitive parts factors in...if you buy a computer from someone who builds DAWs...bet it doesn't do this. Bet if you put that card in a Mac Pro--doesn't do this. Point being--it's a quality of internal ADC/DAC. NOT internal card interfaces...ADC/DAC...whose quality and SNR is 99% about power supply and layout. Even "cheap" Maudio recording cards 25 years ago used a breakout box for the conversion.

If I had to guess...power supply and mainboard. Thought the Notepad thing makes me wonder if you've run it with NO GPU (just on board graphics)? 

I know the sound you speak of. Headphones makes it SO much more apparent.

Hopefully helpful idea:

You might ask/google around about the same issues with Lynx e22/e44...they and the AIO are the only internal ADA in the professional space since--maybe ever. I feel like my first Gigastudio machine had a set of analog outs(Maudio Delta DIO?)--which I didn't use. There's a reason in the other components--but, if someone has solved it for a Lynx, it will solve it for the RME (probably).

Second helpful idea you don't want to hear:

The RME DAC isn't going to be that good when you fix it--useable? Sure, probably on some level. Just buy a nice DAC for monitoring you hook to the RME's digital IO (which if the above novel doesn't make clear, will in NO way have this issue). Then you have world class monitoring to match your world class latency.

EDIT: now I see this is an old post. Insert Homer Simpson going "DOH!"


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## Audio Birdi (Jun 19, 2020)

JamieLang said:


> I feel your pain.
> 
> If you're wondering why in a geek sense:
> 
> ...


Agree with the Digital Cards being great with no issues, Used to have an RME AES with a Behringer Ultramatch 2496 DAC and it worked great, shame that there was electrical hum coming from the PSU inside the DAC.

I haven't got a CPU with integrated graphics unfortunately. Using a Xeon 1650 V1 along with a Gigabyte X79-UP4 motherboard.

Tempted to try out a different / newer system, but would need to buy ddr4 RAM along with it, still on ddr3 and the rest of the system is stable, so don't want to upgrade quite yet!

Was looking into the EVGA Nu Audio PCI-e card, which looks great and is recommended by scan.co.uk's Pro Audio team who do a lot of tests! Will patiently have a look at what's available out there!

Thank you for the help and suggestions!


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## ynwtf (Jun 19, 2020)

JamieLang said:


> ...If I had to guess...power supply and mainboard. Thought the Notepad thing *makes me wonder if you've run it with NO GPU (just on board graphics)*?
> ...



I'm curious if you could expand on that? Why would that catch your attention, if you don't mind me asking? I'm experiencing my own, unrelated, issues and I use my i9 processor for graphics. I've considered that *might *be a factor in my case but haven't found much on this specific topic.


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## JamieLang (Jun 20, 2020)

...and now I see that the post is old. Ehh...


ynwtf said:


> I'm curious if you could expand on that? Why would that catch your attention, if you don't mind me asking? I'm experiencing my own, unrelated, issues and I use my i9 processor for graphics. I've considered that *might *be a factor in my case but haven't found much on this specific topic.



I just meant because notepad/textedit is drawing a most white screen. 

I wouldn't recommend removing the GPU as a solution....just as a troubleshooting that's easy to do since most chips have on die graphics that will be easy to switch to and pull less power from the PS--thus lessening the power delivery system of the PS and mainboard. Also removing some fans being powered by but not fully controlled by the mainboard.

I guarantee a good GPU will make that i9 work better in a DAW. 

The OP's issue is basically noise pollution in the power of the mainboard finding it's way into the ANALOG audio signal in there...It's why there's on a couple. His RME...and the two Lynx cards I've mentioned...that's IT in terms of professional grade PCIe with analog IO inside the computer.


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## JamieLang (Jun 20, 2020)

...and agreed that's a LOT of BS to try before calling RME. They know what the phenomenon is...while they might not be able to tell you right off what in your system is causing it--this isn't obscure. It's more normal than not for internal ADA. But, contact them with the full hardware spec...most importantly mainboard.


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## ynwtf (Jun 20, 2020)

JamieLang said:


> ...and now I see that the post is old. Ehh...
> 
> 
> I just meant because notepad/textedit is drawing a most white screen.
> ...



Thanks for the details. In my situation, I get noise when switching my sample rate. In my post I meant that I do not have a graphics card as my i9 processor takes care of that. I had considered buying a dedicated graphics card to test if that's a factor. Like maybe to reduce the burden on the i9. You commenting on that part in your original post got my attention. Thanks again for the follow-up.


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