Sign In:     

Forum: General Discussion

Topic: USB dropout complete disaster! - Page: 2

This topic is old and might contain outdated or incorrect information.

Hi there, i had a simular problem with my sony vaio laptop (which i have now scrapped from dj use, and use a rackmount pc) anyways, it turned out to be a problem with the power settings. Apparently some companys install programs to make your bat last longer and normally this works by turning off things that are not in use (in my case, the usb would cut out if i didnt use it for a certain amount of time) This normally works fine for things like a usb mouse or keyboard, but for a soundcard or hard drive, it can cause loads of problems! Also i would tripple check the temperature and hoover/airblow the dust ot just to make sure :)

Hope some of that made sence, just got back in from work (6.01am :S)
 
Must be a Futuredecks Pro user.LOL

Daz
 
Hi all.

Some more testing done.

Just to try and replicate the USB issue at home I tried hooking up a wireless mouse, USB drive and my DMC-2 with cables that did not have ferrite supressors fitted (I don't normaly use a wireles mouse or an external drive on my PC). The DMC-2 comes with a supressed USB cable as standard so I swapped it out for a printer cable that had no supressor fitted. I set about trying to run the system with a strobe light and a pair of motorised effects lights running about 1 meter away.

My system crashed twice within half an hour. The audio glitched when i was playing a mix that was 10 mins long. and the DMC-2 failed to respond to commands five times during the half hour test.

I have NEVER had this happen in the time i have been using VDJ.

After this test I swapped all the USB leads back to supressed items and ran glitch free for one hour.

I have managed to take a rock solid stable system and make it virtualy unusable simply by using unsupressed USB leads.

Perhaps the team could try this themselves to confirm the results. If they find the same they could include the use of supressed USB cables as part of the setup recomendations for VDJ.

Thanks to DJMarze and DJRenee for there input on the testing.

Hope this helps someone.

Daz
 
First off, with regards to the USB.

It is a Great invention but still has downfalls, one being power usage.

1. If you were running off the laptop battery then the power is limited to the USB ports and cannot provide enough current to run multiple devices, especially USB powered Hard Drives.

2. Even running on the power supply mote laptops do not provide enough current to all the USB ports to run multiple concurrent devices.
Ie Sound cards, Hard Drives, DMX Control, Midi Controllers.

CHEAP SOLUTION...

1. Always use a small good quality UPS to power ONLY your laptop and Audio card devices. IE Numark or Serato.
DO not ever use the same UPS for any lighting devices or motors.

2. Buy a powered USB Hub, like a belkin, that has a decent sized power supply. This will ensure your external HDs and all devices get enough current to allow them to run without a problem.

Good Luck.
Been there and done that, No more power issues for me.
 
Just forgot another solution to the USB deal.. ALWAYS change your power settings in Screen Saver mode to use PERFORMANCE or HOME/PC or even ALWAYS ON.

This will allow a few things to happen...

1. Makes the CPU run at full speed not reduced speed to save power, making things of course run better and faster.
2. Eliminates the power being cut off to the Hard Drives, Video, USB and any other ports.
3. NEVER shuts the screen down making things hiccup when it comes back up when you giggle the mouse.
 
I had this problem a couple times. My hard drive would "disconnect itself", meaning I could no longer access the tracks from my computer. I had to reconnect it via USB. But i realised that this was happening only when I had a cooling base plugged into my laptop via USB. Since I started plugging the cooling plate to AC power, things seemed to have smoothed out.
 
If you have a firewire port, get a firewire external hard disk next time. I use the Seagate FreeAgent 1TB (plus one spare for backup). The loading speed is great and ive never had a drop out in 18 months of using it.
 
im wondering if it could be a problem with wireless mouse....because i had that flicker on my mouse and rcvr and the mouse will kind of work then it wouldnt kind of a skip type thing then it will not work...i would disconnect the receiver and reconnect it and it would want to work and but only for a bit...but i never had my controller shut off and i have allot of usb equipment hooked on to a usb hub that is hooked on to the laptop, the usb hub has a power adapter to it so im assuming im in good shape....i hook up my controller, my mpd32, djio sound card, wirelss mouse, keyboard and 2 external drives all to the hub...and never had any type of problem. what you should of done in that case was restart the computer...sometimes you hookup or unhook a usb device with the computer on and the computer doesnt like that, i make sure everything is hooked up to the computer before i start it up.
 
I've looked into this. It appears that dropouts occured on places where the power supply is not 100% constant. I've talked to several specialists on electricity and they all said the same thing. It's probably a problem with the Hz. They recommend i get a UPS with a buffer of 1 or 2 seconds that would neutralise any of these tiny variations that make my USB drop out. (Does anybody know where i can buy one of those?)

Oh and on the question "Does VDJ have anything to do with this?", the answer was a quite firm "impossible".
 
The one thing I didn't see posted was "What about a back-up plan?" This is the issue with software based DJ's. Those of us who have taken the time to learn and practice on vinyl (hell I started with cassettes) are always prepared for something to go wrong. This should be a learning experience for you. Always take enough cd's to get you through the night should your system fail. AND LEARN TO MIX WITHOUT SOFTWARE!!!! Then the club owner would see a PROFESSIONAL who is doing a PROFESSIONAL job of working through a few minor issues instead of a kid who thought he could download a bunch of illegal mixes and a cracked version of the software and try to stumble his way through a night. This isn't directed at any one person in particular, just a broad generalization...

If you really want to be a serious PRO DJ:

Buy the software
Buy your music
HAVE A BACKUP PLAN


...or keep doing things the way you are. It's much easier for me to get a booking when they see that I'm prepared for any situation and I walk, talk, and act like a seasoned professional.
The club is a business. It's about money. It's not your bedroom. This is a job. Treat it like one. Be prepared for anything.

Just my 2 cents...
 


(Old topics and forums are automatically closed)