[linux-audio-user] Ardour, Jack, and 2.6 kernels + XRuns with the Audiophile 24/96 M-Audio

[Joel White]

Malcolm Baldridge wrote:

>>So, am I completely hosed with my Adaptec SCSI drive setup?  Anybody 
>>have any insight into these Adaptec controllers?  I've fussed with the 
>>setpci latency_timer settings (from Jan Depner's "Installing and 
>>configuring ALSA, JACK, & Ardour..." web site), but still see long 
>>xruns.  
>>    
>>
>
>If you could email the output from lspci -v and procinfo, that would be great.
>
>Also, which exact kernel setup are you using?  Preemptible? 
>Preempt+low-latency?  Con Kolivas' "LCK1" patches which combine O(1)
>scheduler, and two sets of low-latency patches, including patches to the I/O
>subsystem?
>  
>

Thanks to you and everyone else responding to my latest laments.  And 
thanks for the offer to help.  Before filling up your Inbox with 
diagnostic info, I thought I would try out a few things.  I have been 
using the 2.4.23 kernel with only the low-latency patch - I was 
following the suggestions I've seen on various audio websites.  I found 
what I think is the LCK1 patch set you mention here 
(http://www.plumlocosoft.com/kernel/) and it certainly looks 
interesting.  I think I'll try it out before using up more of everyone's 
time.

>Also, which filesystems are you using for your audio data drive?  If you're
>using ext3, which journalling mode?  data=writeback seems to provide alot
>better latency than the default data=ordered.  Reiserfs seems to solve alot
>of problems as well, if you're willing to reformat your audio drive.  It's
>easier to change your ext3 journalling mode (no reformat is necessary).
>  
>
I'm using ext3 with data=writeback, based on your suggestion from a few 
days ago.  Unfortunately, that hasn't seemed to help.

>What kind of SCSI drives are you using?
>
>=R=
>  
>
I'm using 4 Seagate SX118273LC (18G) drives in a software RAID-1, mostly 
because I wanted to see what putting together a RAID was like (and at 
the time I bought them, the drives were relatively cheap).

 From suggestions in other posts in this thresad, I think I'll try 
kludging in an IDE drive first, just to test the IDE vs. SCSI option 
first.  If that really solves the problem, I guess I'll bite the bullet 
and re-arrange my drives.

Thanks again!

Joel