pops, clicks, stutters & frickin windows

[Flash101uk]

Hi all,
Ive been using traktor successfully for a little while now but im having one niggling issue thats really bodging up my sound output.

Firstly I should mention that im on Windows 7 64 Ultimate, Acer 8730G, Reloop DJIE 2, MPD24.

When im in browser mode, and use my jog wheel to skip through the song list quickly, I get breif pops and clicks and traktor stutters, like traktor is trying to buffer the playlist. After one of these clicks, its all fine and I can browse away to my hearts content without issue.
Now, this only happens when ive not been scrubbing thorugh the playlist for a while. What Ive noticed is traktor barely uses any CPU when playing tunes, but when I browse my song list it uses ALL of the cpu. I think its this CPU spike thats hogging all the resources.
Another wierd symptom is that any recordings I do, do not contain any of these pops or clicks! Im using the Reloop DJ's soundcard to output to my stereo which leads me to believe that traktors hogging all resources and windows is letting my USB fall out of sync / diverting precious CPU cycles away from my AISO drivers.

Ive tried tweaking windows, all the usual stuff, priorities, background services, etc. To no avail.
Ive also tried optimising traktor by disabling album artwork, but I cant find anywhere that might let me increase traktors cache size. Its only using 300MB max, ive got another two and a half gig of RAM it could be using! Anyway, this failed to rectify the problem too.

Does anyone here have any recommendations as to what I could try to fix this?

Also, could someone with any other USB audio card and traktor do a test for me please. Play your tunes for a bit, 5/10 mins. Then maximise the browser window and use your jog wheel to quickly scrub through the whole playlist. Do you get any clicks/pops/stutters either in traktor/your audio?

Thanks in advance

[lethal_pizzle]

Try disabling your GFX card. Is it Nvidia?

If this fixes the problem then try installing different drivers from laptopvideo2go.

[charo]

what's the latency set at?

[Flash101uk]

Thanks for your replies chaps.

RE: Lethal_pizzle:
I cant disable my nvidia gfx card, otherwise my screen wont work. Updating / changing the drivers had no effect.

RE: charo:
My latency is set at 5ms, any lower and i get odd pops & clicks whilst playing.

I did adjust my power settings lately and it helped a bit, but im still getting the skips in sound whilst browsing.

Any other ideas?

[sj03w4t]

Try setting latency to 10ms see if it helps..

[DvlsAdvct]

Yeah, up the latency. 10ms should be just as smooth for you.

[bumtsch]

I've had similar playlist related pops ever since I migrated to traktor pro from traktor 3 and album art was the first culprit in my mind. Same latency and all (which I could try increasing, but I'll be looking into what happens when this stutters if I can)

[alien2k]

Mate my guess is that is a video card related issue. I used to have it also but on windows XP. I still don't use windows 7. What made the trick for me was going selecting "adjust for better performance" on the visual effects setting tab.
On Xp is located on control panel-system-advance-performance settings-visual effects tab.

You should get to something similar on Win 7...

Hope it helps

[Flash101uk]

Ok, so ive managed to try out all your suggestions:
I upped my latency to 10ms
I disabled all non critical pieces of hardware one by one
Disabled album artwork
Updated drivers
Adjusted windows for better performance
disabled services, etc.

Still no bloody good!
It definately seems like a processor issue as the clicks only come when my cpu spikes when searching.
I did read somewhere that windows 7 will disable a core if its not currently working, then re-enables it when needed. Im hopeful that this could be the root cause, but i just cant find the info to change it :/
Thanks for all your help

[Damien1138]

Set your machine to run with Background process in priority as opposed to Programs. This should get it running smooth.

System Properties > Advanced > Performance Options > Advanced > Processor Scheduling