Karaoke Forums

Had a very odd situation last night...

OK, singer on stage singing... I'm hosting with compuhost. The music just stops but the words continue... Weird.

I assume this is because the .CDG is preloaded, whereas the .MP3 is played from the disk.

I then see that also my external USB soundcard isn't working.

And my USB external drive isnt't there.

Quickly switch over to a CD and reboot.

All worked again.

Weird. There were no obvious heat issues - wondering if unstable power could have been a concern?

Could be but doubtful on the power issue. Power issue would most likely have been globle. It sounds like you just had a firmware glitch.

_________________
Okay, who took my pants?

A firmware glitch? Firmware on what? The laptop itself is 100% stable. The only "new" hardware is the soundblaster. I was under the assumption that all USB devices worked independantly - but 2 failed...

I hope all the people who were posting claiming that using the internal drive was unreliable are taking notes.....

by failed do you mean it stopped altogether or did your player continue playing with no sound coming out? my m-audio sometimes does that and I used to reboot to solve it, till I discovered that for some unknown reason the volume was being pulled down to zero automatically (presumably by my card) everything would look like it was playing but no sounds coming out...so check your sound volume in windows mixer see if that is the prob. I assume its an irq conflict but have never discovered with what

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

QUICK! GET A PICTURE! You have the only 100% stable computer in the universe!

Your USB hiccoped. Probably this is nothing to worry about unless it does it again.

_________________
Okay, who took my pants?

Perry

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

MorganLeFey: It wasn't the volume - that was my first reaction "Weird, it's muted" but nope. Also, the external hard drive "dissappeared"...

ExWeedFarmer: Yup, fair comment, no computer is 100% stable. What I mean is this - it's an HP laptop that has served well for 2 years without so much as a hiccup. All drivers are certified, it never see's the web, it is kept clean and has never given me 2 seconds of trouble before now.

I guess I will wait and see if it happens again. If so, make a note of the time and later examine the event logs.

I've had a regular desktop do the same thing. Never saw the internet, but after three years, it finally gave up the ghost.

That's what they do, fail for NO KNOWN reason! !

New motherboad and cpu combo, new drivers, and good as gnu! ((baaaa!))

my show laptop gave me problems last night with explorer, the likes of which I've never encountered before on any computer. After restarting 3x, all is back to normal.

Are the sound card and hard drive hooked through a HUB or directly to the laptop?

Hub... Could this be a culprit?

they CAN be. Many times a usb hub can get worn out. And fry the USB port it's connected to, if not the whole usb on a pc or laptop.

Don't use cheapo ports! I've had a couple of them go south for the winter.

And remember, don't have paths going in and OUT on the same usb port!

Brand new hub, and powered.

But what do you mean "in and out"?

USB is a bi-directional protocol surely?

it CAN, but you're better following the USB protocol and have one port for IN traffic, and other ports for OUTgoing data.

So if your laptop has two ports, designate one for outgoing, and the other for ingoing pathways if you have any (such as a usb keyboard, mouse, etc.).

It's never a good idea to have one port allowing traffic both ways.

Wow, never knew that - thanks for the heads up.

If it is a POWERED hub, perhaps the power cord got unplugged????

Since the laptop didn't stop, the battery in it probably took over.

I hesitate to get involved in tech threads unless I have all the info.

Is it a laptop? Model # so I can get the specs. What Os? Which extHDD? What sound board? What else is hooked up to the usb hub?

Any external device that needs power should be plugged directly into the laptop. In that case I would consider a docking station that has a separate 5 volt power supply and powers the usb ports for the HDD and the sound board. Another option is an expresscard/34 or 54 with usb outs. If an external HDD lose power for a second it undocks and when power is retsored you can hear the heads slamming.

The laptop 2 1/2" HDD does not take much power swaps faster runs cool and is more stable. A wireless mouse when the batts are getting weak sometimes gets flaky when more USB stuff is plugged in Sometimes you can move the receiver closer to the mouse and get by for the rest of the gig. Sometimes you can plug it into a different slot.

A docking station also has a lineout and linein. It just uses whatever sound is selected in the cntrl panel. In my main I have internal sound and a Delta 44. I can usb the delta 44, use lineout and there is virtually difference in sound quality. When needed I select onboard sound for the USB Then in Rox I set player one winamp to m-Audio 1/3 out and winamp 2 to 3/4 out. That gives me three different sound sources and thru settings a choice of different line inputs..

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!