[(edit: UN-)Solved] USB disconnections & USB audio distortion

[Mattronic]

Thanks to many of you here, I have been running my customac for coming up on about 7 months, currently on Sierra 10.12.3. Generally things are great, but I am plagued by USB disconnections (all ports including M.2 bluetooth), and USB audio distortion that seems to be related to the graphics (driver). (and sometimes both at once). I think since Sierra only, but I can't be sure.

I am aware of several errors I can see on boot in verbose that may have something to do with my issues. I can see sound assertions in AppleHDA... and unsynchronised TSC despite using VoodooTSCSync.kext.

The USB disconnection includes both wired mouse and bluetooth mouse (onboard M.2) disconnecting and reconnecting, sometimes occasionally sometimes repetitively. Also, external hard drives disconnect and reconnect, so this is a general USB issue not related to specific devices.

The second issue is that my USB sound card (Traktor Audio 10) becomes badly distorted or degraded to pops and clicks until I change a setting in MIDI or sound output options, or (sometimes) stop the sound and start it again. I believe at least the sound distortion symptom is related to the graphics drivers as I can 'usually' create the problem by adding 'load' to the graphics such as scrolling in a window, using expose and changing windows etc. I can also 'hear' small crackles etc as I move the mouse etc if I have headphones on. This is also sometimes brought about when the screen saver starts.

This happens, it seems, to a lesser extent with the on board audio using VoodooHDA.kext that I have tried as an alternative to the sound card.

I have worked through the USB fixes and I think everything appears to be working well here aside from these issues. (although I don't have any USB3 devices to check USB3, but I can see my USB2 devices are routed to EH01&EH02 with XHC listing other empty ports)

I have been monitoring the connections in IORegistryExplorer, and can see all USB ports disconnecting (red with strike through). Nothing changes here, when the audio issue occurs, so I am thinking these are seperate issues.

I don't really know where to start in diagnosing this, so any help is appreciated.

 

[static.csonka]

i am with you - have several USB / BT Problems since Sierra (or even longer and didn't notice) . MY USB Soundcard is un/connecting in several times . I have a mouse lag on my magic mouse which is not funny at all :/ so i will follow this to get some serious information how to get rid of this greets !

 

[kiiroaka]

Remember the days when you could set individual USB IRQs in the BIOS? Your problem may be as simple as an IRQ conflict. (Or not enough system memory, for example.)

Here at work, which only uses Windows, I keep the VGA and NIC at IRQ 11 (the NIC used to be reserved for IRQ10), audio at IRQ 5 (in the old days whatever IRQ was being used for audio needed to be reserved so that no other device could use it, usually IRQ5), USB at IRQ10. I usually put USB2.0 on IRQ5 (along with the audio) and USB3.0 ports on IRQ10. Obviously, if I don't need the Serial and Parallel ports and diskette controllers, I disable them to free up some IRQs, but some BIOSes will not allow directly setting them to IRQ 7, 9, etc. and has to be manually done under the OS, in this case, Windows; OSX and Linux probably don't apply because OSX automatically assigns IRQs and in Linux you would need to go to /proc/interrupts. But, even though OSX assigns them automatically you may be able to play with manually setting the IRQs in the BIOS, before the OS boots up.

The very first step in troubleshooting is always to run MemTest86. The second step is usually to make sure that the PSU is robust enough to drive the GPU + CPU. Next would be examining disk drive S.M.A.R.T. codes. After that mem processes running in the OS.

 

[Mattronic]

Thanks kiiroaka, I'm new to this level of 'tinkering', so no, I don't remember those days!... but the idea makes sense, and as I said it seems to be a graphics / audio / USB conflict, so separating these sounds like a good idea, I tried looking in to how I might seperate the USB hubs to keep the M.2 seperate etc, but didn't come up with anything. I have tried removing and swapping USB devices / inputs, but this didn't make any difference... I have 32g of memory, so don't think that is the issue, but interesting that you point to a memory issue, as I have been experiencing another symptom which I would relate to the effect of low memory (like the machine I upgraded from!). This was after a period of sleep (which I have running reasonably well by the way! - doesn't always wake up the screen, and sometimes it has rebooted overnight, but generally works both manually and automatically), but I might have several windows open, playing music, and when switching windows or expose etc, there is static, slow response to 'load' windows etc, memory usage at around 70%, very annoying on a machine that is usually cranking!.. Does this point to anything?

Anyway, I ran MemTest86 last night, but found it frozen this morning after almost 5 hours on the 4th of 4 passes (no errors) (hammer test)... what does this mean? I'll run it again tonight to see if I can get right through the test.

I'll look into the BIOS options now, but I don't think there are any related settings.

PSU is overkill at 850W, but could there be a problem with the supply? - I have wondered if the USB is lacking power and disconnecting, but how would I diagnose this? Could reducing the load on the MOBO by running fans directly off the power supply have an effect?

How do I examine disk drive S.M.A.R.T. codes? - perhaps we can cover this later on...

Thanks again.

 

[Mattronic]

I haven't re-run the test yet, but have noticed booting in Verbose Mode I get a series of errors / messages:
"003071 .295493 (numbers vary) AppleUSBHostResources@: AppleUSBHostResources: :allocateDownstreamBusCurrentGated: assuming successful wakeUnits 100 sleepUnits 0".
Anyone know what this means? Could it be affecting current to USB devices and therefore causing disconnections?

 

[Mattronic]

So, several hours this weekend have been spent re-looking at this, and I think I have solved it...(I'll give it a few days) I thought I had correctly run through RehabMans USB solutions including creating a custom SSDT, but turns out I had changed something that meant the SSDT wasn't doing anything. I have followed his guides again and looks like the disconnections are gone. I haven't reconnected the USB audio card yet, but I hope this has solved that issue too. On board audio seems fine so far.

So, thanks RehabMan, after reading your guides about another 15 times it made sense and all came together.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-10-11-usb-changes-and-solutions.173616/
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-creating-a-custom-ssdt-for-usbinjectall-kext.211311/

 

[Mattronic]

So I thought I had resolved this, and as far as the USB disconnections are concerned this seems to be the the case (mostly). However, I have re-setup the Traktor Audio 10 sound card (USB audio), and the distortions I described in the original post are still present. I have had one instance of the distortion starting when the screen saver started, and several other times where it seems to be related to what is happening on the monitor. A couple of times the sound has degraded to clicks and then the USB port was disconnected. I'll run MemTest86 again, but I am still wondering if USB isn't quite right but will direct this to RehabMan on his post.