Stereo Tool

Hello everyone,

firstly, to introduce myself as a Newbie in that forum: my name is Claus (> 50 years old) and I "only" run a small “micro radio studio” just for fun.
It is currently equipped with a Lawo Crystal + Compact Engine, 4-fader surface, two Rode NT1, a few older audio processors from days gone by, various red lights (integrated in the MIC booms, traffic light, on-air sign etc.), an HP Elitedesk 800 G2 Twr Intel i5 16GB RAM with Windows 10 and a RME HDSP AES32 card, which also acts as a link to other audio technology (here: Behringer DDX3216 with AES expansion card).
On the software side - and that is why I am here today - Mairlist and especially Stereo Tools FM Standard (V 10.41) work hard, the latter is intended to produces a "solid" audio stream by the integrated streamer for distribution within my house network internally via a simple icecast server. So far, so good. The configuration of the RME HDSP AES32 itself is tricky, but is functional. Sometimes.
Why "sometimes"?? I noticed a very strange behaviour: Without Stereo the system "runs" without issues for several days.
With Stereo Tool switched on, the PC freezes sometimes after some minutes, sometimes after some hours. I couldn't find a reproducible approach to trigger the freezing.
Freezing means: Suddenly a high tone is on the busses and the loudspeakers and the PC just performs as if it is in slow motion. Nor is it possible to close the programs neither to shut the PC down. Within the task manager it is signalled that Stereo Tool does not react. Finally, it is only possible to cut the power ('forced shutdown'...).
Of course, I tried to change several options within Stereo Tools (changing soundcard inputs from ASIO to WASAPI, direct etc.) as well performance linked options. The behaviour is still the same. After not-reproducibal time the PC freeces. Unfortunately. Taking thi into account, I cannot leave the system unattended, and running with Stereo Tool active - which is a mess. I love the sound Stereo Tool generates and the functionalities.
Is there anyone who experienced similar issues??
I would be delighted to be able to get in touch with someone who can give me advice what to try to stop the freezing.

Thanks in advance and beste wishes!

Regards
Claus

Hey,
To me looks like some PC problem. It can be anything from PSU, memory, cpu, overheating, etc.
For starters, try run some stability test. Easiest would be AIDA > System Sability Test.

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You could have a look in Windows' Event Viewer to see if there's any critical errors occurring.
If the freezes are due to driver issues, you might be able to find some indication of that.


I haven't heard of ST cauzing full system lock-ups yet, but if it did, it could be caused by two things:
1. CPU usage gets so high it either overheats the system or it gets in the way of vital operating system processes
2. There's some memory issue (either a leak or an overflow)

The first seems more likely to me, you can check how much trouble ST is having under Application Settings > Resource Usage.
The meter under "Processing resources" shouldn't be above 90%.
If it is, you can probably increase the number of CPU cores Stereo Tool uses under "Resource allocation".


Like Bojcha already said, you could do a system stability stress test to see if your PC is stable to begin with, when it gets hammered by heavy software.

Thanks Bojcha.
I will try AIDA64; of course I tried to get some hints by task manager, hwmonitor and reliability monitor etc. But no clue. Surely, this has nothing to with stress test or benchmarking.
I also tried some older releases of stereo tool - with the same negative issue. In that context I read your posts referring the hardware requirements of stereo tool. I do not reach this requirements though. Is there a way to reduce the requirements - for example by switching off functions of the software or to reinstall an older version?
When looking on the ressource monitor, CPU is not fully saturated (see images attached).
Best regards

Screenshots:
https://imgur.com/GkoK6uO
https://imgur.com/g3DUBLG

Dear t.j.evers,
thanks for the reply.
ref. 1) See my post to Bojcha. CPU isn't high, either.
ref. 2) Memory: Memtest86 did not give me any clue about defective memory.
Of course, the problem could also be the RME AES32. I installed the most recent win64 drivers and the cards (and channels) appear correctly within the device manager.
I will do a stress test anyhow. At the end of the day, trying a different machine with a more powerful hardware will be an alternative instead of spending several hours of trying without success. I have the option to try with a HP ProDesk 600 G5 Twr/Core i5 9500 3.0GHz/16 GB instead. This is not a powerful gaming computer, but would be much nearer to the a/m hardware requirements.
Thanks and best regards

You didn't mention if you tried this: