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Paul Pang Audio V3 USB Card


nick77

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Yeah, for when powered by an external PSU at least, my V2 exhibited the same behavior - lost power for a bit, Windows hung, a quick reboot did not show the card, some more fiddling around and the card was recognized upon the next reboot.

 

After using the card successfully for months I am now having this problem. I can't get the Windows server 2012 R2 to load the right driver for the card. The card is being powered by an external PS so when the PC boots the card has power.

 

Shouldn't I be able to load the driver after the system has booted?

 

How does the card show up on the list of USB devices on your system in device manager?

Speakers: Vandersteen Model 7s, 4 M&K ST-150Ts, 1 VCC-5; Amplification: 2 Vandersteen M7-HPAs, CI Audio D200 MKII, Ayre V-6xe; Preamp: Doshi Audio Line Stage v3.0; Phono Pre: Doshi Audio Phono Pre; Analog: Wave Kinetics NVS with Durand Telos composite arm; SME 3012R arm, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement v2; Reel to Reel:  Technics RS-1500; Doshi Tape Pre-Amp; Studer A810, Studer A812, Tascam BR-20; Multi-channel: Bryston SP-3; Digital: Custom PC (Sean Jacobs DC4/Euphony/Stylus)> Lampizator Pacific

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How does the card show up on the list of USB devices on your system in device manager?

 

It shows up as a renesas usb 3 controller and a renesas usb 3 hub. If you uninstall the driver windows installs it's own driver which does not work well. Did you go through this process:

1 boot into safe mode and uninstall driver

2 reboot and reinstall driver?

Win10 PRO->PPANG USB->Gustard X20->Jotunheim->Sanders magtech monoblocks->3.7i

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It shows up as a renesas usb 3 controller and a renesas usb 3 hub. If you uninstall the driver windows installs it's own driver which does not work well. Did you go through this process:

1 boot into safe mode and uninstall driver

2 reboot and reinstall driver?

 

I haven't done that.

 

Did you run the driver .exe or just point to it when installing the driver?

Speakers: Vandersteen Model 7s, 4 M&K ST-150Ts, 1 VCC-5; Amplification: 2 Vandersteen M7-HPAs, CI Audio D200 MKII, Ayre V-6xe; Preamp: Doshi Audio Line Stage v3.0; Phono Pre: Doshi Audio Phono Pre; Analog: Wave Kinetics NVS with Durand Telos composite arm; SME 3012R arm, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement v2; Reel to Reel:  Technics RS-1500; Doshi Tape Pre-Amp; Studer A810, Studer A812, Tascam BR-20; Multi-channel: Bryston SP-3; Digital: Custom PC (Sean Jacobs DC4/Euphony/Stylus)> Lampizator Pacific

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I needed to remove the card from the system, reboot, shutdown, and add the card again. Something must have gotten corrupted along the way.

Speakers: Vandersteen Model 7s, 4 M&K ST-150Ts, 1 VCC-5; Amplification: 2 Vandersteen M7-HPAs, CI Audio D200 MKII, Ayre V-6xe; Preamp: Doshi Audio Line Stage v3.0; Phono Pre: Doshi Audio Phono Pre; Analog: Wave Kinetics NVS with Durand Telos composite arm; SME 3012R arm, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement v2; Reel to Reel:  Technics RS-1500; Doshi Tape Pre-Amp; Studer A810, Studer A812, Tascam BR-20; Multi-channel: Bryston SP-3; Digital: Custom PC (Sean Jacobs DC4/Euphony/Stylus)> Lampizator Pacific

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  • 1 month later...

since the latest round of windows 10 updates I am getting blue screen errors pointing to the renesas driver.

The crash dump shows this:

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\011417-6015-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14A6F0)

Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8005106F2E0, 0xFFFFBA80B9425390, 0x0)

Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

 

Event log shows this:

Device PCI\VEN_1912&DEV_0015&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_02\4&63638ad&0&0008 had a problem starting.

 

In Device manager->USB controllers->Renesas Electronics Host Controller->right click to properties-> select hardware id from dropdown and you see PCI\VEN_1912&DEV_0015&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_02

 

So I dont know what is flaky about this driver but the error:

Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8005106F2E0, 0xFFFFBA80B9425390, 0x0)

 

is related to user code that tries to execute at a privileged level.

 

Has anyone run into this?

Win10 PRO->PPANG USB->Gustard X20->Jotunheim->Sanders magtech monoblocks->3.7i

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Obvious question but have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver?

Speakers: Vandersteen Model 7s, 4 M&K ST-150Ts, 1 VCC-5; Amplification: 2 Vandersteen M7-HPAs, CI Audio D200 MKII, Ayre V-6xe; Preamp: Doshi Audio Line Stage v3.0; Phono Pre: Doshi Audio Phono Pre; Analog: Wave Kinetics NVS with Durand Telos composite arm; SME 3012R arm, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement v2; Reel to Reel:  Technics RS-1500; Doshi Tape Pre-Amp; Studer A810, Studer A812, Tascam BR-20; Multi-channel: Bryston SP-3; Digital: Custom PC (Sean Jacobs DC4/Euphony/Stylus)> Lampizator Pacific

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Just use the default W10 driver for the card. I've noticed no major SQ change when using it versus the Renesas driver on my V2. There are sometimes latency issues when not using a manufacturer driver for various PC parts, but if I recall correctly the NEC chip-based card Paul modifies/the driver he links to is quite old (which is also possibly why W10 doesn't play well with it after updating), and using LatencyMon, at least, I haven't noticed high spikes on my system with the default MS W10 driver. I know of no other reason why it would not "work well" as a post by a user above asserts.

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  • 5 months later...

It seems Paul Pang is no longer in Business.

 

We get many desperate requests from customers who either sent in defective parts or try to buy something from him.

 

Either way he does not respond to them or us. 

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Shop | Reviews | Reference System | AudiophileOptimizer 3.00 | PDF Guide

 

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2 minutes ago, nick77 said:

Digging up an old topic, several have reported getting the new V3 card but not reporting back on sonics.

 

Any updates on the V3/V4 card?

 

Such poor build quality and reliability maybe the cards didn't work. That was the case with mine.

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43 minutes ago, TubeMan said:

Have used PPA products for almost 4 years, and never had a problem with them
US Card DDR3 Memory CF-SATA Both V1 V2 V3

 

Hi there

 

very well, so he is still in business then but seems to systematically ignore those who encounter issues with his products. :(

 

 

 

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That would be correct Phil. 

 

For me, bad USB card (1 dead port, 1 intermittent), pico PS that fried 2 motherboards, OCXO clocked motherboard that never worked, DDR4 memory that sometimes worked, bad OXCO SSD drive (cheap quality connector broke, BIOS not seeing drive), bad Black SATA cable. Only the SATA cable did he replace, blamed all other problems on me, or said the "warranty" had expired. Or just didn't reply to emails at all, as you say.

 

Do a search for more horror stories. Anybody thinking of doing business with him is advised to look elsewhere as he will not support his products if there is a problem.

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After all this is why we stopped working with him. He had wonderfully sounding products, no doubt. But build quality was not always as good as it should be. And support/communication was a desaster...

 

Somwhen we pulled the plug and we don't look back to be honest. We don't have such issues with any other of our suppliers.

ıllıllı [  ...AO 4.00 BETA... ] ıllıllı
____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shop | Reviews | Reference System | AudiophileOptimizer 3.00 | PDF Guide

 

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To those with PPA OCXO products...in my experience (I had the V4 USB card), it was always necessary to apply 5V power to the card for 2-3 minutes _before_ attempting to boot the computer.  The OCXO temperature has to stabilize first, or the card won't be recognized in BIOS or OS.

 

I thought this tip was published somewhere on his site, but maybe not.  In any case, those with problems with an OCXO device might want to give it another try, making sure to wait at least two minutes after apply power before booting.

 

FWIW, I've bought quite a few PPA items in the past, USB v1 and v4 cards, TCXO + regular SSDs, battery adapter, and a whopping 56GB of DDR3 RAM (love his RAM, especially for booting OS from RAMDISK).  All have worked well for me, but I did have repeated problems with the TCXO SSDs (they would work well for a while, then after weeks or months, writing to the SSD would slow to a crawl, or the device would fail to be recognized at all).  PPA did replace the SSD multiple times, then eventually offered me a reasonable credit on another purchase, after the warranty on the SSD had expired.

 

-partsswap

 

P.S.  If anyone has a pair of PPA 8GB DDR3 modules they're looking to unload, I'm in the market, as I'm told they are no longer selling DDR3 RAM.

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I always warmed up the OXCO but that didn't matter.

 

Anyone interested in external clocks should contact Pink Faun. They will do a clocked motherboard or can apply their clocks to other devices as well. No monkey business, excellent communication and customer service. Top quality, but you'll pay for it.

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Hi

 

oh this is not new... :-)

 

he also told customers to avoid Windows Server 2012 R2 because it will destroy hard drives...

 

He started spreading this right after we broke up..

 

 

ıllıllı [  ...AO 4.00 BETA... ] ıllıllı
____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shop | Reviews | Reference System | AudiophileOptimizer 3.00 | PDF Guide

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is how I look at Paul business. Paul can't cover warranty because he voided the warranty to begin with. So every bad device is out of pocket. 

DigitalDac: Chord DAVE, Amp: MC275 Mono, Preamp: FirstSound, Source: Esoteric K01X, Cable: TaraLab GME interconnect,
CASSOtM Trifecta Mod 75ohm MCI, TheLinearSolution TCXO Router

Analog: SME 20/2, SME V, Skala, Esoteric C03 Phono

 
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On 22/06/2017 at 9:51 PM, AudioPhil said:

After all this is why we stopped working with him. He had wonderfully sounding products, no doubt. But build quality was not always as good as it should be. And support/communication was a desaster...

 

Somwhen we pulled the plug and we don't look back to be honest. We don't have such issues with any other of our suppliers.

 

Phil, I think that's a wise call.

You helped me to get his attention to fix my motherboard. After that, I said to myself, no more dealings with PPA. 

PowerConditioning: PS Audio UPC-200; Hdplex 300W

Server: Windows 2019-CORE+AO3+Jriver24/HQPlayer 

Source: Mytek Brooklyn Amp: Audio-GD C501, AVA Set 120

 Speakers: Spendor SP2, Tannoy Saturn S10

Desktop: W10+Topping D90+Stax  SRS3100

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If you want to stick with a pico minibox.com sells several. Honestly I don't see how Pang's was much different than these. I now use an HDPlex HiFi unit powered by an external PSU. I'm still limping by with my PPA USB card but it's limited to one port.

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Been a year and a half and my TCXO modded H170M-PLUS mobo, V2 USB card, and PPA DDR4 RAM are still working fine, although there definitely still is some odd issues with the display cutting in and out, now only when in the UEFI BIOS screen and/or POST. While booted into my heavily modded W10 install it's now completely stable, but I keep the audio PC on 24/7. 

 

I'm pretty positive that Paul is still making products for JCAT. If you go to their products page there's still a TCXO Ethernet Switch and what is clearly a PPA OCXO SATA-CF adapter. The cables all also still look like Paul's, but possible they aren't. Noticeably, however, their newest product - a Femto Ethernet card - appears to be manufactured by another supplier with less DIY capabilities (Adnaco?). 

 

Re: a company that can clock mod your motherboard/other PC parts, I was turned onto, by this board, the fact that SOtM will do so to most any part sent to them to then be leashed to their sCLK-EX board/system. Very high quality looking stuff, but also very expensive:

 

sCLK-EX_tX-USBhubAsus-B150M-PLUS-STCOM_3

 

Paul's main draw, really, was his relatively affordable products, and, at one point, the fact that the sorts of products he was modding/making weren't available elsewhere, but that is changing, as the above implies. As further evidence for a larger diversity in PC part audiophile mods, AQVOX also has a ethernet switch mod of their own.

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