Kate,
If it is the amp, you will also loose your mics.

If it is your mixer, switch to another 2 channels.

If it isnt the amp,

It could be the Sound card starting to go bad. Possibly overheating.

I usually try by-passing things till i dont have any problems anymore.

try plugging from the audio card directly into the amp, (turn down the amp) and play throught the amp without anything else in the line. eliminate one source for the problem at a time.

The fact that the countdown timer stops pretty well rules out the audio system, I would agree with gduns however you could have a soundcard going bad. If you could borrow a usb external soundcard for a night or so it would help rule the soundcard in or out.
You might also try keeping the taskmanager open during your show and look for unusual activity on it during the audio drops (maybe something is hijacking audio).

Sam

You might check to see if there is some software for the sound card that is running and doing something to the sound.

This is where I would begin looking.

thats what i said earlier in this post.

It has happened without my computer being connected to my amp just using headphones but can't see how anything in the computer can really overheat when it has only just been started up. I run normally for another 3 and a half hours without any further hickups - apart from the once the other night.

I am now using my backup laptop for the time being until we can hopefully get round this problem.

Many thanks to all who have answered with ideas and advise!

buy a USB video card and try that.

There are so many possibilities, and anti virus, an auto updater program, roxio cd creater. do control alt delete, use task manager and watch the graph when it is doing the skip. see what that tells you.

it doesnt sound like she is that advanced in that kind of computer skills.

is the computer a laptop or desktop ??

Careful now that encroaches on being an insult. she is asking for help. I figure if she were computer illiterate she would just take it to a computer geek to fix.

With all the hurdles she's been jumping you come on with that?

GDUNS, I distinctly remember a case of intermittant audio drop out, I believe on the beta forums. Having been kicked off, I can't search for it to see what the solution was. Would you mind giving it a try?

Take Care,
George

I run a small portable desktop as my main computer and have a laptop as spare. I understand what you GDUNS says about task manager and agree that it sounds a good idea to check it during the audio dropout.

George, as you know I can't talk about anything off the beta forums here. If ADMIN or MTUSUPPORT responds they can probably help out. I believe it was handled by programming.

it wasnt meant as an insult !

lighten up guys !

I didn't think finding the solution would be off base, sorry.

there is a setting in the tools section of hoster that affects the dropouts. and there is also the possibility if you adjust the direct X acceleration it can relieve this. all of these were discussed in the open forums in the past.

Please forgive me for not taking the time right now to look them up, but I am at work during the day. I will try to look them up this weekend when I have more time.

Thanks, Gary.

I forgot about the audio settings in TOOLS, as I don't use Hoster now that I'm not testing.

KATE,

Go into TOOLS, select AUDIO CONTROLS, and see if those selections help any.

George

George, I don't have hoster on the computer in front of me, so I dont remember the tool to use, but it is the one that changes the buffers......

could you looksee?

Before starting your show, let a few songs play through. I have similar problems with the first couple songs if I do not do this.

We crossed in the mail:)

I too have forgotten about those setting which could well have helped, however in between posts I had purchased another sound card which fingers crossed has solved the problem. It would seem that my on-board sound card although only ten months old had either developed a fault or was set through Hoster incorrectly but I have now bypassed this and run through my new sound card for three nights without fault.

dbl trbl, because this was regular I had already tried your suggestion one night and ran for one hour before deciding it was going to behave then it stopped twice in the same night! George & Gduns have come up with some very useful advise which I think you should try before spending out like I did before your problem develops into something bigger - just a thought :-)

Also I had mentioned that my countdown timer stops when I lose audio (which it still unanswered as too why), does this happen with you?

Thank you all and wish me luck, lol!