I just got my 11R and started fooling around with it. I immediately noticed that when playing any sound back through the 11R it is distorted and noisy. Just to be clear, its fine when I just play my guitar but when I record and playback or load a sample and play it, thats when it happens. Also any sound that plays from the computer through the 11R like music or midi has the problem. The computer is a dell with 6gb ram , intel i5 core and windows 7. Everything else seems to work correctly. Any help or suggestions would be great.

Wow, ive been struggling with the same problem all last week.
I noticed one thing though, Its only with PT 8.01.
I load PT version 8.0 before updating it to recognise the eleven rack and it works a treat, no artifacts while playing back anything. Useless of course with the ER but just thought Id point out my findings so far.
6gb of ram so Id assume its 64bit Win7? Ive got 4gb with the 32 bit version. hmmmmmmmmm what to do. Might just have to reinstall windows 98 and call it a day lol.

Ok, I got mine figured out. I got a fast response from digi/avid and was told to do the updates which I had done already but also to do the win 7 config steps. Well I did em. Then.... still no better. I have a M-audio that I am replacing with the 11R and I thought maybe the USB cable is bad? No chance right! WRONG!!! That was it, I used my old usb cable and the problem is gone . I switched them back and forth to verify my findings. I would be surprised to see this a lot but , Ya never know.

Glad yours is figured out. Where did you find te Win 7 Setup Steps? Im using the cable supplied with the ER but Ill try another one just incase.

this might help
Avid win7 optimization

OMG. Roberob, your a legend mate. I went throught the whole optimization with no luck so I changed everything back to standard settings. Thought Id better try your fix of a new cable and it actually worked. Im speachless. 2 weeks of loading and unloading drives, motherboard bioses......all for one lousy cable.
Even with the network connected, recording onto my main C drive and everything alse set wrong, I can still get clean playback with 16 tracks and multiple plugins. Finally, you da man!!!!

I am so glad to hear that yours is fixed now too. I contacted avid with my findings and they are sending a new cable under warranty, although The cost of a cable is minor compared to the frustration of it not working correctly. That being said, I love the 11R and still think it is better than the others overall.

I just had to register to say thank you to roberob!
I was about to pull my hair out in frustration! I just got my eleven rack last week and in stand alone mode it was fine, but when trying to record and on playback it sounded like ass...fizzing popping and cracking. I though I had a defective unit, so Avid was very good about getting back to me right away and sent me a new unit only to have the same problem. I was getting pretty depressed as I have done every fix and optimization I could, but still no better. I was considering whether or not I could even get a refund from amazon where I bought the unit since I had opened and installed the ProTools software.

you saved the day and my sanity for me, Bro. Thank You.

Mark

I never thought about it, but I didn't like the cable and use a different one (from a Line 6 Toneport lol). It's an industrial sized cable/always fit really snug so I figured why not use that one instead. Looks better too.

WOW!
You really are a LEGEND Mate! (HA,HA!)
I just got an Eleven Rack/Pro Tools set-up and was having the exact same problem. After days of uninstalling/re-installing, updating and configuring, I was at a loss trying to diagnose the source of the problem.
I never would have thought that the USB cable was bad.
Like one of the other posts to your thread, I used my USB cable from an old, dusty Line6 TonePort...and it Worked!!!
I can't believe I found this posting and I can't believe you went through the trouble of posting a reply letting everyone know how you fixed the problem - AWESOME! and Thanks Dude!