H/W Buffer Size Problems

[soulcatcher]

Hi,

I'm having huge problems with my new ProTools 7.0 software. I just purchased a new Mbox 2, installed the new software on my Dell laptop (XP Home w/ SP2, Intel chipset with 1GB of memory) and I - basically - cannot use the software.

I started with my H/W Buffer Size set for 2048. At this setting, any time I press play or record, I get a message saying "Audio Processing is conflicting with other CPU Tasks. Try reducing the H/W Buffer Size". Ok. Fine.

So, I reduce the H/W Buffer size to 1024 and I get a message that states "The Operating System Held of Interrupts for too long, try increasing the buffer size"

Obviously, you can see the problem here. I've update my software to 7.1 and still have the same problem.

Can someone please help me here?

Thanks!

[dubhausdisco1]

"XP Home w/ SP2, Intel chipset with 1GB of memory"

Be sure to check the Digi documents concerning Intel chipsets... It may well be that you have a chipset that does not agree with protools.

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...5&itemid=22765

[soulcatcher]

Yea, so I don't see the T2600 listed there... I'm taking it that is not a good thing for me.

[soulcatcher]

Ok, wait.... I did a little more reading on the Site - the Digidesign site says the Dell Inspiron 9400, with Intel Core Duo Processor, is supported...

So, that being said, I believe I have a supported laptop.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

[dubhausdisco1]

What I meant was check to see that your chipset is NOT comatible with LE... If that checks out than.............

[soulcatcher]

The Chipset is an i945PM - I don't see any incompatibility with this chipset on the site.

Thoughts?

[sken]

... with Intel Core Duo Processor, is supported...

Hello there. I am a computer technician, and I just built a custom computer for one of my customers, who is now having the same issue during playback.

I've spent a little time searching the DUC, and I'm still not sure what the problem is. Here's what he has:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Socket AM2), DDR2 800 2GB, a RAID 0+1 (240GB total, 4 WesternDigital 120GB HDD's)
ASUS ATI x1300 for dual screen output (larger workspace =D ) on a Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 motherboard.
He's running Pro Tools LE 6.9 in Windows Media Center Edition

Now since we have the same problem, one would assume it'd be a similar configuration that was the cause of the issue. From what I've seen on the DUC, a lot of Avid's software has trouble utilizing "Dual Core" processors, which includes both your Core 2 Duo and my Athlon 64 X2; however, most of the articles on this subject don't seem to have any issue with the H/W Buffer size.

Another thing I have noticed is that recording through Pro Tools on the boot drive is "not recommended and not supported." Thereby, our issue may be related to not recording to a second drive (Windows sees my 4 drives as only one in a RAID). Laptops typically have one Hard Drive, so correct me if my assumption on your setup is wrong in that point.

What other issues have you seen on the DUC? I think if we work together on this we should be able to find a solution much faster. I will continue to research this on the DUC; please keep me up to date on your findings by posting here.

Thanks, good luck, as well.
-Rory Christel

[spkguitar]

He's running Pro Tools LE 6.9 in Windows Media Center Edition

Windows Media Center Edition is not supported on any version of Pro Tools.

Dual core processors are not supported until version 7.

Pro Tools also does not support RAID in any configuration.

[sken]

2. RAID-0 is overkill also (i personally have / use RAID-0 with two SATA II Western Digitals - but i now know that it was overkill)
i know now that they are overkill, because i setup a system for a friend, using the following hardware:

Dell Dimension (2.0Ghz)
768MB RamBus RAM
80GB IDE System Drive (maxtor 7200)
80GB IDE Audio Drive (seagate barracuda 7200 ultra-ATA)
2496 Audiophile PCI Card
M-Powered 7.1
Matrox G400 AGP Video Card
Windows XP Pro

this system can do 32-tracks without any issues!

so you don't believe the hype when it comes to hard drives.

you can get 32-tracks with an IDE 7200 drive.

(View the rest of this post Here.)

So, as you can see, it would seem it does support RAID 0 at least. Also, Windows XP Media Center seems to have the same functionality as XP Home, it's not like XP64, which never has drivers. (I didn't know he was going to use PTLE 6.9 until after the build)

Finally, if you read the first post here, the other user with the issue is in fact using 7.0, so one would assume that the error is not related to Dual Core processors (hopefully).

Do you have a link to the lack of RAID functionality? That would be very useful in my research, and I appreciate your input ^^

[soulcatcher]

Hi Sken,

I have had very little luck finding any information on the forum with this problem.

You bring up an interesting point on the recording to the hard drive, however, I can't even get to the recording stage of a song yet. I get the H/W Buffer Size Problems when I simply start the sequencer.

Regards!