further os x optimization tips?

[Matt Chan]

hi everyone,

as some of you may have read in my other post, we are trying to get PT 6.2.3 with AVXL stable in OSX.

we are getting unexpected crashes when there is no user working on the system. when we are mixing and hitting buttons and working away, crashes happen less often. but it seems if i leave the system alone for about 45 minutes, at some point it will unexpectedly quit, followed by beach ball, followed by me force-quittiing pro tools, rebooting, and much profanity.

i have tried the following:
- configuring system prefs as per answerbase article
- reoptimizing drives with disk warrior
- testing RAM with techtool (it passed)
- trashing preferences and databases
- repairing permissions
- unmounting an OS9 installation on the same system
- checked all scsi drives for correct settings/drivers
- turning off appletalk and sharing

we believe that the fact that it crashes when nothing is happening is key information. can anyone think of any other background processes that might be polling the system when it is idle?

PT 6.2.3 w.AVXL
G4 867 Mhz
768 MB RAM
OS X 10.3.2
Pro Tools HD w/Digidesign 32-bit expansion chassis

thanks in advance,
matt

[CLee]

I never saw your previous posts, so you probably allready tried it but...
Did you install the 10.2.3 cs3 update?

[Matt Chan]

Craig - Thankyou, yes we did install the 6.2.3cs3 update and that did reduce the number of video buffer underrun errors.

Just tried importing all the tracks into a new session. Crashed after about 20 minutes.

[CLee]

Is the computer crashing while idle when Pro Tools is not running? or only with PT up? Try running the Activity Monitor (in the Mac Utilities folder) to see if anything pops up in the background when your system hangs. Also search for the system crash reports and see if they say anything. I also leave our computers running 24hrs so OSX does its system maintainance at night, not while we are working.

You already probably tried some of these but...
Even though your memory tested OK, I would pull a DIM at a time and see if the problem goes away.
Reseat all your RAM and PCI cards.
If the problem only happens when PT is running I wouls also pull the Meridian card out and see if that's the problem.
Try moving your SCSI card from the computer to the expansion chassi or the other way around.
What are your audio drives? If you use SCSI for video and FireWire for audio that can cause problems.
If you crash without Pro Tools try swapping out the IDE cable
As a major pain/ time sink last resort - reinitalize your system drive and reinstall everything (this actually fixed one of our systems).

[Kelly M. Pieklo]

I noticed that you're on a PT6.2.3/OSX.3 - looking in the compatibility section, single 867s aren't supported on 6.2.3 - I went through a similar situation with my old single 867 w/6.2.3 and av|xl - upgraded to a dual 1gig and haven't had any problems since. Don't know if that's the cause, but it might be something to look into.
kp

[Matt Chan]

just wanted to thank you guys for your help. we're testing out a g5 with 6.7 and a doremi v1 at the moment.

once the g5 is up and running, we'll switch back to avxl and 6.2.3 to see if it is any more stable..

matt