Known Issues with Dell's P4 3.0 GHz?

[digirocks]

I disabled HT in the BIOS and tweaked XP Pro for performance.

Did you try running it without making any changes first? I didn't have to make any changes at all to my system. The old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" may apply here.

[digirocks]

I take that back - I did make one change. I disabled the onboard audio card in the bios. That was all, and it runs smooth and very fast. No lockups like my old P3 1.0ghz machine.

[RobertM]

Shawn, will this degrade the mastering process somehow? Initially what I planned to do was have a master fader on the session - bounce all the tracks at 24bit/96khz, then import these into a new session and master it there before finaly dither/mixdown to 16bit/44.1 khz.

Ok, i'm pretty sure this is purely a performance issue - i created a session from scratch, about a minute long, 6 tracks, threw in a couple of RTAS plugins on each track. It bounced fine.

With my original session though - about 10 tracks - 4mins , and a few more plugins, it just can't hack it after about 10 seconds. I even tried bussing it through the one track with no plugins - nada.

For a P4 3 Ghz I'm majorly disappointed with it's performance, i'm thinking of selling this while it's still worth something, and building an allenstein.

[RobertM]

I take that back - I did make one change. I disabled the onboard audio card in the bios. That was all, and it runs smooth and very fast. No lockups like my old P3 1.0ghz machine.

Hey - i missed this, i tried looking in the BIOS - i can't see how to disbale the audio card through the BIOS - u mean hitting F2 on startup and then changing a setting right? Or do u do it though XP?

thanks...

[digirocks]

Yes, hit F2 on startup. There should be a menu for onboard peripherals. I would walk you through it, but my system is busy burning a DVD right now. You may want to restore the defaults and then just disable that audio card. That worked for me. Also, I didn't have to make any changes to XP at all. So if you have, you might want to consider reversing them or simply restore the whole machine and start over.

[RobertM]

Yes, hit F2 on startup. There should be a menu for onboard peripherals. I would walk you through it, but my system is busy burning a DVD right now. You may want to restore the defaults and then just disable that audio card. That worked for me. Also, I didn't have to make any changes to XP at all. So if you have, you might want to consider reversing them or simply restore the whole machine and start over.

Thanks - tried that too, no luck. Just out of interest, are you recording at 24bit/96khz? It's performance is not so bad at 24/44.1, but I think once you take a step up to 96 khz the perf takes a big hit.

[digirocks]

I use 44.1. Maybe that is the problem. I figure I am ultimately bouncing down to a cd rom, so anything beyond 24/44.1 is kind of a throw-away.

[gabriel_p]

Robert, I'm COMPLETELY sure that a Dell 3.0Ghz works like a charm, do you a have a dedicated hard drive for audio?, that might be your problem.

I run a Dell Dimension at 2.0Ghz and I get at least 50% more tracks than you do.

[xeetstreet]

I just purchased a Dell 8300 3Ghz machine. The 002R is on it's way so I'll tell you how it is when I get it installed.

[nikki-k]

Robert- no email in your profile, so I could only post.

If you are still experiencing problems, please email me and I will see if I can help get this resolved.