6031 Issues and Observations

[MEAT]

I need 2 monitors and all of my FW ports are taken up by ext fw drives.If PT 8 can't run with 2 monitors or active FW ports then what good is it?

[Ghengis]

Hi Meat

I appreciated what you are saying but we need to try and eliminate a few things. I don't think it is the Firewire/USB card, but only by pulling it or disabling it we can then eliminate it. Do you have USB drives hanging off the Firewire port as well? They are known to cause problems. I don't actually think it is this, but can't hurt to try. Same thing with the monitor, try just one monitor - pull the cable out, reboot and see if it helps. If we can get something at least running, then we can add things back in.

I'm still leaning towards the video card though - have you got a spare that is not an Nvidia chipset?

What Midi I/o driver are you using? Check in c:\program files\digidesign\drivers\midiio.sys - right click, properties and version tab.

Thanks
Ghengis

[DigiTechSupt]

Ghengis -

Do you recall which NVidia driver version you were running prior to the changeover where your problems went away?

This is something from the General Troubleshooting thread:

If you have an NVidia graphics card, you need to be running driver version 181.xx or higher. Some users have reported that switching to the standard Windows video driver will fix -6xxx (6129, 6031, etc) errors.

I wonder if you had old drivers or if you had ever tried running the standard Windows driver.

I know MEAT has said he's done everything in the GT thread a few times, but I think you're on the right track in trying to narrow down if it's video card related, since we know they can definitely cause errors.

And thank you for taking time out of your day to assist others here...!

[Venture Studios]

Digi please please please, just give us the option to disable this feature if we'd like. Just release a quick update with it in the preference menu, Problem solved! Windows based systems have endless amounts of companies making parts, drivers etc... there is no way this problem is going to disappear on everyones machines.

You say its our machines fault, fine... but now this is just punishment that I can't use Pro Tools. Ive invested tons of money into Pro Tools to run my business, please listen to the windows users cries. Everyday I view this forum, hoping for an update, instead I see Digisupport trying to diagnose everyone's individual problem. Which will go on forever. Give us the option to turn this off. PLEASE!

[x9blade]

hey geoff back to square 1! 6031's are back. will fill you in later when i get to my studio. almost want to say we were chasing our tails but don't know for sure. as you know i made changes to my system that made the 6031's go away for around 5 days. in those 5 days my machine ran flawless no problems at all running for 6 hours spans at a clip. made one change last night and back to the problems.

also before my new change, i did make a back up of my working system. when i went back to the acronis image, the problems were still there almost as you suggested one night "as if it attaches to the hardware". i have a few more ideas for when i get to my place. fill you in later m8

can't wait to get rid of these 6031's once and for all! be prepared to burn the midnight oil

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Ghengis -

Do you recall which NVidia driver version you were running prior to the changeover where your problems went away?

This is something from the General Troubleshooting thread:



I wonder if you had old drivers or if you had ever tried running the standard Windows driver.

I know MEAT has said he's done everything in the GT thread a few times, but I think you're on the right track in trying to narrow down if it's video card related, since we know they can definitely cause errors.

And thank you for taking time out of your day to assist others here...!

Hi DTS,

On my system that was running fine (gigabyte p35-ds3r), I did have some early 6031 errors when 8.01 was released. These were ultimately resolved by changing the card slots. When chasing the problem, I updated video drivers (always one of the first things to do) to no avail. I can't remember the exact drivers, but they were definately the latest around the time that 8.01 was released. Prior to that, my drivers were definately later than the required - It would have been at least 185.xx. The thread that I posted from Toms Hardware in the first post talked about some issues with Nvidia and my original motherboard with interupts. People tried changing drivers but to no avail. I don't think these were necessarilly on Protools systems, let alone HD, but other people have been having problems. Maybe it could be one of the reasons why Vista took a performance hit over XP -graphic cards thinking that they should rule the bus (*PURE and ABSOLUTE speculation!!!)

Re: XP native driver, I had never tried that. With my experiments with Win7, windows update loads up an Windows certified Nvidia driver. This is one of Nvidia's newer generation "bells and whistles drivers", including support for CUDA, 3d graphics and Physx. The 3d stuff was pretty cool! Anyway, I am wondering if all of these newer features and supported functions are holding off interupts, especially in Win7. When I switched to my ATI x1600, there is only a generic Microsoft driver in Win7, as ATI has pushed this generation card to the scrap heap - it is only a Directx9 card and the "bells and whistles" catalyst driver and utilities aren't supported any more. It does however work completely fine for a Protools system, and still scores ok in Windows 7 system rating for business and 3d graphics. Aero is fully supported of course.

One last caveat is that I am basing all of this on Win7 which started throwing errors straight away when my XP system was actually fine after the slot change. With the ATI, my XP install (which I have also redone a completely new install) with Asus motherboard and still working flawlessly. I would love to go back and change everything back to the Gigabyte motherboard for complete confirmation, but that is more of a PITA once again.

Tim, got an ATI card?!!

cya
Ghengis

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

Tim, got an ATI card?!!

cya
Ghengis

If he doesn't I do. All he has to do is ask - x1600 Silent

If I read your post correctly your stating the ATI card worked great with a embedded MS video driver but the nVidia card still had issues with an nVidia driver. What happens if you ubinstall the nvidia driver and run a embedded MS driver? CUDA and all thats nice but its not going to do a think for PT.

[lennieh]

Originally Posted by MEAT

IRQ 20 Intel(R) 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection
IRQ 20 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 20 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 20 Digidesign HD Accel DSP

IRQ 21 Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2835
IRQ 21 Digidesign HD Core
IRQ 21 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 21 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 21 Digidesign HD DSP

IRQ 22 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 22 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 22 Digidesign HD Accel

IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2830
IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 2836
IRQ 23 Digidesign HD DSP
IRQ 23 Digidesign HD DSP

Isn't sharing IRQs really bad?? I just checked my PC (no 6301 errors here) and my Digi devices all have their own IRQs....

I'm no expert, but I do recall the bad days of Windows 95 and having to mess about with IRQs to get my Tahiti sound card to work... ( those were the days ) Seems to me you are asking for trouble with this set up, particularly IRQ20.

Apologies if I'm being dumb....

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

If he doesn't I do. All he has to do is ask - x1600 Silent

If I read your post correctly your stating the ATI card worked great with a embedded MS video driver but the nVidia card still had issues with an nVidia driver. What happens if you ubinstall the nvidia driver and run a embedded MS driver? CUDA and all thats nice but its not going to do a think for PT.

That's the one I recommend - Well the one that I put in my system!

In win7 the windows update installs the nvidia latest certified driver automatically, I didn't go through and change it to a generic driver to see if it fixed it. Again, when I was running XP on the gigabyte it had all the latest Nvidia drivers with no problems, but they are different now from the Vista/Win7 drivers.

Dunno if I want to go and break everything up again! I'll wait for Tim to put that new card in and see if it fixes his issues. At least then we may be able to find out if it is another repeatable case or not.

cya
Ghengis

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by lennieh

Isn't sharing IRQs really bad?? I just checked my PC (no 6301 errors here) and my Digi devices all have their own IRQs....

I'm no expert, but I do recall the bad days of Windows 95 and having to mess about with IRQs to get my Tahiti sound card to work... ( those were the days ) Seems to me you are asking for trouble with this set up, particularly IRQ20.

Apologies if I'm being dumb....

Can you list your system specs, MB CPU, mem video card etc so we can see what your system is? Also whether you are using PCI or PCIe, how many cards etc.

Nothing is dumb here! Tahiti definitely takes me back - what a card for the time - and what a logo!

cya
Ghengis