Problem using 3 card system in a mixture of PCI-x and PCI slots

[kirkgale]

If one full day of further testing is any testament, you might wanna check out the 2 most recent Digi posts in the non-sticky section of the "Technical Alerts" part of "Announcements" at the top of the Duc, wherefrom you can find, download and install a 2.x MB 8.0.3 updater for PTHD on Win 7 to cure runtime type errors supposedly only experienced by "users of Eleven Rack"...(which is an icon in my Win 7 control panel even though my system just has the automatically-installed Eleven plug...not hardware on my system).

So far, my experience is that this installer fixed something essential on my system as my every-10-minutes or so type blue screen crashing has been resolved since this update install EVEN W THE 3RD card inserted into the PCI slot (while the Core and first Accel card are in PCI-x slots) on my mainboard.

what a joy all day yesterday to have 9 VI windows open, loading/re-loading and playing back while the PT counter was running and no (or only 1?) crash....and still the Omnisphere memory meter says there's 1 GB left for more VI's....

will report more...

[Third Eye Studios]

So far, my experience is that this installer fixed something essential on my system as my every-10-minutes or so type blue screen crashing has been resolved since this update install EVEN W THE 3RD card inserted into the PCI slot (while the Core and first Accel card are in PCI-x slots) on my mainboard.

Awesome, you got the 3rd card going!!!! Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

[DigitalMetal]

Thats great news congratulations !

I will give it a try it might fix my Win7/64 issues,

Heres a link to make it a bit fast for people to find:

http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=261821

[RyanC]

Interesting. . . this could open up lots of possibilities for motherboard wise.

[kirkgale]

Sorry to cry wolf guys...

the 3rd-card-installed, crash-free dream crashed and burned after a day of no-crash testing (back to the blue screen crashes)...

but I still endorse installing the updater even for us non-users of Eleven Rack as its installation on my system cured these crashes I'd been also having using only 2 cards just recently (after having played w alot with BIOS settings a la DUC suggestions and flashing the BIOS back/forth about 25 times among 3 versions supplied by Supermicro).

I should emphasize that I'm barely playingback audio tracks in these tests bec that clearly worked 3 weeks ago (40-ish stereo tracks @ 48khz). Instead, I'm testing by running/adjusting about 11 VI's while the track counter is running and master-synced to a separate VI-loaded computer and running 16 in/out midi ports, etc..(.and soon-to-be hopefully running another dozen VI's on the PT box using Plogue Bidule...(12 gb's ram)).

[Third Eye Studios]

Originally Posted by kirkgale

Sorry to cry wolf guys...

the 3rd-card-installed, crash-free dream crashed and burned after a day of no-crash testing (back to the blue screen crashes)...

but I still endorse installing the updater even for us non-users of Eleven Rack as its installation on my system cured these crashes I'd been also having using only 2 cards just recently (after having played w alot with BIOS settings a la DUC suggestions and flashing the BIOS back/forth about 25 times among 3 versions supplied by Supermicro).

I should emphasize that I'm barely playingback audio tracks in these tests bec that clearly worked 3 weeks ago (40-ish stereo tracks @ 48khz). Instead, I'm testing by running/adjusting about 11 VI's while the track counter is running and master-synced to a separate VI-loaded computer and running 16 in/out midi ports, etc..(.and soon-to-be hopefully running another dozen VI's on the PT box using Plogue Bidule...(12 gb's ram)).

Wonder why it would run trouble free for a while, and then develop instability?

[application4]

Hi there,
Really interesting info in this thread.
I'm going to build a HD2 Accel PCI rig soon (moving over from Macs) and it would seem that the Supermicro X8SAX would be just right.
Kirkgale - you've run a smooth rig with this setup right?
I'm looking to use an i7 cpu - which one should I go for?
Given the limited choices in the Mac world the possibilities for building a great rig on the Windows platform are somewhat daunting..!
Kirkgale - could you give me a run down of your component list? Hope that's ok.
Many thanks
James

[Third Eye Studios]

Originally Posted by application4

Hi there,
Really interesting info in this thread.
I'm going to build a HD2 Accel PCI rig soon (moving over from Macs) and it would seem that the Supermicro X8SAX would be just right.
Kirkgale - you've run a smooth rig with this setup right?
I'm looking to use an i7 cpu - which one should I go for?
Given the limited choices in the Mac world the possibilities for building a great rig on the Windows platform are somewhat daunting..!
Kirkgale - could you give me a run down of your component list? Hope that's ok.
Many thanks
James

I believe kirkgale has moved on to an Expansion chassis, after wrestling with gettting his HD3 running. He might still be using the Supermicro motherboard.

I'm running the same Supermicro board, and it works flawlessly for our HD2/i7 rig. Most stable rig I've run. The components are in my profile.

[application4]

Cheers for the info Third Eye.
So you're running Windows 7 64bit with PT HD 8.0.3? How is that? (I've noticed that Digi still have that in beta mode.)
Also, do you have a firewire card in your setup? Coming from Mac all of my audio drives are firewire.
And I guess you've got the cards in the 2 PCIX slots. Would it break things if I ran an ATTO UW Scsi card in the other PCI slot do you think? (I still have a scsi AIT tape back up.)
Cheers
James

[Third Eye Studios]

Originally Posted by application4

Cheers for the info Third Eye.
So you're running Windows 7 64bit with PT HD 8.0.3? How is that? (I've noticed that Digi still have that in beta mode.)
Also, do you have a firewire card in your setup? Coming from Mac all of my audio drives are firewire.
And I guess you've got the cards in the 2 PCIX slots. Would it break things if I ran an ATTO UW Scsi card in the other PCI slot do you think? (I still have a scsi AIT tape back up.)
Cheers
James

I am running W7 64bit. It's not supported by Digi/Avid, but it works great for us. Any W7 64 bit issues users are having seem to be with plug-ins and their installers. All of the plug-ins I've used so far have worked fine though.

The motherboard ships with one firewire port to plug-in and mount on the back. I use firewire for external back-up drives. I do have the 2 HD cards in the PCIx slots. As far as the SCSI cards on the PCI, you'd just have to give it a shot I guess.

The motherboard also has 2 internal usb ports, which are great for keeping iloks safely stashed away inside the computer.