Making Windows 7 more stable?

[BassChase]

I recently purchased a very nice laptop running Windows 7 as my main protools computer. I knew that Protools was still in beta for running on Windows 7 but I wanted to give it a shot.

I'm having a bunch of problems. I've gotten the blue screen of death dozens of times in the past few days. Protools will sometimes load flawlessly, sometimes it will crash. I've also experienced crashes when trying to import audio. Melodyne also seems to have problems opening/will crash my computer.

What should I do? Anyway to stabalize windows 7? Should I consider switching to XP or Vista?

[Dism]

Originally Posted by BassChase

I recently purchased a very nice laptop running Windows 7 as my main protools computer. I knew that Protools was still in beta for running on Windows 7 but I wanted to give it a shot.

I'm having a bunch of problems. I've gotten the blue screen of death dozens of times in the past few days. Protools will sometimes load flawlessly, sometimes it will crash. I've also experienced crashes when trying to import audio. Melodyne also seems to have problems opening/will crash my computer.

What should I do? Anyway to stabalize windows 7? Should I consider switching to XP or Vista?

XP still seems to be the OS of choice until 7 is fully supported.

That being said... there may also be some issues with your laptop, as many PC laptops, even "nice" ones, do not meet the requirements for Pro tools.

Best bet, is to run through here:
http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=187759

and then give us a Sandra report.

[lkingston]

Any time you are adding anything to Pro Tools in Windows 7, start Pro Tools as an administrator. Otherwise Windows 7 won't let Pro Tools or it's plugins write configuration files that are needed. After everything is configured, you can start Pro Tools normally.

[BassChase]

Yes, my computer meets all standard requirements. 8 GBs of RAM, 500Gigs storage. I was really hoping this computer would just fly through protools.

When I run protools as an administrator, everything launches fine but Melodyne still crashes. Maybe it is a Melodyne specific problem and I will try reinstalling it.

What is a Sandra report?

[chrisdee]

Originally Posted by lkingston

Any time you are adding anything to Pro Tools in Windows 7, start Pro Tools as an administrator. Otherwise Windows 7 won't let Pro Tools or it's plugins write configuration files that are needed. After everything is configured, you can start Pro Tools normally.

+1.

I start PT 8 as administrator everytime on Windows 7 64bit ultimate. Works ok.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by BassChase

Yes, my computer meets all standard requirements. 8 GBs of RAM, 500Gigs storage. I was really hoping this computer would just fly through protools.

When I run protools as an administrator, everything launches fine but Melodyne still crashes. Maybe it is a Melodyne specific problem and I will try reinstalling it.

What is a Sandra report?

Sandra report gives us a very detailed description of your computer. a "500GB drive and 8GB RAM" are not the only things you need to worry about when running Pro Tools. Various chipsets, firewire controllers, etc can all cause problems. You also need to be running at least 2 different hard drives.

Click the link in my post above, and download the "lite" software, and copy/paste the system report into a thread here, and we will have a better idea of whether or not your system is suitable for running Pro Tools.

Also, making sure all of your plugins are 100% current and updated is extremely important to stability. If Melodyne is causing problems, it's mostly likely that the version is out of date.

[BassChase]

SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Model : Asus G73Jh
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Host Name : ChasePC
User : Chase

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
Speed : 1.85GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile, Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 On-board Cache : 4x 256kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L3 On-board Cache : 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 12-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 8 threads sharing

Computer
Platform Compliance : Intel Centrino Mobile Technology
Mainboard : Asus G73Jh
BIOS : AMI G73Jh.206 02/26/2010
Bus(es) : PCI PCIe IMB USB i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM

Chipset
Model : ASUS Clarksfield/Lynnfield DMI
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.56GHz (5.11GHz)

Chipset
Model : Intel Core Mobile (Clarksfield) UnCore
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.27GHz (4.54GHz)
Total Memory : 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 710MHz (1.42GHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Kingston ASU1333D3S9DR82G 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Kingston ASU1333D3S9DR82G 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Kingston ASU1333D3S9DR82G 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Kingston ASU1333D3S9DR82G 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)

Video System
Video Adapter : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (800 SM5.0 700MHz, 1GB DDR5 2x1GHz, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor
Adapter : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (800SP 10C 700MHz, 1GB 2x1GHz)
Adapter : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (800SP 700MHz, 1012.2MB 2x1GHz)

Storage Devices
Seagate ST9500420AS (500.1GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 466GB (C:) (D:)
Seagate ST31000528AS (1TB, USB/SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ) : 932GB (H:)
TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633C (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : 8GB (E:)

Logical Storage Devices
OS (C:) : 116GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST9500420AS (500.1GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
DATA (D:) : 330GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST9500420AS (500.1GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
KACZ BACKUP (H:) : 931GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST31000528AS (1TB, USB/SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ)
Pro Tools LE (E:) : 8GB (CDFS) @ TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633C (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS HM55 LPC Interface Controller
Audio Device : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec : Realtek Semiconductor High Definition Audio
Audio Device : ASUS EG JUNIPER XT Audio Device [Radeon HD 5700 Series]
Audio Codec : ATI (AMD) AA01h
Disk Controller : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 4 port SATA AHCI Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : ASUS P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)
Network Adapter : Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Wireless Adapter 1 : Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (802.11g (ERP), 54Mbps)

Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line
Battery No 1 : 100%

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Home 6.01.7600
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 5.9

[necjamc]

2 Things that I do for stability is in the compatibility tab (right click the short cu, click properties, click compatibility tab. Select "Run program as an administrator" and "Disable desktop composition". Also I would disable your wireless networking. That's known to be problematic.

Edit: I don't know about bluetooth. I disable mine on my laptop just cause I do a lot of mobile live band recording and can't afford problems.

[BassChase]

i adjusted the compatibility tab settings and it seems to crash less. thank you!
i still have problems with it crashing when i try to import audio. Whenever I leave protools on and let my laptop fall asleep, i encounter problems with the protools clock and it will not let me play the song. I have gotten several errors requesting that I increase/decrease H/W settings.

Any tips?
I'd rather not remove windows 7 from my computer; how hard is it to dual boot XP on a windows 7 machine??

[Benoni]

What hard drive are you recording too? USB drives are not supported. And a drive partiton is NOT a seperate drive. You need a physical second drive to record to. No usb. Esata, or Firewire with the correct chipset, OR another internal is fine too and prefered. 7200RPM minimum.