What's the fastest and most stable CPU/Motherboard combo right now...

[WATYF]

That Sandra report was from before the reinstall. Now there is only one drive for the OS and one for the Audio Files. As I suspected, it made no difference where PT was installed (since executables run in memory, not from disk).

I forgot that I was going to try transferring the session to a few different drives and seeing if that had any effect. I will do that next.

WATYF

[WATYF]

Originally Posted by guitardom

your sandra report i see 2 things,

why do you have a drive called programs?? do you have PT "installed" on this drive??? hope not. have you tried recording to other drives or the c drive just to see what would happen??

also, i know you have fast drives and such, but you need to get some 32mb cache drives. i am betting this is a big problem. made a HUGE difference on my i7. also in the playback engine under hardrive buffer, change it to level 1 and see what happens.

have you pullded ALL your plugs out and try to record and see what will happen???

Tried moving the session to a few different drives, but no change.

I don't think this issue has anything to do with drives. In the DVerb test, I'm writing 47 tracks of 48K to disk at the same time... if the disk can handle that, then it can handle 8 tracks of 88.2 (which is much less bandwidth).


WATYF

[JMS40]

It's not the sessions he was referring to. Pro Tools needs to be installed in it's default location on the system drive.
The "programs" drive raised an eyebrow.

PT sessions are saved and run from a secondary drive... not the program.

[JPS]

Certainly, something does not seem right. If you are having the same basic problem across two different systems and windows installation, I would look for factors that are common to both systems, which is where the problem could lie. I can think of a few things I would check:

1) Are your drums setup on a template, or do you just open 8 new tracks for drums and set them up? A corrupt sesssion template could cause problems.

2) Hardware could be the problem. Have you tried a different firewire cable? Do you have a friend with a 002 to see if you get the same result?

3) I like to run utilities that actually measure something... like latency. Have you tried the DCP Latency Checker in the Digi Troubleshooting thread. If you run the DCP test and you are not getting spikes and your latency is less than 50ms, then you will know an important function of your system is running correctly. Some Gigabyte motherboards are known to have problems with high-end nVidia video cards, which can cause problems when recording at low buffer settings. This is a latency problem and would show with the DCP test.

The DCP Latency Checker can be found here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

4) Your Sandra report shows you have HD Audio enabled. If your're having problems (and it appears you are), I would disable this in the Device manager and in the BIOS.

[WATYF]

Originally Posted by JMS40

It's not the sessions he was referring to. Pro Tools needs to be installed in it's default location on the system drive.
The "programs" drive raised an eyebrow.

PT sessions are saved and run from a secondary drive... not the program.

Pro Tools is installed in its default location, but even if it wasn't, the exe runs in memory... disk access doesn't occur during runtime. But this is all moot. The Sandra I posted earlier was from before the reinstall. Ignore it.

WATYF

[WATYF]

Originally Posted by JPS

Certainly, something does not seem right. If you are having the same basic problem across two different systems and windows installation, I would look for factors that are common to both systems, which is where the problem could lie. I can think of a few things I would check:

1) Are your drums setup on a template, or do you just open 8 new tracks for drums and set them up? A corrupt sesssion template could cause problems.

2) Hardware could be the problem. Have you tried a different firewire cable? Do you have a friend with a 002 to see if you get the same result?

3) I like to run utilities that actually measure something... like latency. Have you tried the DCP Latency Checker in the Digi Troubleshooting thread. If you run the DCP test and you are not getting spikes and your latency is less than 50ms, then you will know an important function of your system is running correctly. Some Gigabyte motherboards are known to have problems with high-end nVidia video cards, which can cause problems when recording at low buffer settings. This is a latency problem and would show with the DCP test.

The DCP Latency Checker can be found here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

4) Your Sandra report shows you have HD Audio enabled. If your're having problems (and it appears you are), I would disable this in the Device manager and in the BIOS.

Thanks for the input.

1) I haven't used templates yet. These were all sessions started from scratch.

2) I have thought about the cable. The last time I tried to elminated my random errors I tried different firewire cables, but to avail. I will throw a couple different ones on there anyway, just in case.

3) I ran the DCP earlier and it found no issues

4) I've disabled onboard audio in my Pro Tools hardware profile.


WATYF

[WATYF]

Here's the new Sandra after the reinstall.

SiSoftware Sandra
System
Host Name : WATYF1
User : WATYF
Workgroup : WATYFWORLD
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
Speed : 2.67GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
Internal 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 : 8MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 16-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 8 threads sharing
System
System : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD3R
Mainboard : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD3R
Bus(es) : PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
System BIOS : Award Software International, Inc. F4
Total Memory : 3GB DDR3
Chipset
Model : Giga-Byte X58 I/O Hub
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.39GHz (4.79GHz)
Chipset
Model : Giga-Byte Core CPU Generic Non-Core Registers
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.39GHz (4.79GHz)
Total Memory : 3GB DDR3
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 532MHz (1.06GHz)
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ3P1333LV1G 1GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-8500U DDR3-1066 (7-7-7-16 4-26-8-4)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ3P1333LV1G 1GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-8500U DDR3-1066 (7-7-7-16 4-26-8-4)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ3P1333LV1G 1GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-8500U DDR3-1066 (7-7-7-16 4-26-8-4)
Video System
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT/GTO (256MB, 468MHz/2x661MHz, PCIe 1.00 x16, PS3.0, VS3.0)
Storage Devices
WDC WD1500ADFD-00NLR1 150GB (SATA150, 3.5", 10000rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 140GB (C:)
WDC WD1500ADFD-00NLR1 150GB (SATA150, 3.5", 10000rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 140GB (D:)
Logical Storage Devices
WindowsXP (C:) : 140GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1500ADFD-00NLR1 150GB (SATA150, 3.5", 10000rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
AudioFiles (D:) : 140GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1500ADFD-00NLR1 150GB (SATA150, 3.5", 10000rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Giga-Byte LPC Interface Controller
Audio Device : Giga-Byte HD Audio Controller
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte 4 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte 2 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte JMB36X PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller
USB Controller 1 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #4
USB Controller 2 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #5
USB Controller 3 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #6
USB Controller 4 : Giga-Byte USB EHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 5 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #1
USB Controller 6 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 7 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #3
USB Controller 8 : Giga-Byte USB EHCI Controller #1
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Giga-Byte TSB43AB23 1394a-2000 OHCI PHY/link-layer Controller
System SMBus Controller 1 : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus
Network Services
Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line
Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)
Platform Compliance : x86

[JPS]

WATYF,

You have done quite a lot to solve this problem. Just a few more questions.

1) What H/W Buffer are you tracking with? Is there a buffer where you don't get the errors?

2) What is the low and high reading on the DCP Tester? Average?

[WATYF]

Originally Posted by JPS

WATYF,

You have done quite a lot to solve this problem. Just a few more questions.

1) What H/W Buffer are you tracking with? Is there a buffer where you don't get the errors?

2) What is the low and high reading on the DCP Tester? Average?

1) 128 (at 88.2). I can record at 1024 without errors, but what's the point of that, you know. I'm used to 64 (since I used that buffer when I was recording at 48K).

2) I'd have to run it again and look, but I don't remember seeing so much as a single blip when I ran the test previously.


WATYF

[JPS]

Originally Posted by WATYF

1) 128 (at 88.2). I can record at 1024 without errors, but what's the point of that, you know. I'm used to 64 (since I used that buffer when I was recording at 48K).

2) I'd have to run it again and look, but I don't remember seeing so much as a single blip when I ran the test previously.
WATYF

The reason I ask about the latency values is because if your latency falls between 100-200ms or higher, you could have some difficulties recording at low buffer settings, even if there are no large spikes. If your values are too high, you may be able to identify an offending device and tweak your system lower to get under 50ms. If you could post a screenshot of your test, that would answer a lot of questions.

The fact that you can run PTLE without errors at higher H/W buffer settings also could point to a latency problem.