Question for Allen or other guru (buffer issues)

[MFriendly]

Hey Gang.. it's been a long while since I've posted.. my old user name was millicentfrndly.. I used to have an 2500+ machine that worked brilliantly w/ my Digi001 but alas.. the motherboard went south and I was forced to upgrade.. I thought it would be a better deal anyway w/ a stronger PC you know.. more plugs more aux.. less issues. But I'm about to totally pull my hair out...

My New System is pretty much built to Allenstein PC under $600 specs accept for the mobo (is that the issue???)
Digi001 (PTLE 6.4cs9)
Aspire X-Dreamer II case with 420W PSU
Athlon Dual Core 4400+
Mobo: A8N5X (Nvidea4 chipset)
1GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR400 (PC3200) Dual Channel Ram (512 a stick)
Maxtor Diamond ATA133 160gb 7200RPM system drive
WD SATA 250gb Audio Drive
ATI Radeon 256mb PCI Express X16 Vid Card
LiteOn DVD Burner 48X24X8 I believe
WinXP Home SP2
All parts and components are 100% new except for the DVD Burner

I set up a dual boot.. one just for protools and one as an internet machine. The system has been together for a week and a half and I'm at a loss now... at the end of my proverbial tether...

I had to install the Interlok update from the Compatibility section of this site to stop the spontaneous reboot/Blue Screen problem at launch. So that was problem #1 solved. But I couldn't even play a song.. because of buffer errors. I mean, as soon as I hit play it would error immediately.. so I performed all tweaks from the "General Troubleshooting - Pro Tools 6 & 7 Win XP" thread including the Dual Core Hot Fix for WinXP SP2. Which seemed to have fixed the issue.. until today. I'm producing an album for Space Cadet currently... and we're tracking drums.. just getting started and I started to get buffer errors on playback or record again. I can restart my computer and that will give me 1 take.. and I do mean ONE TAKE before the buffer errors return and I have to restart the system again.

I would think w/ this new system that I have I shouldn't be having buffer errors AT ALL!!

So.. any ideas??? Anyone??? Should I try another motherboard maybe??? I need to be able to work.. I'm losing money.. we got a song tracked today but I had to restart about 10 times to get the 4 takes of drums recorded today.. it's so frustrating when, before my old motherboard crashed, my system was strong and COMPLETELY stable and had been for 2 years.

Please help, advice, send whiskey money.. anything... I'm dying here

btw, after I reboot and it's tracking.. the PCI meter in Protools sits a little less than half and its totally stable, the CPU meter sits at the complete bottom (left side) of the meter.. and the drive doesn't even really registar a green line if that helps any. unless I've freshly restarted.. I hit play and it plays for about 3 or 4 seconds and then buffer errors. I can only record after a restart and only ONE TIME!! seriously.. ONE TAKE!! It's ridiculous.. No matter what I set my buffer to.. Level 1 - Level 8 CPU 85% to 99%, Buffer at 128 to 1024... doesn't appear to make any difference at all..

Thanks for any advice you can give me...

Chris Machart

[casperfun]

disable 1 processor.

[MFriendly]

Casper.. was searching around and it looks like your fix is probably the one. But I need some more info. I'm not sure how to disable one of the CPU cores. Is it a bios/cmos thing or a device manager deal. In the device manager I can see the 2 CPU's.. but there isn't a 'disable' but there is an 'uninstall'??

Could you be more specific please.. and thanks for replying.

rock
chris

[MFriendly]

bumpity bump.. sorry you guys.. So do I simply uninstall one of the cpus? will that work?

Geez, maybe I'll shell out the extra grand and upgrade to Digi002Rack. but was really hoping not to have to spend that kind of money.

chris

[MFriendly]

bumpity bump.. sorry you guys.. So do I simply uninstall one of the cpus? will that work?

Geez, maybe I'll shell out the extra grand and upgrade to Digi002Rack. but was really hoping not to have to spend that kind of money.

chris

[darrylnb]

Hi Chris,

Here's what I learned from DUC'ers when I first upgraded to my dual-core... it's a bit of a pain, but I went from where you are to stable with this (until I upgraded to pt7.1 and now it's all cool). This has been described numerous times here on the DUC, but I went through the search and it took a while to find it.... anyway:

1. Launch PT itself, but don't open a session yet.
2. Ctrl-Alt-Del to get the task manager
3. Choose the "Processes" tab
4. Find the "ProToolsLE.exe" process and rt-click on it
5. Select the "Set Affinity..." menu item. Here it should show two processors...
6. Uncheck one. I experimented with unchecking each one and it didn't seem to make a difference.
7. Close the Task Manager.

Hope this works for you.

darryl

[MFriendly]

Thanks sooo much Daryl.. I'll try that when I get home. Sooner or later I'm gonna have to upgrade to a 002 and PTLE 7.1 but for now I simply need to be able too record Thanks for the reply.. I hope this gets it!

[MFriendly]

BTW, Darryl.. is this something I'll need to do everytime I launch Protools? Thanks again for your help

[jjhuntfox]

Yes everytime. I have to do it every time or I get errors too. Sometimes if I forget it doesn't seem to matter if I do it in the middle of a session. FWIW.

[MFriendly]

great.. thanks all!