CPU usage is holding off USB audio

[Justin Brandt]

Anyone still looking at this? I would appreciate it.

[johan2006]

I've got this problem to, plus my mbox stops sending audio from PT to the mains out on the mbox when this occurs (and sometimes randomly it seems). Would like to get an endorsment from Digi before I start messing with Virtual Memory - although in Classic days this was always recommended..........

Cheers

Johan

[JosephGingles]

I too have a Mac Book Pro with a USB error -9136. my system coughs up the error during playback. I seem to be having some other strangeness in my transport window because when I set the record button then hit play to start recording the recording imediately stops thereafter. I have not had much free time lately so my attempts to troubleshoot these issues have been fruitless. I hope this conversation will continue. Justin I would like to hear about your recent discoveries concerning your issue. Any other advice would be great, but if fear my confidence in computing tasks is limited. thanks in advance
Joe Taylor

[Cogitor]

Back in the days of digi001's and Mac OS 8.6, turning Virtual Memory off was a must.

I can completely understand not wanting to delve into this, especially if Digidesign has another solution. Though, consider the quandry / solution ratio.

[JazzyJ]

Hi all, in regards to MBOX USB draining CPU on Macs errors.

THERE IS NO SOLUTION

I have been reading FAQ's from 2004 - OCT 2006 and there are hundreds of people all with the same problem.

G3's, G4's, G5's - OS9x - OSX. PT 5.1 - PT 7.0

All Digigdesign say is to reflash your Mbox with firmware 2.0, which most MBOX's are 2.0 anyway, and then take some plugins off. When your running a G5 and you can't run 2 plugins you know something is wrong.

Digidesign have been silent on this issue. Sorry guys. Don't do USB and Digidesign.

It's PCI or the new Firewire.

I've spoke to the Tech support and there is NO SOLUTION. If your not using a laptop, sell your MBOX and get a 001 on ebay. You'll be able to run 95% more plugins.

[gfunk]

Hi all, in regards to MBOX USB draining CPU on Macs errors.

THERE IS NO SOLUTION

I have been reading FAQ's from 2004 - OCT 2006 and there are hundreds of people all with the same problem.

G3's, G4's, G5's - OS9x - OSX. PT 5.1 - PT 7.0

All Digigdesign say is to reflash your Mbox with firmware 2.0, which most MBOX's are 2.0 anyway, and then take some plugins off. When your running a G5 and you can't run 2 plugins you know something is wrong.

Digidesign have been silent on this issue. Sorry guys. Don't do USB and Digidesign.

It's PCI or the new Firewire.

I've spoke to the Tech support and there is NO SOLUTION. If your not using a laptop, sell your MBOX and get a 001 on ebay. You'll be able to run 95% more plugins.

well that's just bleak. I get the same errors every so often, on a Dual 1ghz G4, PTLE 6.4 and Mac OS 10.3.6 - I get it just playing audio sometimes, at other times when there are loads of plug-ins. I had to do a session in Logic the other day, and though I haven't used it for ages, and do still prefer PT - it just ran the audio and loads of plugs seemlessly. I kept waiting for it to freeze, 'cos i'd gotten used to PT being so limited! Seems there is a problem that Digi just aren't addressing.....if you're reading this Digi, this is a pretty bad way to run a business, and a really good way to lose customers.

[Justin Brandt]

I'm going to try a PCMCIA USB card here in a couple days and I'll let you know how it goes. If it works out, then I'll probably send my powerbook back for repair and tell them something is wrong with the USB bus. I do get noise through the mBox in one of them, so that might be enough for them to repair it.

Is anyone from digi still looking at this? Can you confirm that there is no fix for it for some macs?

[onlyone-jc]

would you suggest this also? (turning off the virtual memory)

Don't do it. It is absolutely un-wise to do it. Most Pro Tools users need as much memory as they can get their hands on. So, what happens when you've used all of your RAM up, and your system needs somewhere to store data that will be addressed by the various software applications you're running? It won't have anywhere to store the data anymore; that's the whole point of virtual memory. Virtual memory is the poor man's RAM; the less RAM you have, the more virtual memory you will use. Get as much RAM as possible, and you should be good to go.

However, I also have a Powerbook (last-generation model) and am having the described disk access problem (but with an 002R). It's not so much when I'm demanding a lot of audio data to be streamed either, it's generally more when I'm simply demanding more from the processor (in fact, that's when this Powerbook shows how really old and out-dated its processor is).

onlyone-jc.

[Cogitor]

Have any of you actually tried it? Give it a shot, you might be pleased.

You can turn it back on by uncommenting the line and rebooting, this is not permanent in the least.

[sky88dd]

I would like to add that I've been a PT user for about 6 years.
I started with the 001 on a pc and for years, I've had no problems.
This year, I switched to a G5 and upgraded to the 002R.
Then everything started going wrong. I was constantly getting error messages with the operating system held off for too long. I called tech support so many times and in the end, they told me they've done all they can. I then sent the 002R back to Digi to have it checked. It came back with no problems according to Digi.
It went to a point where nothing could be done anymore so I sold it and I am now using the mbox.
But now with the mbox, I'm getting the cpu/usb errors. Its happening more and more.
I really like Pro Tools, but if its not gonna work, I have no choice to look elsewhere.
My job depends on the daw I use.