Computer gets REALLY slow after awhile...

[moonwalker2]

hi guys!

I got a problem with my Pro Tools LE 8.04 setup. After a while the computer gets really slow. and often hangs. anyone know why?

Thank you

My sandra report:
SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Host Name : Oscar-Dator
User : Oscar

Processor
Model : AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor
Speed : 3GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 64kB, Synchronous, Write-Back, 2-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 4x 512kB, ECC, Synchronous, Write-Back, 16-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size
L3 On-board Cache : 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, Write-Back, 48-way, 64 byte line size, 4 threads sharing

Computer
Mainboard : Gigabyte M57SLI-S4
BIOS : Award (Phoenix) FHL 11/06/2009
Bus(es) : X-Bus PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 8GB DIMM DDR2

Chipset
Model : AMD F10h Athlon 64/Opteron/Sempron HT Hub
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 1GHz (2GHz)
Total Memory : 8GB DIMM DDR2
Channels : 2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 402MHz (804MHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : A-Data 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-23-6-3)
Memory Module : A-Data 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-23-6-3)
Memory Module : A-Data 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-23-6-3)
Memory Module : A-Data 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-23-6-3)

Video System
Video Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 3850 (320 SM4.1 669MHz, 512MB DDR3 2x700MHz, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor

Storage Devices
Seagate ST3802110A (80GB, ATA100, 3.5", 2MB Cache) : 75GB (D:)
Hitachi HDS722580VLAT20 (82.3GB, ATA100, 3.5", 7200rpm, 2MB Cache) : 77GB (E:)
SAMSUNG HD103SJ (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache) : 932GB (C:)
Hitachi HDS721616PLA380 (160GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 7MB Cache) : 149GB (F:)
SAMSUNG HD753LJ (750.2GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache) : 699GB (G:)
WD 5000AAV External 500.1GB (USB) : 466GB (I:)
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223F (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (H:)
AJSHSTO S1QF4D2 (SCSI, BD-R, HD-DVD-R, DVD+-R-DL, CD-R) : N/A (K:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (D:) : 75GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST3802110A (80GB, ATA100, 3.5", 2MB Cache)
Arkiv (E:) : 77GB (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDS722580VLAT20 (82.3GB, ATA100, 3.5", 7200rpm, 2MB Cache)
Reserverad av systemet : 100MB (NTFS)
Hard Disk (F:) : 149GB (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDS721616PLA380 (160GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 7MB Cache)
Hard Disk (G:) : 699GB (NTFS) @ SAMSUNG HD753LJ (750.2GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache)
My Book (I:) : 466GB (FAT32) @ WD 5000AAV External 500.1GB (USB)
Hard Disk (C:) : 931GB (NTFS) @ SAMSUNG HD103SJ (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache)
Optical Drive (H:) : N/A @ TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223F (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
Optical Drive (K:) : N/A @ AJSHSTO S1QF4D2 (SCSI, BD-R, HD-DVD-R, DVD+-R-DL, CD-R)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Giga-Byte MCP55 LPC Bridge
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : ITE IT8716F
Audio Device : Giga-Byte MCP55 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec : Realtek Semiconductor 888 High Definition Audio
Audio Device : Giga-Byte Radeon HD 3870 Audio device
Audio Codec : ATI (AMD) HDMI Audio
Serial Port(s) : 1
Parallel Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte MCP55 IDE
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte MCP55 SATA Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte MCP55 SATA Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte MCP55 SATA Controller
USB Controller 1 : Giga-Byte MCP55 USB Controller
USB Controller 2 : Giga-Byte MCP55 USB Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Giga-Byte TSB43AB23 1394a-2000 OHCI PHY/link-layer Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 1
SMBus/i2c Controller 2 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 2

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

Network Services
Network Adapter : NVIDIA nForce 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (Ethernet, 100Mbps)

Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line

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

Performance Tips
Warning 100 : Large memory sizes should be made of Registered/Buffered memory.
Tip 2546 : Large memory modules should be ECC/Parity.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

[albee1952]

Some things to try:
Keep that USB drive disconnected except when you are backing up to it(recording to USB drives is no supported and anything on the USB bus could affect the bus speed, important for Mbox users). Make sure you have done all the system tweaks(including disabling power management on all USB ports). Disable network. Check you system temps(google search for monitoring utilities) as heat could be causing something to degrade. How old are your hard drives?(could be a sign of impending drive failure). How full is your recording drive(try to always leave 15-20% free space minimum).

Why this setting in BIOS???......Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No

[binty]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Why this setting in BIOS???......Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No

Pure Class.

[moonwalker2]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Some things to try:
Keep that USB drive disconnected except when you are backing up to it(recording to USB drives is no supported and anything on the USB bus could affect the bus speed, important for Mbox users). Make sure you have done all the system tweaks(including disabling power management on all USB ports). Disable network. Check you system temps(google search for monitoring utilities) as heat could be causing something to degrade. How old are your hard drives?(could be a sign of impending drive failure). How full is your recording drive(try to always leave 15-20% free space minimum).

Why this setting in BIOS???......Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No

Thank you for your help! My harddrive is new (The C:drive). But some are a bit old. But i never record to them, i just use them as extra space for movies, documents etc. My recording drive has LOTS of space left. I never record to my external Harddrive. Should i unplug it anyway? i have done the system tweaks. Disable network? why? (And how? just unplug the network wire?)
My system temps are normal (Used speedfan).

How do i change the BIOS settings? Of course i want multiprocessor support!

Again, a big THANK YOU for your help!

[albee1952]

For BIOS settings, read the booklet that came with it(every mobo seems to have its own idea on that). Disable network(at least until you are positive it is NOT part of the problem) by going into Device Manager and right-clicking on the network card(s) and selecting Disable. Disconnect anything you don't NEED for Pro Tools until you figure out what is dragging your rig down(the less things attached, the less possible problems). You may want to update your BIOS version(mine started at F2, but going to F4 made a large improvement). Also, my Gigabyte mobo worked poorly with the RAM timings set to AUTO. Setting them to manual and setting the timings according to my RAM made a night and day difference. Since you have a very different system, YMMV(again, consult the mobo booklet for how to set RAM timings and get the correct timings for your exact RAM).

[moonwalker2]

Originally Posted by albee1952

For BIOS settings, read the booklet that came with it(every mobo seems to have its own idea on that). Disable network(at least until you are positive it is NOT part of the problem) by going into Device Manager and right-clicking on the network card(s) and selecting Disable. Disconnect anything you don't NEED for Pro Tools until you figure out what is dragging your rig down(the less things attached, the less possible problems). You may want to update your BIOS version(mine started at F2, but going to F4 made a large improvement). Also, my Gigabyte mobo worked poorly with the RAM timings set to AUTO. Setting them to manual and setting the timings according to my RAM made a night and day difference. Since you have a very different system, YMMV(again, consult the mobo booklet for how to set RAM timings and get the correct timings for your exact RAM).

I've read the manual for my motherboard and couldn't find how to enable multi-processor... It would be really kind of you if you could give me some instructions. And how do I update my BIOS version?
Can't find how to set the RAM timings either... Probably alot of stupid questions, but i've read the manual, searched on google etc and i still can't figure it out. Please help

Thank you

[albee1952]

Sadly, I am not skilled enough to help further. Maybe you can find a local PC guru to help?

[moonwalker2]

all right, thank you anyway. I can't afford a computer guru haha. do you possibly know anyone here at the DUC that might help?

Thank you

[moonwalker2]

A little update.

Asked a guy who owns a computer store about Multiprocessors. He said that my computer don't support multiprocessors, it only have one proccesor, but with 4 cores. Does that help anything??

[FordVan]

A good place to start is to start up Task Manager ( Type: Ctrl/Alt/Delete at the same time).

Click on the Processes tab. Note everything that is running and how much memory they are using, and how much CPU they are using.

Keep Task Manager open, then open ProTools and start working a project. Check in on Task Manager every once in a while to see what is changing. Eventually, you will see a process that is either taking up a lot of cpu or memory. That is your culprit.

Generally, the behavior you describe is called a "Memory Leak", which basically is a application starts using up a lot of RAM but won't release it back to the OS to use after it should be done with it.

If ProTools winds up being the offender, then most likely you have a plugin/softsynth that is the culprit, most likely that they have a denormalization issue. It appears putting a dither plugin before that plugin will solve the problem.

Again, this is just a place to start, but will usually produce something for you to check out.