Eratic CPU usage at idle.

[Blank Frank]

Hi
I'm using a Macbook with PTLE7.3, an Mbox 2, 2GB memory and I've been working on a song for several days, yesterday I played the song many times and not a single problem, I've opened the song today and the song wont even start due to the CPU being overloaded at idle? I've checked in the Mac activity meter and it's all Protools that's using the CPU. I've increased the buffer to 1028 and it can start now, but the CPU is still running very high without the song even playing.
Any sugestions?
I love working with 7.3 but why is there always these sort of problems with Protools, it really, really annoys me!

[Nana Sarpong]

it might be cumbersome, but Pro Tools might be getting sickly, but when it happens to me, a computer reboot brings her back to a 100%. I don't know why. but you might want to try that out. Life of PT user! haha

[chicoman]

I've been experiencing this problem ever since PT went to 7.0 (which we call 7.oh oh). I can't seem to get a straight answer on this so if you solve this, please post.

Best of luck.

[Blank Frank]

If I do I'll let you know, but I've just about given up on the Macbook for Protools and gone back to my PC (shock horror!!!, it runs perfectly) for any large projects. It's a shame, I can run huge sessions in Logic pro on the Macbook with what seems like unlimited plugins and never a problem.
It must be working for some people, so I can only imagine it's something in my machine, it'd be nice to hear some suggestions from some of the good folk at Digidesign.

[chicoman]

Well, I seem to have gotten a response from DIGI that seems to work:

"Make sure that you have updated all of your plug-ins to the correct
version for Pro Tools 7.x. Even if they are not used in a session
they can cause problems if they are in the plug-ins folder.

You can find a list of updated plug-ins available for download here:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23375

Please contact the manufactures of any third party plug-ins directly,
if you are not sure you should remove them while you are trouble
shooting this issue.

After updating or removing suspect plug-ins go through the steps here:

Troubleshooting Pro Tools 6 & 7 on Windows XP:
http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.p...&Number=802377

If these things don't resolve the issue please respond with more
details about the behavior you are seeing including the exact text of
any error messages, any error numbers, info about track count and
plug-ins used in the session, and the type of audio drive you are
using."


What is interesting is:
"Even if they are not used in a session they can cause problems if they are in the plug-ins folder."


So I removed all the old plug-ins except for the ones I know are updated for PT7+. I then went into the BIOS and disabled all unused peripherals (serial, parallel ports, audio, etc.). I also followed everything to the tee in the troubleshooting link. This seems to have have stabilized my CPU problem and it runs great now, but I wish I could have pinpointed exactly what the problem was. Another problem that has arisen though is that I have to open every session with 1 processor clicked, or I get Access Violations. Once it opens though, I can switch back to 2 processors and it works fine.

So still not perfect, but much better.

Good luck.