setting up studio in desperate need of assistance!

[mcmuffin]

Hi everyone, I am trying to set up a studio in a school, nothing spectacular, this is what I'm working with:

-a Mac "Power PC" G5 with 512mb of DDR SDRAM and a Dual 2.3GHz processor.
-Mac OS X 10.4.2
-Mbox 2
-Pro Tools LE 6.8.1

Problem:

The mbox is very very dimly lit when the computer is turned on. I've tried different cables, and even tried an Mbox 1 and that lit up fine. The next thing is, when I start pro tools, it states that my mbox hardware is not connected, but if I click on it a couple of times it loads. There is no playback or signal being recorded through the mbox2, even though it shows up in my system preferences.

I have no idea what could be causing this and have tried everything I can remember how to do back when I last consistently used pro tools 5 years ago.

Thank you for your advice, in advance!!

-Cat

[Slim Shady]

Well, technically you don't have enough RAM in that machine to run ProTools, however that's probably not the cause of your hardware issue. That being said, if you do resolve the hardware problem, PT probably isn't going to run very well (if at all) until you get more RAM in there.

You could try the Mbox2 firmware update (download here) - it's really more for powerbook users, but might help your situation. Have you also tried using a different port for the Mbox2? Sometimes they're finicky about what USB port they're plugged into.

[mcmuffin]

hi thank you for the reply!

i have tried all the usb ports. i agree about the ram, but just need a basic setup for now, not going to be adding many plugins to tracks or anything.

i will try the firmware update, thanks for the link!