Mbox 2 Mini PT8.0 Playback Issues

[Violet]

Here are my system specs:

INTEL QUAD CORE Q9400 2.66 GHZ
HD-403-106 500 GB SATA II 3.0 GB 16MB 7200RPM
WD CAVIAR BLUE 500 GB 16 MB Cache, 7200RPM SATA II 3.0 GB
3GB DDR2 PC6400 MEMORY
SAMSUNG 20X DVDRW
BLU RAY SATA DVD COMBO
ASUS P5N-E SLI NFORCE 650I SLI MB
INTEL GIGABITE BAST-T
NVIDIA 9800GT GRAPHICS CARD
WINDOW VISTA HOME PREMIUM 32BIT
THERMALTAKE 600W PURE POWER

I've installed Protools 8.0 a couple of times. I record to, and playback from, a separate hard drive. Here are the problems:

1. When I play guitar I can always hear the guitar, but the effects on top cut in and out. The fact that I can always hear the guitar tells me it's not a short in the cable or something.

2. When I play back songs it plays no longer than 10 sec. and cuts out, giving the error: "increase H/W Buffer Size" (-6068). I adjust the buffer size and all other settings under playback engine, but nothing helps. I feel like my machine should be powerful enough to handle the program's default settings. If I minimize the editing window and then push play, it will play all the way through. Minimizing does nothing to help the guitar cut-out.

I've gone through all the troubleshooting pages with no luck.

[Whalter]

Are you trying to record with plug in's in real time?

My machine is much less powerful than yours but I had real problems when I tried to do this. I just recorded my guitar as a DI and then put the plug in on it afterwards.

[TOM@METRO]

This not an uncommon complaint when combining non-Intel chipsets with an Intel CPU. The Nvidea graphics card has also been an issue with this combination. It seems PT8 is a little more fussy than PT7xx in this regard. There may be some here on the DUC that have gotten around these issues and maybe they will chime in.

[DigiTechSupt]

Tom pretty much nailed it - mixed chipset/processor combinations are definitely problematic. If you have an Intel processor you should get a motherboard with an Intel chipset.

[Violet]

What chipset do I have? I though i was intel as well.

Digitech can you also comment on the 9800 GT? Is that a problem?

[albee1952]

"ASUS P5N-E SLI NFORCE 650I SLI MB"

The "NFORCE 650" refers to the motherboard chipset. You can try using a generic video driver instead of the "official" driver for the video card before you spend more money(you never know....). I actually prefer cheap video cards for PT and run an MSI GeForce 7300LE 256 card that cost $37(with the driver from the NVIDIA site and NOT the driver from MSI). If you do end up replacing the motherboard, you can get some of your money back by selling the old one or just save it for a home computer setup that doesn't need Pro Tools compatibility.

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by Violet

What chipset do I have? I though i was intel as well.

Digitech can you also comment on the 9800 GT? Is that a problem?

In regards to the 9800 GT run the DPC latency checker and if it looks good (no stair step pattern or high latency) than there should be no problem. Rolling the driver back the standard MS display driver can help.

The Nividea 6xx series chipset has pretty much been a no go situation with PT LE. I would recommend the Asus P5Q Pro or P5Q SE2 instead. The Pro offers two card slots for around 120.00 (currently I beleive Newegg is offering a rebate for 15.00 so its 104.00). The P5Q standard or P5Q SE2 are both under 99.00. The good news is you 650 series board probably has some value to a gamer wanting to run SLI and should be a easy sell.

[Violet]

Thanks guys, awesome info.

I more though is how to I install the generic drivers for the video card? I have EVGA drivers installed currently.