New MB/Processor for old PT 6.1

[Harpo]

Win XP Home editioin 5.01.2600 service Pack 2

AMD Athoon X2 Dual Core MSI K9N6PGM-F (MS-7309)
Chipset nVidia 6100v
Pocessor BE-2300 @1900MHz.
1.91 GHz 3.23 BG RAM
Physical Memory- 4096 MB (2x2048 DDR2-SDRAM)
Video card-Nvidia Corp GeForce 6100 nForce 430
HD#1 WDC 40 GB
HD#2 Maxtor 82 GB
DirectX version 9.0c

PT version 6.1 M-Box

Power supply died...taking the original motherboard with it. Took it to a repair shop and the guy managed to find something compatable that would not require a new installation of Win XP. He claimed the new motherboard and processor were actually a bit faster.

First problem was the system going to bluescreen when I tried to start PT. Took it back and he figured out the drivers for M-Box needed to be reinstalled. That got PT started. But then I found I could only run a session for a few seconds before getting this error:

"audio prcessing is conflicting with other CPU tasks. If this occurs often, reducing the "H/W Buffer Size" in the Playback Engine Dialong may help prevent the problem (-9129)"

Of course when I reduce the H/W Buffer Size, I get:

"The operating system held off interrupts for too long. If this occurs often, try incresing the "H/W Buffer Size" in the Playback Engine Dialog. (-9093)

So then I went through the checklist for setting up Win XP and found that I needed to disable the audio on the motherboard again and disable all the non-microsoft processes in "msconfig".

That helped a little. Now it can run projects...but when I start doing actual editting of tracks, it goes back to the -9129 -9093 cycle.

Took it back to the shop again and the guy reduced the speed of the processor saying he read that might help. Maybe a slight improvement. Really hard to tell. Still getting the errors when I start doing any editing.reboot gets it back to being able to run the project without editting again.

Was going to download the Sandra Lite program to provide detailed info, but noticed it doesn't cover Win XP. Is there some program like that which runs on Win XP so I can post some info?

I would skip Sandra, do usual optimizations, check if HDDs are DMA enabled, get latencymon, try to find driver/hardware that would eventually cause DPC spikes and disable it.
Then read duc threads concerning "-9129 -9093 cycle":
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=195761
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=191374
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=87840

If this will not work after 10 hours of fight it is wise to think "well, my 15 years old system does not work any more, it happens in the computer world - investing labour and buying obsolete hardware parts does not make sense" then come the conclusion "why not thrash it and get something up to date?"

[Harpo]

Originally Posted by zolko

I would skip Sandra, do usual optimizations, check if HDDs are DMA enabled, get latencymon, try to find driver/hardware that would eventually cause DPC spikes and disable it.
Then read duc threads concerning "-9129 -9093 cycle":
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=195761
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=191374
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=87840

If this will not work after 10 hours of fight it is wise to think "well, my 15 years old system does not work any more, it happens in the computer world - investing labour and buying obsolete hardware parts does not make sense" then come the conclusion "why not thrash it and get something up to date?"

Thanks. I'll try that.

The problem with being a working musician is that the decision to spend hundreds of dollars on something is pretty big. I may have to scour eBay and Craigslist for options if it comes to that. I love PT obviously, but it ain't cheap!

I can imagine but you are 6 PT versions and 14 years behind. It is like a time capsule There are not many people having PT6/Mbox 1st gen system working. PT6 as I remember could not take advantage of multicore CPU's. I remember it as not being stable. 6.4 was better, 7.4 - perfect and my last XP/PT experience.
I have some other ideas:
1. Try Mbox with Reaper trial to check how your ressurected machine can handle audio.
2. Look for some used XP working computer with PT8LE installed (8.0.1 last Mbox1)

[Harpo]

Originally Posted by zolko

I can imagine but you are 6 PT versions and 14 years behind. It is like a time capsule There are not many people having PT6/Mbox 1st gen system working. PT6 as I remember could not take advantage of multicore CPU's. I remember it as not being stable. 6.4 was better, 7.4 - perfect and my last XP/PT experience.
I have some other ideas:
1. Try Mbox with Reaper trial to check how your ressurected machine can handle audio.
2. Look for some used XP working computer with PT8LE installed (8.0.1 last Mbox1)

lol...I guess I'm a "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" guy. My 6.1 has worked great for a long time and I honestly never felt the need for anything more.

#1-That's a good idea. I was sorta scouting Reaper anyway as a possible alternative to PT if I can't figure this out. Hate leaving my precious PT though. (Obviously I'm attached to it )

And #2 is a good one too. I've been scouring Craigslist and eBay for something like that.

[Harpo]

Well sad to report I guess I'm done with Pro Tools. It was a good run. But man, Reaper installed on my regular computer and works without any headaches...and it's inexpensive to boot so that vital to a working musician. 10 years ago I had a day job and a lot more disposable income.

Even looks like I can easily port all my tracks from old songs over if I ever need to do that.

So long PT and thanks for all the fish!