Noise when recording with new external hard drive?

[sethbrand]

Hey guys,

I just got a OWC Mercury Elite Pro external hard drive. It is 7200 rpm, 250 gb. Up until now, I have been running pro tools off my internal c drive, and although there were small annoyances, no major problems even though my internal drive is only 5400 rpm. However, now I have my new external drive, all excited, get home, copy my session to the new drive and listen to it...sounds fine. Then I hit record and try to do some piano parts and what do you know...there is noise. It is a crackling noise only when I record, and then after it is recorded you can hear the crackling during playback. So I went back and pulled up the session from my internal drive and hit record, smoother than anything...nothing wrong. Why in the world would I be getting this crackling noise using my "better" external drive during recording when I wasn't getting it from my 5400 rpm drive on my laptop? Should I just continue to record from my internal drive and then transfer the files over to the external for mixing, storage,etc? Sorry guys, just a little frustrated right now..

Thanks for all the help,
Seth

[fizbin]

In order to help we'll need to know:
1. Your computer model and/or motherboard and chipset (CPU and RAM might help as well)
2. Your soundcard
3. Is your hard drive USB or firewire?

[sethbrand]

Below I have all of the specs on my computer. My external hard drive that I just got is an owc Mercury elite pro, 250 gb 7200rpm drive. I know that the internal drive on my computer is not quite up to par for pro tools, but still is better than the external drive I just got. I am not sure if the external drive has the oxford 911 chipset or not...is there a way I can find that out on my computer b/c it doesn't say anywhere on the drive or in the manual. If it does not have the chipset...would this be the cause of the crackling noise? As for my recording set up...I have an m-audio firewire 1814 that I connect to the drive via firewire, then the drive to my laptop via firewire. When I just hook the firewire 1814 straight to the laptop, I have no problem with crackling. I also have a problem with the computer still skipping randomly every once in a while during playback and record, whether I use the external drive or not. Here are my specs...let me know if this helps. Thanks alot!

SiSoftware Sandra

System


Processor
Model : 1x Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Speed : 2.99GHz
Performance Rating : PR3981 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Internal Data Cache : 16kB Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 On-board Cache : 1MB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 8-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 lines per sector, 2 threads sharing

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA PCI PCIe IMB CardBus USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 2 Processor(s)
MP APIC : Yes
System BIOS : AT/AT COMPATIBLE HP - 6040000
Total Memory : 511MB DDR2-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : Hewlett-Packard Company 82915G/GV/GL/P/PL/GL Grantsdale Host Bridge/DRAM Controller
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 200MHz (800MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 512MB DDR2-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed : 4x 100MHz (400MHz data rate)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : Default Monitor
Monitor/Panel : Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor/Panel : Generic Television
Adapter : ATI MOBILITY RADEON X600

Physical Storage Devices
Hard Disk : ST960822A (56GB)
CD-ROM/DVD : TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-L532R (CD 24X Rd, 24X Wr) (DVD 3X Rd, 3X Wr)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 56GB (28GB, 49% Free Space) (NTFS)
CD-ROM/DVD (D:) : N/A

Peripherals
Serial/Parallel Port(s) : 1 COM / 0 LPT
USB Controller/Hub : Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2658
USB Controller/Hub : Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2659
USB Controller/Hub : Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265A
USB Controller/Hub : Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265B
USB Controller/Hub : Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 265C
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
FireWire/1394 Controller/Hub : Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
PCMCIA/CardBus Controller : Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
Keyboard : Logitech PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse : Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad
Mouse : Logitech HID-compliant Cordless Mouse
Human Interface : Logitech Cordless USB Mouse

MultiMedia Device(s)
Device : Conexant AC-97 Audio

Communication Device(s)
Device : Conexant Data Fax Modem with SmartCP

Printers and Faxes
Model : HP Deskjet 3840 Series
Model : Acrobat Distiller

Power Management
AC Line Status : On-Line

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Home (Win32 x86) 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)

Network Services
Adapter : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

[mrufino1]

See my post in this forum right under yours! I am having the same issue, which seems to be solved by adding a firewire card and running the drive off of a different firewire port than the 1814. No more crackling, however the 1814 still is doing some weird things (see my post, I typed a lot...) and the firewire card turned out to be an NEC chipset (and my laptop's built in is a VIA chipset), so I ordered one today with the TI chipset, then I hope all will be happy in m-powered land...I think daisy chaining the drive to the 1814 is what is causing the crackling though. Your drive probably has the 911 chipset- it is pretty hard to find a drive that doesn't have that.

[sethbrand]

hey thanx for the help. if i get a new firewire card, what kind should i get and how do i instal that. is it internal or external. my problem is this...i started a session on my internal drive..saved it...bought the external drive...hooked it up...copied the session to the external drive and opened the new copy (from the external drive)...tried to record and got scratchy noises while recording. so then i closed the session...opened up my old session on my internal drive...recorded with the same setup(firewire 1814 to external h/d to laptop)...and the scrathing was gone. it only scratches and pops when i have a file opened that is saved to the external and try to record. so would this still be b/c of the daisy chaining of the 1814 and the external, even though it works when i open a session saved to my internal drive?

[mrufino1]

You wouldn't be using the external drive if you are recording to the internal drive, if I undersatnd correctly. If you are usign a laptop, you need a pcmcia card, for desktop you'd need a pci card. I got one with a TI chipset here: www.firewiregear.net , This one specifically:
http://www.firewiregear.net/productd...=302&catid=302,288,316,303
I don't know how well it works or anything, it is on its way, so I will post when I receive it, but it does have the TI chipset as specified. This is not info that is always given; the one I bought in the store yesterday has an NEC chipset, which I only found out when I installed it, but I can bring it back, so I'm not out anything. It works though, no pops and clicks. I wonder if that is just too much data trying to go through the bus i they are daisy chained? Not sure.

[sethbrand]

ok thanks for the info...just let me know when you recieve it and how it works. I am on a laptop, so if it works for you then i may order it and try it out. like i said, if i record to/from my internal drive it is fine...if i record to/from my external, i get the scratchy noise even though i use the same routing for each. i had the same file/session saved in both my internal and external drive. when i run the one from the internal drive it works ok...but when i close that one and run the same session from my external drive...i get the noise. just let me know how that card works for you and maybe i will try it. i just dont understand why it would scratch/click/pop only during record when i have the file running from the external?
Seth

[mrufino1]

Because it seems that it is the external drive chained to the 1814 that causes the problem. I recorded at church today usign the 1814 connected to my laptops built in firewire port and the hard drive plugged into the firewire pcmcia card and I had no pops and clicks (except a weird skipping in the beginning but plugging into headphone 2 rather than headphone 1 stopped this- could this be any harder to use?!!!). I don't know if the drive and the 1814 on the same firewire input overloads it or whatever, I'm hoping the recommended TI chipset fixes the problem. We'll see...

[sethbrand]

hey mrufino1,

just wondering if you got that TI chipset yet and if it is working for you. how would i install that in my computer? is it easy or should i take it somewhere to be done?

seth

[jp_dt]

I had/have the same problem with my fw410 and a latitude d505 and a oxford911 drive . I spent about a month here and had several discussions with tech support at digi and m-audio. I tried the separate pcmcia card (TI "supported" chipset) for just the drive and pro tools didn't like that..hung after it opened the session. I tried the pcmcia card for both devices hoping it was the built in firewire interface and had the same problems. M-audio said that it's the firewire bus getting overloaded. I know that firewire is capable of much more than what i'm doing demands though. I think it has to do with xp's driver for firewire devices. As much has been bandied about over processor types and ram and mb chipsets I think this is a firewire only problem. That being said, my laptop is not a "supported" device. I've resigned to keeping my active sessions on the internal drive and storing them on the external. My ibook doesn't have this problem.

this is a quote from m-audio support:
"The problem is your firewire bus is being overloaded. It is not possivblwe to use outr devices on the same bus as a firewire hard drive. Have you tried an external USB drive? You wont have the same issues with a USB external drive."