New windows ME Instalation

[Steve Moore]

I am trying to troubleshoot a new instalation of Pro Tools LE:

OS: Windows ME
RAM: 256 MB
AGP Rage video card
Western Digital hard drive
DIGI - 001

The motherboard is a SANYO SY-7VCA with a Pentium III running at 733mhz with a FS bus speed of 133.
The PCI parity is disabled.
The RAM is PC133.
The chipsets are all VIA (82C694X)

Networking is disabled in hardware profile
All legacy on board sound is disabled (motherboard)
Windows sounds are set to NO SOUNDS
Active in Background is checked.
There are no other programs installed on the system except for Acrobat Reader 4.0 (for the help files)
There are no resident programs or services running in the task bar.
The audio drive was freshly formatted and is separate from the system (c) drive.
The system operates normally outside of Pro Tools LE.

Instalation issues:

Program installed normally first time. However, it will not record even a single track.
Display tracks for a second or two then stops giving 'increase buffers' message.
Higher buffer settings introduce serious delays in response making tracking impossible, and
still do not solve issue.

After this trouble, I removed the program using the Add/Remove
Software component of Windows Control Panel. I double checked all hardware and BIOS settings.
Second install I got ("This driver was not written for this hardware" message). Install procedure is EXACTLY as specified
in manual and EXACTLY as run initially.

Once I got ('cannot acquire hardware') message. However, Pro Tools LE seemed to communicate
with PCI card as sound was present and displayed on screen.

Sometimes, after reboot, Windows tries to find software for card again even though it is already installed.

I have a Promise IDE RAID card (Level 5) I am willing to devote to this machine but I won't go
to the trouble and expense of installing it if the program can't track even a single track on it's own.

There are two CD drives in the machine, a reader and a writer. The two drives are on separate channels.

Any ideas?

Steve Moore

[Marcel Mescher]

Check the BIOS settings for IRQ reservation possibilities. By default IRQ's for PCI are on 'auto' Check that no 2 PCI slots share a single IRQ according to your MB manual. ry to find a PCI slot with a single IRQ and set the IRQ channel to 9 or 10 for this slot.
Check under system in WinME that no other device uses the same IRQ. Also Disable COM1 and 2 if you don't need them, 2 more free IRQ's. (Don't use these freed IRQ's however) I use a dual boot system and have ME installed for PT only. All hardware that I don't need is disabled.
Last: make sure you have all VIA chipset drivers installed, especially the 4-in-one, as this chipset is definitely not my favorite and usually gives some problems. And of course, don't try to record tracks on your system partition.
Good luck.

[Allen Hallada]

Originally posted by Steve Moore:
I am trying to troubleshoot a new instalation of Pro Tools LE:

OS: Windows ME
RAM: 256 MB
AGP Rage video card
Western Digital hard drive
DIGI - 001

The motherboard is a SANYO SY-7VCA with a Pentium III running at 733mhz with a FS bus speed of 133.
The PCI parity is disabled.
The RAM is PC133.
The chipsets are all VIA (82C694X)

Networking is disabled in hardware profile
All legacy on board sound is disabled (motherboard)
Windows sounds are set to NO SOUNDS
Active in Background is checked.
There are no other programs installed on the system except for Acrobat Reader 4.0 (for the help files)
There are no resident programs or services running in the task bar.
The audio drive was freshly formatted and is separate from the system (c) drive.
The system operates normally outside of Pro Tools LE.

Instalation issues:

Program installed normally first time. However, it will not record even a single track.
Display tracks for a second or two then stops giving 'increase buffers' message.
Higher buffer settings introduce serious delays in response making tracking impossible, and
still do not solve issue.

After this trouble, I removed the program using the Add/Remove
Software component of Windows Control Panel. I double checked all hardware and BIOS settings.
Second install I got ("This driver was not written for this hardware" message). Install procedure is EXACTLY as specified
in manual and EXACTLY as run initially.

Once I got ('cannot acquire hardware') message. However, Pro Tools LE seemed to communicate
with PCI card as sound was present and displayed on screen.

Sometimes, after reboot, Windows tries to find software for card again even though it is already installed.

I have a Promise IDE RAID card (Level 5) I am willing to devote to this machine but I won't go
to the trouble and expense of installing it if the program can't track even a single track on it's own.

There are two CD drives in the machine, a reader and a writer. The two drives are on separate channels.

Any ideas?

Steve Moore<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hey Steve,
I've been here awhile and I've helped alot of people with this same issue. I really think you are going to need to upgrade to a new motherboard. At this point I would go with an Athlon processor and motherboard, preferably the AMD761 chipset and the 1.4Ghz T-bird. The Abit, Asus, and Gigabyte boards have worked the best so far with this chipset. You should be able to switch over for around 150-200.00 for processor and motherboard now. Get the PC2100 DDR ram from Corsair or Micron and use 512MB total until Win XP comes out. Check www.pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com) for best prices on motherboards and processors, and www.crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com) for ram.
Good luck.
Allen