Dear forum,
I recently bought a new computer in December (CS200) (specs w/Sandra report below this email), and in the last few days have run into a wall with errors, and can no longer record due to them. I am using PT LE 8.0.5 with the mbox2 and windows 7, recording onto an external firewire hard drive with oxford chip with 300GB memory (computer specs provided below in sandra report)
In the last day or so, when I leave protools open for an extended period of time and come back to the computer after being away, my mouse experiences a 'lag', which makes it almost impossible to navigate around my monitor. Also In the middle of a recording session, my mouse has begun to lag...and says 'protools not responding'...and then this error box comes up saying:
' you are running out of CPU power. Elastic Audio Processing could not keep up. Please switch Elastic Audio tracks to render mode, disable Elastic Audio processing, or remove some RTAS plug-ins (-9403)'.
The recording session this occurred during is not very large: only 9 tracks at 9 minutes duration. Just a simple Spring Reverb on 4 of the tracks. Nothing to cause such glitch, one would think. I've recently begun to record my sessions at: Sample rate: 44.1 Khz (previously at 48khz) 16 bit (previously at 24 bit). not sure the sample and bit rate could have anything to do with this problem. I record at a buffer size of 256 in the playback engine, and set it at 1024 for playback. Another thing to note is that the audio becomes completely distorted and 'garbled' sounding during playback before the above warning box about the CPU power running out pops onto my screen. I had to close my session and restart it 5 times just to get it working 'temporarily' enough to do a bounce of the session.
I would also like to add that many of the times I've had distorted audio issues while recording, have been when I've had my digital piano plugged into the Line 2 TRS, along with my condenser also plugged into the back into the mic input 1 w/phantom power. There seems to be a correlation here, but logically it doesn't make any sense to me that I can't utilize both inputs on my mbox for recording, since they are two separate inputs/channels.
I contacted technical support at Sweetwater, where I purchased my computer in December. This was his advice about the situation:
Hello Jenny,
>
> You might try the following:
> • Right-click the Pro Tools icon on your desktop or Start menu.
> • Choose Properties.
> • Click on the Compatibility tab.
> • Check the box that says ‘Disable desktop composition.’
> • Click Apply and then OK.
> • Upon launching Pro Tools, you will get a notification at the bottom
> of your screen telling you that the graphics theme has changed. Click
> on that message and then check "Don't show this message" to prevent
> this message from popping up every time you launch Pro Tools.
You can try deleting the preferences according to this guide:
> > > -
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...411?popup=true
I followed the instructions from the link he directed me to for 'deleting protools preferences'. Emptied my trash on the desktop of deleted folders. Restarted computer. Opened pro tools.
*created blank session. settings at 24 bit, 48 kHz
*created new track
*plugged a condenser mic into the input in back of mbox with the phantom power selected. when I armed track for recording, the gain/trim level went all the way to the top in the red, even though nothing was being recorded yet. I closed this session and opened a new one. Followed the same steps, and the same thing happened. even though it shows a solid dark area while recording that would normally indicate audio, nothing is being recorded at all.
Opened a troubled file from a few days ago to test it.
realized that the 'speaker' icon on my desktop had been on 'mute' ( this happened without me doing it, I'm not sure why it was now muted). I opened it up and saw that Digidesign had somehow been deselected as the default device (I also did not do this). I selected 'digidesign Mbox2 Analog' as the default audio device, unmuted the sound icon on my desktop, and attempted to listen to the protools session. There was still no audio heard. I adjusted the trim and volume knobs on my mbox 2, still no sound.
So now there appear to be two new problems after I 'deleted preferences', (in addition to the 'garbled sounding audio' that I hear upon playback of my files. )
1. no audio can be heard
2. recording is at the maximum gain level, regardless of how low I turn the trim/gain nob. It doesn't even appear as if it's recording audio at all, just some sort of solid 'input' from something other than my mic.
Another thing to note: In the past when I've launched protools, it has taken at least 2 minutes for the computer to load all the plug-ins and settings before prompting me to plug in my hardware/mbox. During these 'corrupt' sessions, the wait time before the program prompts me to plug in my mbox is much shorter...sometimes as little as 10 seconds.
Thank you to anybody who can shed some light on this....I would be really grateful.
Below is the Sandra report I just took from my computer:
Gratefully :) ~ Jennifer
SiSoftware Sandra
ID
Host Name : CS200-PC
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Computer
Model : Sweetwater Sound CS200
Serial Number : 020014L101020
Chassis : Desktop
Mainboard : Intel DH67GD
Serial Number : BTGD1350026A
BIOS : Intel BLH6710H.86A.0132.2011.1007.1505 10/07/2011
Total Memory : 3.91GB DIMM DDR3
Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120T CPU @ 2.60GHz (2C 4T 2.6GHz, 2.6GHz IMC, 2x 256kB L2, 3MB L3)
Chipset
Memory Controller : Intel Core (Sandy Bridge) DRAM Controller 100MHz, 2x 2GB DIMM DDR3 1.33GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Micron 8JTF25664AZ-1G4D1 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Micron 8JTF25664AZ-1G4D1 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Video System
Video Adapter : Intel(R) HD Graphics Family (6 SM4.1 650MHz/1.1GHz, 64MB DDR3 1.33GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)
Graphics Processor
Compute Shader Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics Family (6SP 650MHz/1.1GHz, 64MB DDR3 1.33GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)
Storage Devices
Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 (500.1GB, SATA600, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache) : 466GB (C:)
Seagate ST932042 3AS (320.1GB, FireWire/1394, 2.5") : 298GB (F:)
ATAPI iHAS224 B (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (D:)
Logical Storage Devices
System Reserved : 100MB (NTFS)
evm (F:) : 298GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST932042 3AS (320.1GB, FireWire/1394, 2.5")
Hard Disk (C:) : 453GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 (500.1GB, SATA600, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Optical Drive (D:) : N/A @ ATAPI iHAS224 B (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Intel H67 LPC Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : Nuovoton LPC
Audio Device : Intel Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controller
Audio Codec : Realtek Semi High Definition Audio
Disk Controller : Intel Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
USB Controller 1 : Intel Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2
USB Controller 2 : Intel Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
USB Controller 3 : Intel Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Intel VT6315 Series Firewire Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : SMBus Dev Drv 1
Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)
Network Services
Network Adapter : Intel(R) 82579V Gigabit Network Connection (Ethernet, 100Mbps)
Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Home 6.01.7601 (Service Pack 1)
Platform Compliance : x64
Windows Experience Index
Current System : 5.1