Does PT not support closed "closed clamshell"?

[soundboy35]

Every time I try to do this, Pro Tools crashes or gives me DAE errors and hardware interrupts?
As soon as I go back to using the MBP screen, most problems go away. What's the problem? Sure would be nice ti run PT without the laptop open.
Connecting DVI out of the MBP to a Sync Master monitor (DVI in)

MBP 2.33Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM

ATI Radeon X1600:

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxxx-158
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.158
Displays:

Samsung SyncMaster:
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-Bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected Strange?

[DigiTechSupt]

Pro Tools has never supported sleep modes, as sleeping the computer will cause problems then DAE tries to reconnect with the hardware.

The good news is that in versions of Pro Tools 8.0.3 or higher, you CAN sleep the computer without a kernal panic, however it may still require a restart before using Pro Tools for everything to work properly.

[soundboy35]

Didn't realize that was putting the computer to sleep?
So even constantly using the mouse/keyboard is not keeping it awake? lol
Thanks!

[DigiTechSupt]

Ah, I see what you mean. How are you booting up the computer exactly?

I've used this mode (closed with second monitor attached) with Pro Tools without problems, so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. I always boot up by pressing the power button then immediately closing the lid. If it's left open for more than a couple seconds after pressing power (a good indicator that you've waited too long is the LCD screen on the laptop will light up) weird things will happen, most likely requiring a restart for it to work properly.

Give us as much detail as you can about what's happening and we can try to help further. Are you using a straight DVI to DVI cable? Or is there an adapter in there somewhere?

[soundboy35]

I'm now running 8.0.3cs2 and seem to be having the same problems.

I'll have the laptop running without the external monitor, turn on the external monitor, plug in the DVI to DVI cable (no adaptor), close the lid, the MBP switches over to the Samsung monitor,
I fire up Pro Tools and open a session.
This particular session is 20 tracks: 1 Click, 15 Audio, 1 stereo Instrument, 1 mono and 2 stereo Aux's.
It seems great for about 5 min and then it all goes south. The Hardware errors and CPU -9128 errors come up no mater what settings I use. When zooming with the Apple } command, it's bad as well.

I can restart the MBP, and the same thing happens, where it runs fine for a few minutes and then the errors start coming up. If I look at the Performance window in PT, the CPU/RTAS initially measures 5-10% and then will jump all over the place going up to 40%. Usually after that I get so may errors, I have to quit, or PT freezes with the SWOD and I have to force quit.
Disk meter goes up to 10%, which seems odd since the session is on the ext drive?

As far as the connection, I have the 003r on the FW400 port and a Rocstor 1TB ext drive on the FW800 buss. No other apps are open.

Thanks!

[DigiTechSupt]

As far as the connection, I have the 003r on the FW400 port and a Rocstor 1TB ext drive on the FW800 buss. No other apps are open.

That could be part of the problem (or all of it). Does that Rocstor have a Firewire 400 port on it? If so, try chaining it in line with the 003R using Firewire 400 cables.

I've seen the same problem on my computer with certain drives - sometimes chaining everything off the 400 port works, sometimes it doesn't, usually dependent on the drive or interface I'm using. I suspect that, since there's only 1 controller for both ports, it's getting overloaded or something where it can't handle both data streams easily.

My solution was to get a FireWire 400 expresscard and run my interfaces off that, with the drives running off the built in FireWire 800 port on the computer.

The other thing you could try - reduce the number of processors in the Playback Engine to 1. Sometimes certain plug-in require a non-RTAS dedicated processor to work properly.

[soundboy35]

The Rocstor is FW800 only. This again begs the question of how many FW busses are really on these MBP's? I was told the 400 and 800 busses are separate. Is this incorrect?

I also thought the "chaining of a FW drive to the 003, etc was not a good idea?

I'm running 1 RTAS processor and between 128 and 512 buffer. It does seem to run a little better without the second display, but that's also not consistent.

So you're not using the MBP 400 port at all, just the express card's?
How much difference has that made? No CPU/buffer errors, or just less of them?

[Slim Shady]

Using FW400 and 800 devices on MBP's that have both ports has always been problematic even for devices that aren't involved in Pro Tools, I would definitely recommend stopping that practice asap. Chaining definitely works, although usually the HD is in the middle and the PT interface at the end of the chain.

As far as the clamshell, I do the same thing with my on-location rig. Usually I just come in with my laptop already asleep in my bag, pull it out and plug it into the monitor, keyboard etc. all while still closed and asleep, and then I just hit spacebar on the external keyboard to wake it up and bam, it shows up on the external monitor and away I go a'workin'.

[soundboy35]

Thanks Slim.
I really wanted the speed of FW800, but I could try chaining it:

MPB FW800-FW800 port on drive (no 400 available), out drive FW800 using FW800-FW400 cable, then 400 cable to FW400 in of 003r.

Any experience with those express cards?
You don't think it's an issue of the external monitor? Just want to rule that out.

I don't do many sessions over 30 tracks, but this thing is barely doing 24!

Are you running PT8.x?

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by soundboy35

The Rocstor is FW800 only. This again begs the question of how many FW busses are really on these MBP's? I was told the 400 and 800 busses are separate. Is this incorrect?

That's incorrect - 2 ports, 1 controller.

I also thought the "chaining of a FW drive to the 003, etc was not a good idea?

Typically it's not the ideal way to do it, but it may be required in some situations - daisy chaining, as I've said, can require some experimentation to see which way works best.

So you're not using the MBP 400 port at all, just the express card's?
How much difference has that made? No CPU/buffer errors, or just less of them?

That's correct - I only use the FireWire 800 port on the Mac and the FW400 port on the expresscard. No CPU/buffer errors (unless I'm really pushing the system.). I've done several albums with this setup and regularly go 50+ tracks with a wide complement of plug-ins.