>> HD3 crashing OS9

[Howardk]

I am in the middle of mixing a project with an out-of-town guest and my ProTools rig has decided to start crashing over the last couple of days. . . it is doing so about once every 30-60 minutes. No pattern. . . . I just get the fingers tapping forever and have to Control/Apple/Esc to try and get out. Sometimes it happens while it is playing but keeps playing or sometimes while at rest. . . no obvious triggers. Digitest says my HD Core card has a clock problem, but it has said that since the day I bought the system. The rest of the Porcess cards test OK. It is doing this on the last four session we have been workin at. . . This is killing us. . . IDEAS!

G4 - 933 Mhz w/ 1GB RAM
OS 9.2.2
ATTO PCI UL2D
HD3
ProTools 5.3.1

[Tweakhead]

Just the usual stuff.

1. Trash Pro Tools prefs
2. Trash DAE prefs
3. Trash DigiSetup
4. ZAP PRAM (Hold Option+Command+P+R) during startup several times.
5. Reseat PCI Cards and Digi cables.
6. Disconnect ALL SCSI devices, USB and Firewire peripherals.
7. Re-Install Pro Tools
8. Run an anti-virus program
9. Create a new session.
10. Test RAM
11. Reinstall OS9
12. Call Digi Tech Support.
13. Rent a system to get you thru your session

Not necessarily in that order. Try the simplest things first.

[Howardk]

Thanks. . . I especially like # 13.

[kurt]

How hot is your G4 running? Point an table fan on it.

[koko]

....aaaaahahah that's a good one, except i've seen it done on a 9600/MIX rig...you have to open the side to get a proper airstream onto the cpu and disks. It worked !! Without that the 9600 would crash every so often.

[tnie]

maybe it's time upgrade?

[Howardk]

Actually upgrading is what got me into this mess in the first place. My Mix5 system on a 9600 was rock solid. . . My HD system has never been and i have reinstalled from scratch 3 times over the last year and it was pretty stable over the last 3 months (1 crash/day). However now it is almost unusable. Latest problem is a session will not load and we get the message "You do not have enough DAE memory" I currently have 756MB with 425MB allocated to ProTools. I have tried everything I know of and am still crashing every 30-60 minutes and in all the sessions.

I am going to try a different HD core card tomorrow. Any other Ideas?

[Lee Blaske]

Do you have a different computer to test things on? You could be experiencing subtle or not-so-subtle computer problems. There seems to be a rash of bad PCI slots these days - possibly from people being too rough while inserting or removing cards. You might also have a bad memory slot, or bad RAM.

Also, you might want to try removing the ATTO card and running with just internal ATA drives, or Firewire drives.

Lee Blaske

[kurt]

"You do not have enough DAE memory" I currently have 756MB with 425MB allocated to ProTools.

How much have you assigned to DAE? & what is DAE buffer size?