PT LE 6.4 w/OS x 10.3 Hardware Buffer Error

[rshook]

Hell all,

I just found this site and am hoping someone might be able to assist with this one.

I have a DIGI 001 and was using the following setup:
-PT LE 6.2
-Mac G4 450MHz dual processor
-OS X 10.2
-2GB of RAM
-2 video cards for dual display
-external firwire drive
I had no issues with this setup and PT LE, and could easily have 24 audio tracks up and running with a 256 sample setting for low latency. ProTools was rock solid, and I never experienced any crashes.

However, because of a new session I'm responsible for that requires the use of DrumCore, I had to upgrade to OS X 10.3 as 10.3 is the earliest OS X version that is compatible with DrumCore.

Before upgrading my dual proc 450MHz G4, on the advise of other PT owners, I decided to use a different Mac available to me. The new system is:
-ProTools LE 6.4
-G4 1.25GHz single processor
-OS X 10.3.4
-2GB RAM
-2 video cards for dual display
-3 interal Seagate 250GB drives with fast seek times.

I was told that the 1.25GHz G4 with its faster PCI bus would be a better choice over the older G4 dual proc 450MHz computer. So I installed OS X 10.3.4, installed PT 6.4, configured all of the system preferences outlined on this board and in all of the ProTools books I can get my hands on to make my PT system run well, and I get the dreaded "Operating System Held Off Interruptsfor Too Long, Increase the hardware buffer size..." even when running NO PLUG-INS. Keep in mind this is a clean install of the OS, followed by the PT LE install, and nothing else. This computer is a dedicated protools rig.

This happens even with sessions with as few as 1 track count! I always have the system usage window displayed, and the CPU usage is below 25%, the PCI bus is always around 50%, and the disk is always around %25. When I get this error, the Processor quickly spikes into the read zone. Increasing the hardware buffer size seems to help a bit, but I still get the error often even if I increase it to the max setting.

Should I go back to the old 450MHz dual proc G4? Is Protools 6.4 a bigger resource hog than 6.2? Is it the alignment of the planets?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

Robert

[M.Brane]

I would be tempted to update to 10.3.9. I've been using it with an 001, and it works great. You just can't update QuickTime beyond 6.5.2.

I don't know anything about DrumCore though. Is it a plug-in? Sometimes plugs can cause wonky behavior just from being in the folder.

I assume you have run all the CS, and plug-in updates for 6.4?