Slow Load Times on WinXP Pro

[mgb259]

I recently upgraded to Pro Tools 7.4 on my PC and am suddenly noticing all sorts of poor performance - slow load times, extreme delay to start recording, slow save and close time, etc. It takes upwards of five minutes to load a fairly large song. The same song can load in seconds on my first generation Mac Book Pro. I know I can fix the record delay by changing the record time in the preferences to a finite amount, but I've never had to do that before and I'm almost certain it is part of a bigger problem.

I have tried 7.4, 7.4cs3, 7.4cs5 and 7.4cs8 -- all give me the same problems.

I am using an M-audio delta 66 card with the latest drivers.

I first started having problems when I upgraded my Waves gold bundle from 6.0 to 6.0.8 -- Pro Tools started crashing on load. I came back to it a few days later and installed an old Firewire card to hook up my FW1814. Pro Tools stopped crashing on load, but then the performance issues began. I rolled back to Waves 6.0, I uninstalled the FW1814 drivers and went back to my Delta 66 but the performance issues persist.

All my system stats are below -- any one had similar issues?

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Processor
Model : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
Speed : 2.41GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Low Power, Dual-Core
Internal Data Cache : 2x 64kB, Synchronous, Write-Back, 2-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 512kB, ECC, Synchronous, Write-Back, 16-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size

System
System : System manufacturer System Product Name
Platform Compliance : AMD LIVE!
Mainboard : ASUSTeK Computer INC. M2N-MX SE Plus
Bus(es) : ISA PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
System BIOS : American Megatrends Inc. 0503
Total Memory : 1.88GB DIMM DDR2

Chipset
Model : AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 1.00GHz (2.01GHz)
Total Memory : 2GB DIMM DDR2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 402MHz (804MHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ2A8001G 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5.0-5-5-15 4-22-5-4)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ2A8001G 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5.0-5-5-15 4-22-5-4)

Video System
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE (128MB, PCI, PS3.0, VS3.0)

Storage Devices
WDC WD2500AAJS-22B4A0 250GB (SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache) : 233GB (C:)
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S202N (ATA66, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : 445MB (D:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 128GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD2500AAJS-22B4A0 250GB (SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache)
Audio CD (D:) : 0bytes (CDFS) @ TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S202N (ATA66, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : N/A

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS MCP61 LPC Bridge
Audio Device : ASUS MCP61 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec : Realtek Semiconductor Realtek 662 High Definition Audio
Audio Device : VIA M Audio Delta-66
Serial Port(s) : 1
Parallel Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : ASUS MCP61 IDE
Disk Controller : ASUS MCP61 SATA Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS MCP61 USB Controller
USB Controller 2 : ASUS MCP61 USB Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Adaptec TSB43AB23 1394a-2000 OHCI PHY/link-layer Controller
System SMBus Controller 1 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 1
System SMBus Controller 2 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 2

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Printer : HP PSC 1500 series (USB, Colour)

Network Services
Network Adapter : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport (Ethernet, 100Mbps)

Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)
Platform Compliance : x86

Performance Tips
Warning 100 : Large memory sizes should be made of Registered/Buffered memory.
Tip 2546 : Large memory modules should be ECC/Parity.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

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Thanks a lot,
Mike

[spkguitar]

Have you trashed prefs and databases?

Also, even though your system drive is 7200rpm, recording to the system drive is not recommended or supported, on any version of Pro Tools.

[Gunnell]

Yeah try trashing prefs and databases definitely. I had a similar problem once that was easily solved by doing just that.

And definitely invest in another hard drive to record to like spkguitar is saying. That's not the cause of your current problem, but it'll probably become the cause of future problems.

[mgb259]

Yeah I trashed the databases and preferences, which has helped me with many thigns in the past but to no avail here ... reinstalled pro tools, plug-ins, drivers, you name it.

I've actually already ordered another internal hard drive. Hopefully that will help my performance in general, but I agree with you that this is probably not the cause.

I'm going to go ahead and erase/reformat my current drive and completely reinstall XP -- This is pretty much the only performance heavy program I use on this computer and for all I know it could have nothing to do with PT at all.

If this doesn't work then I am stumped...

Thanks for your responses.

[spkguitar]

Something that may help you in the future; invest in disk imaging software (for instance, my favorite; True Image by Acronis)

It will save you much heartache when having to do things such as this. You can (and I and many others do) have several different images of your system drive at several different stages of installation. One for "Just Windows: nothing else". One for "Windows + Pro Tools: nothing else". etc etc. Also make an image before any major (or even minor) upgrade, so that you can get back to a working system quickly if (ok, when) something goes wrong.

Recommended for EVERY computer user, Pro Tools or not, music or not.

[mgb259]

Thanks everyone for your responses -- the OS reinstall did the trick. I have no idea what happened, but I'm glad it wasn't something with my hardware.

I created a separate audio partition this time around. I know it's physically on the same drive as the OS, but does this qualify as not recording to the system drive seeing as it's on a different logical volume?

I'm definitely going to take you up on the imaging software. I've had to reinstall every thing a few times now and I'd say that's a sound investment.

Thanks again.

[spkguitar]

Originally Posted by mgb259

I created a separate audio partition this time around. I know it's physically on the same drive as the OS, but does this qualify as not recording to the system drive seeing as it's on a different logical volume?

No. It's still the same physical disk. If/When it has to spin to access system files, it can/will need to interrupt streaming audio from the other partition.