Operating system held off interrupts for too long -ugh

[Scorpio253]

Yeaaa,
Frustrating, Irritating, the whole nine. It started happening last week and I bought the Mbox in August. The error usually starts to occur around ten minutes in the session and pops up randomly. I've researched on this issue but haven't yet found a solution. I use to be able to record on 128 buffer size but now I have to increase it to 512 in order to record (this is recording vocals with no plug ins inserted btw) without the error. I don't like to record on that size because of the latency (singer). Hopefully someone can help me with this. I was thinking about formatting my hard drive and starting fresh? Would defragging do anything? Does it matter which format the hard drive is? (NTFS or FAT32) What does "CPU Usage Limit" & "DAE Playback Buffer" do exactly? Sorry for the long post but this is getting ridiculous and I'm a fan of Pro Tools and don't want to change to any other program

Windows XP Professional SP2
Pentium 4 2.40Ghz, 2.5GB Ram
120GB Primary Hard drive,
80GB Secondary Hard Drive (Use for PT)

Thanks in advance.

[Shan]

...I use to be able to record on 128 buffer size but now I have to increase it to 512 in order to record (this is recording vocals with no plug ins inserted btw) without the error. I don't like to record on that size because of the latency (singer). Hopefully someone can help me with this...

I've helped you with this many times. Crank the buffer to 1024 since you are using no plug-ins as stated in your above post. Then record in Low Latency mode as mentioned to you here and here and here.

Also go to Setup > Preferences... > Operation > Open Ended Record Allocation > Limit to: (15 to 20 minutes) I set mine at 10 minutes.

Defragging wont help with this problem nor will reformatting your drive.

NTFS will suffice.

It's best not to touch the DAE Playback Buffer. Keep this at Default.

Crank your CPU Usage Limit to the highest it can go. 90%(or higher) will be fine.

So, I'm really scratchin' my head over one thing still...you use no plug-ins when recording your vox, I showed you how to use zero-latency moitoring, yet you dont seem to be taking advantage of it. Any reason why? (and please dont say that muting the track will do NO help. It is part of the process if you actually try it, and it works very well.)

Shane

[Scorpio253]

Shane I appreciate you so much, but, I tried adjusting the Mix knob but it doesn't work for me. I can't hear myself good enough while recording . Maybe I'm doing it wrong, I'll try again lol. The CPU Usage Limit doesn't go higher then 85%. Thanks a lot. I'll try everything you said and let you know

[NonSpecific]

If you mute the track you're recording on you will get no latency while recording with the Mbox2....then adjust the mix how you like it and if it is low increase the volume in the headphones...I never have any problems monitoring while recording...It's good to defrag your computer regularly because the longer the hard drive has to search for the complete file it's looking for the more cpu resources it uses...also...how full is your hard drive? That might be a factor...

[Shan]

Shane I appreciate you so much, but, I tried adjusting the Mix knob but it doesn't work for me. I can't hear myself good enough while recording . Maybe I'm doing it wrong, I'll try again lol. The CPU Usage Limit doesn't go higher then 85%. Thanks a lot. I'll try everything you said and let you know

Treat your main headphone knob as a master gain for overall loudness. If you still cant hear yourself then there are a few more things you can do. Lower the backing track(music) in PT by lowering the faders, keep your vox track the same, and increase the Master fader in Pro Tools. That should give you some extra gain to work with.

Shane

[Scorpio253]

Thanks A LOT, fellas. I'm going to give these methods a try before I start recording later today. NonSpecific my 80GIG (PT) has 70Gigs left and my primary (120GB) has 70 also.

[Scorpio253]

Yo, Shane.
It seems like changing the Allocation to 10 minutes fixed my problem? I just got done a session and didn't have ONE error I can record at 128 like before. Thanks a lot. I just hope it stays this way.

[Shan]

Yo, Shane.
It seems like changing the Allocation to 10 minutes fixed my problem? I just got done a session and didn't have ONE error I can record at 128 like before. Thanks a lot. I just hope it stays this way.

Good to hear! Keep in mind that keeping it at 10 minutes means that is the longest wav file you'll be able to record. So for example, if you are loop recording and go past the 10 minute mark(unlikely) then it will stop because you set PT to record at a max length of 10 minutes. Nothing to worry about though as that is normal. Just gotta let you know in case it does happen.

This setting will also make PT go into record mode with a quicker response.

Shane

[Scorpio253]

Good to hear! Keep in mind that keeping it at 10 minutes means that is the longest wav file you'll be able to record. So for example, if you are loop recording and go past the 10 minute mark(unlikely) then it will stop because you set PT to record at a max length of 10 minutes. Nothing to worry about though as that is normal. Just gotta let you know in case it does happen.

This setting will also make PT go into record mode with a quicker response.

Shane

Oh okay. Well I'm an R&B singer and my type of music is only three to four minutes long anyway lol But thanks a lot, Shane. I think you fixed the problem (like I said, hopefully it stays this way)