Best Desktops for Pro Tools LE

[dbl]

Allen
I have recently bought an a7v8x following your suggestions. But I'm having some trouble to configure it im my OS (Win98SE). After PT installation windows seems to be very unstable crashing with errors and fatal exceptions. I've tried windows with and withou ACPI, new drives 4in1,The fact is that my version of PT LE is 5.1. (I bought my digi001 in a non official dealer so soft upgrade doesn't exist to me, here in Brazil)
I was working very happy with PT 5.1 and Win98SE with a mobo a7v-e and a processor athlon 1.2.
Is it possible to work with the same softs with a7v8x?
I really would appreciate some Bios configuration advice.

Thanks! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

mobo a7v8x
athlon 2400+
256 DDram
Geforce 440 64Mb 8x AGP
WD 300bb Primary Master
Quantum Fireball Primary Slave
Digi 001 Slot3 IRQ 9

[Allen Hallada]

Originally posted by dbl:
Allen
I have recently bought an a7v8x following your suggestions. But I'm having some trouble to configure it im my OS (Win98SE). After PT installation windows seems to be very unstable crashing with errors and fatal exceptions. I've tried windows with and withou ACPI, new drives 4in1,The fact is that my version of PT LE is 5.1. (I bought my digi001 in a non official dealer so soft upgrade doesn't exist to me, here in Brazil)
I was working very happy with PT 5.1 and Win98SE with a mobo a7v-e and a processor athlon 1.2.
Is it possible to work with the same softs with a7v8x?
I really would appreciate some Bios configuration advice.

Thanks! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

mobo a7v8x
athlon 2400+
256 DDram
Geforce 440 64Mb 8x AGP
WD 300bb Primary Master
Quantum Fireball Primary Slave
Digi 001 Slot3 IRQ 9

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Upgrade to WinXP and download PTLE 5.3 for free off the download site. Before you install XP, do a complete reformat of the system drive. Read the addendum from PTLE 5.3 install guide closely.

Let me know how it goes.

Allen [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Phil O'Keefe]

So, is anyone actually using a dual CPU system yet? What kind of Dave C results are you getting?

I'm up in the air right now... still loving my XP 2700 / A7N8X system, but as always, I'd love more power - just to have more power. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] And the question is, will I see a significant improvement in performance (enough to justify the cost) with a dual CPU system, or should I wait for the Clawhammers? And while I'm asking so many questions, if someone could explain the meaning of life, I'd appreciate it. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Allen Hallada]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe:
So, is anyone actually using a dual CPU system yet? What kind of Dave C results are you getting?

I'm up in the air right now... still loving my XP 2700 / A7N8X system, but as always, I'd love more power - just to have more power. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] And the question is, will I see a significant improvement in performance (enough to justify the cost) with a dual CPU system, or should I wait for the Clawhammers? And while I'm asking so many questions, if someone could explain the meaning of life, I'd appreciate it. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Dual CPUs More Powerful Than Clawhammer? Maybe

Meaning Of Life? It just is!

Allen [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Haigbabe]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe:
So, is anyone actually using a dual CPU system yet? What kind of Dave C results are you getting?

I'm up in the air right now... still loving my XP 2700 / A7N8X system, but as always, I'd love more power - just to have more power. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] And the question is, will I see a significant improvement in performance (enough to justify the cost) with a dual CPU system, or should I wait for the Clawhammers? And while I'm asking so many questions, if someone could explain the meaning of life, I'd appreciate it. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I did a fresh install of 6.1 the other day and ran the the DaveC test and was impressed to get 32+13. This is with a standard a7V8x, xp2500+ and a 002.

Probably some of the best bang for buck in recording power I've ever had.

So I started loading stereo Davec tracks just to see what would happen. Still chugged along and was stable under the load. More stable it seems than 5.3.x Next up I will try and borrow a session from the TDM room and check the ability to handle a bigger session (voices not withstanding).

Best regards,

Haigbabe

PS Meaning of life.... to be a good person. Any improvements on this theory are welcome!

[Allen Hallada]

Originally posted by Haigbabe:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe:
So, is anyone actually using a dual CPU system yet? What kind of Dave C results are you getting?

I'm up in the air right now... still loving my XP 2700 / A7N8X system, but as always, I'd love more power - just to have more power. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] And the question is, will I see a significant improvement in performance (enough to justify the cost) with a dual CPU system, or should I wait for the Clawhammers? And while I'm asking so many questions, if someone could explain the meaning of life, I'd appreciate it. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I did a fresh install of 6.1 the other day and ran the the DaveC test and was impressed to get 32+13. This is with a standard a7V8x, xp2500+ and a 002.

Probably some of the best bang for buck in recording power I've ever had.

So I started loading stereo Davec tracks just to see what would happen. Still chugged along and was stable under the load. More stable it seems than 5.3.x Next up I will try and borrow a session from the TDM room and check the ability to handle a bigger session (voices not withstanding).

Best regards,

Haigbabe

PS Meaning of life.... to be a good person. Any improvements on this theory are welcome! <hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Haigbabe,
Nice setup. Way to go bro.

Allen [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Phil O'Keefe]

Hmmm... that's better than I was getting under 5.3.2 with my 2700 / A7N8X system (32 + 10 or 11, depending on its mood). I have not checked it with 6.1, but I'll give that a try. In any event, excellent results!

Maybe I just do the davec a bit differently than everyone else. Once the CPU goes red, I stop adding tracks, click the red (to get rid of it) and go right into record. If red doesn't come back, then that's my total... if it does, I yank off an aux, reclick on the CPU meter and try recording again. Seems some of you add tracks even after the CPU redlines and record until you get a "you're running out of CPU power" message.

[Haigbabe]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe:
Hmmm... that's better than I was getting under 5.3.2 with my 2700 / A7N8X system (32 + 10 or 11, depending on its mood). I have not checked it with 6.1, but I'll give that a try. In any event, excellent results!

Maybe I just do the davec a bit differently than everyone else. Once the CPU goes red, I stop adding tracks, click the red (to get rid of it) and go right into record. If red doesn't come back, then that's my total... if it does, I yank off an aux, reclick on the CPU meter and try recording again. Seems some of you add tracks even after the CPU redlines and record until you get a "you're running out of CPU power" message.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Greetings Phil.

I think the way you're doing the Davec is no prob. I find that I get that peak of red but by then, it won't record for 60 secs anyway. (But I still press on anyway, like an optimistic so and so! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] )

My 32+13 was a surprise to me but was with a barebones setup on a fresh (Samsung!) drive, 512 meg RAM, xp2500+ (slightly o'clocked), radeon ve card, 120 gig WD audio drive on a Promise cont card, Plextor premium (on second IDE) and Sony DRU500a on the second Promise channel, yum-cha 1394 card (VIA chip) for the 002 etc.

Once I'd loaded all my other progs (Cool Edit, DVD software, nero, PlexTools etc etc) I was getting 32+11, which is around about what I was getting under 5.3.x (well maybe this is a tiny bit better). Which is around what you are achieving.

I was glad of this because I see some 001 users dropped quite a few tracks in going to 6.1

Oh, and if it interests you, I recently bought the Kurzweil KSP-8. It really does seem very good (so far!). Some of the verbs are top notch.

Best regards,

Haigbabe

[Paul Curtiz]

Allen,
I've been lurking around this thread for a while, and I just upgraded my PC to this system :

ASUS A7V8X-X
AMD XP3000
Volcano 11 cooler
1 Gig Twinmos DDR Ram
80 Gig Audio Drive 7200 w/8mb cache NTFS
6 Gig System Drive 7200 FAT32
(each Master on their own IDE)

I installed a clean Win XP Pro (no tweaks whatsoever, so network is still there - the mobo has LAN on board)

I then installed PTLe 6.1

I got 32 + 16 aux on the Davec test and didn't max out the CPU - only screen refresh got a bit sluggish. Buffer was at 128.

I'm kinda pleased... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks for making it sooo easy to find the right info ! The volcano11 aka "the leafblower" got me kinda scared, but once the manual control thingy was installed (thanks to yet another of your most valuable posts), all is fine ! It feels great to have all that power under the hood !
Cheers,

[markus44uk]

Allen:

I noticed you pulled the Promise controller from the Allenstein machine spec. Is this because of the 8mb cache on the Hitachi Drives? I am still pretty sure I need the Promise controller in order to keep my two drives on separate channels and also have room for my CDR and DVD drives. I am going to borrow a Promise ATA100 card from a friend and see if that one works. The card I had problems with on the new mobo and XP was the ATA133....who knows maybe there is a difference? The Promise website says that the drivers that you can download are ONLY for the ATA133 TX2 card so maybe the drivers for the ATA100 card will sort out my problem.