Persistent 9092, 9093, 9094 and 6086 Errors on session playback MBOX2 Micro & Vista

[Sound Editing MunKee]

Hello DUC Members

I'm having problems with an MBox 2 Micro on a Dell Precision M2400 Laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, PT LE 8 cs2 (my sandra report is pasted at the end of my post). I am having Errors 9093, 9094 and 6086 among others. I have tweaked with the buffer settings in every possible combination and the errors contiue to pop up. The session I am using to test playback has no tracks, plugins, audio regions, midi...nothing, a completely blank session...and it plays for a brief moment (usually about 1-4 seconds) before an error pops up. I noticed that Firewire is being tossed around as a suspected culprit in this forum for these problems, I'm suspecting though that my problems may be due to something else not related to firewire. I've put this blank session is on my system drive, a firewire drive (connected to my native port or a borrowed SIIG card with no result) and again I don't think Firewire is the problem because it has nothing in it to cause performance issues. I've also tried using a session from Digi's tech support folder and the errors remain. I tried disabling the firewire bus in the device manager without effect. I have also tried shutting off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

My test session settings is 48k/24bit wav.

As far as troubleshooting goes, I have installed all the latest dell.com system updates and I've reinstalled PT 8 to try and solve this issue.
I've ran through all of the Digi recommended/required settings and tweaks. I've tried turing off wireless networking and bluetooth with the physical switch on the side of the computer. I noticed on digi's answerbase that they recommend disabling Intel Speedstep in the BIOS, so I did this and it had no effect. I've also done all the usual preference and database trashing. I've tried plugging in the MBOX 2 Micro into every USB port on the computer.

When I first installed PT on this machine, I was able to run the program just fine with lots of soft synths and plugins without a hitch. I then started having problems with these errors and started researching a solution to this problem. I came across USB power management and found that it was enabled. I disabled that in each instance on my system and restored Pro-Tools functionality (with only an occasional error that was not impeding me from working). Eventually for some reason the errors returned in full force and now I can't playback anything without these errors...period, from any drive and I've even tried plugging in a 002 I have at work to see if it was my MBOX, the 002 exhibited the same errors.

I have a 3 theories on what could be the issue with my system, two of them I don't know how to resolve and the final one is very drastic. Before I attempt to resolve these 3 things, I would like to know if anybody has thoughts on if any of these are the problems (or maybe somthing else stands out from my sandra report that I missed).

1. I'm also suspecting there is a file permission issue on my system, maybe this is causing the problem. Whenever I create a session on my system, the folder icon and the session icon adds 2 little guys on it that normally only show up on a folder that is shared or has permissions are assigned to everyone. Does anybody here see the same thing as I do with sessions created on PT LE 8 on Win Vista?

2. In the "safely remove hardware" system tray menu, I see there is two options to remove my Mbox 2 Micro, "Mbox 2 Midi Driver" and Mbox 2 Firmware Updater". I would like to know why it doesn't say only 1 item like "Mbox 2 Micro". There is no midi on the interface but I do use an M-Audio Axiom 25 controller (the errors come up with or without the controller connected FYI).

3. This is the most suspicious item of my system, I have my hard drive's SATA mode set in the BIOS to IRRT (Intel Rapid Restore Technology) under SATA Operation Mode. This is how my drive is configured, if I change it to ATA or AHCI mode, my computer does not boot and I get a BSOD. From what I read elsewhere, to get around this i need to make some pretty serious registry changes or reinstall windows to get the proper hard disk driver on my computer.

Other things BIOS related, my Integrated NIC is set to Enabled w/PXE, what is PXE boot? Should I change to just "enabled" w/o PXE? There are also options to disable parallel and serial ports, I don't think I use any of these, just USB and Firewire devices, should I disable these? Finally, I have an option CPU XD Support enabled, this option enables or disables the Execute Disable mode of the Processor. The operating system can use this feature to hinder software that exploits buffer overflows. Should I disable this?


Lastly, I have Norton 360 (currently disabled with no change to my problems) and Office Professional 2007 installed on my system. I am very reluctant to remove these 2 programs as they are necessary for my work. Both of these programs were installed when PT was working. Also, a friend of mine has told me he read online problems with nVidia's cards and PT 8, I can't find anything to support this online, but does anybody here have thoughts about that (I am on the latest nVidia driver for a Quadro FX 370M)?

Any help or ideas to try would be greatly appreciated. If digitechsupport is reading this thread, some additional help would also be appreciated. Thank you all very much in advance!

System
Host Name : DELLM2400
Workgroup : MSHOME
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz
Speed : 2.53GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile, Dual-Core
Internal Data Cache : 2x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 24-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
System
System : Dell Inc. Precision M2400
Platform Compliance : Intel Centrino Duo 2 Mobile Technology
Mainboard : Dell Inc. 0HT029
Bus(es) : ISA PCI PCIe IMB PCMCIA USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
System BIOS : Dell Inc. A12
Total Memory : 3.49GB SO-DIMM
Chipset
Model : Dell PM45 Mobile Controller Hub
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 389MHz (1.56GHz)
Total Memory : 4GB SO-DIMM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 584MHz (1.17GHz)
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Hyundai HYMP125S64CP8-S6 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5.0-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Memory Module : Hyundai HYMP125S64CP8-S6 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5.0-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Video System
Adapter : NVIDIA Quadro FX 370M (256MB DDR2, 580MHz/1.35GHz/2x399MHz, PCIe 2.00 x16, SM4.0)
Storage Devices
ST9250421ASG 250GB (SATA300, 2.5", NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 233GB (C:)
MAT[bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]ADVD+-RW UJ862A (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (E:)
Logical Storage Devices
[bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]bag (C:) : 233GB (NTFS) @ ST9250421ASG 250GB (SATA300, 2.5", NCQ, 16MB Cache)
CD-ROM/DVD (E:) : N/A @ MAT[bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]ADVD+-RW UJ862A (SATA300, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Dell ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller
Audio Device : Dell (ICH9) HD Audio Controller
Audio Codec : Integrated Device Technology 76B2h
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : Dell Mobile SATA RAID Controller
USB Controller 1 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 3 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 4 : Dell (ICH9) USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 5 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 6 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 7 : Dell (ICH9) USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller 8 : Dell (ICH9) USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Dell R5C832 IEEE-1394 Controller
System SMBus Controller 1 : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus
Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Printer : HP Color LaserJet 3800 (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)
Printer : EPSON Stylus Photo R280 Series (360x360, USB, Colour)
Network Services
Network Adapter : Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Network Adapter : Intel(R) 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
Wireless Adapter 1 : Intel(R) WiFi Link 5300 AGN (802.11g (ERP), AES-CCMP, 54Mbps)
Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line
Battery No 1 : 82%
Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 6.00.6001 (Service Pack 1)
Platform Compliance : x86
Windows Experience Index
Current System : 3.5

[mano111]

Recording do your system drive is not supported. If this is what you are doing then you need to get a phisically seperate drive for all your audio work. In your case it should be a supported fire wire external hard drive.

EDIT: read this thread for other possible solutions.

[TOM@METRO]

IRRT mode seems introduce some issues and added latency to the system. I would suspect this is caused by the Intel raid monitor drivers constantly polling the ports for raid drives.

[Sound Editing MunKee]

Originally Posted by mano111

Recording do your system drive is not supported. If this is what you are doing then you need to get a phisically seperate drive for all your audio work. In your case it should be a supported fire wire external hard drive.

EDIT: read this thread for other possible solutions.

Hi Mano, thaks for the reply. I am not actually recording in this case. In fact the session I'm trying to get to play has no regions, audio, midi, tracks or plugins. I've also tried other sessions from a firewire drive to see if they will play and no go. These sessions do play on my other system which is a mac based 002 system. Thanks again.

[Sound Editing MunKee]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

IRRT mode seems introduce some issues and added latency to the system. I would suspect this is caused by the Intel raid monitor drivers constantly polling the ports for raid drives.

Thanks for the suggestion Tom, I was thinking the same thing that IRRT is the culprit, it's really the only thing I haven't permanently switched over yet. Have you had any experience with changing this over in Vista? I've read a few things on various other forums and it seems to me to be quite cumbersome and may require an entire Vista reinstall. Which mode on my computer do you think would work better, ATA or AHCI? Thanks again!