Some wierd things going on with my new i7

[remis]

Ok so i decided to give PT9 a whirl with the i7 and got lower results than I was expecting. Got 287 dverbs @1024 at 93% CPU, and 185 @64 at 70% CPU...this seems oddly low given my CPU is overclocked to 3.8GHz

Another couple of strange things that happened:

1) When I followed through with all the Pro Tools Windows 7 Optimizations something caused even more issues and Pro Tools wouldn't even open. Just said "Pro Tools has stopped working"...even uninstalled IE8 and installed firefox and narrowed it down to it causing issues when I disable DEP and system startup items in this guide...if I followed all the optimizations like I said, pro tools wouldn't even open and both acronis and system restore would struggle (eventually managed to get back to somewhat stable previous version with some persistence and luck)...wierd

2) I can't even post a sandra report because once installed sandra won't load...even on my non PT drive
I'll keep trying and see if I can get it to churn out a sandra...I know it's a bit hard to troubleshoot otherwise...this is so wierd...and frustrating

**EDIT** Ok i managed to get it to spit out a sandra after recovering a very vanilla backup...with which I noticed my computer had freaked out and reset itself back to fail safe bios settings, which is strange coz there's definately nothing extreme going on in my voltages or anything and I've had it running Prime 95 overnight without a single error or crash:/ So I went back in and reloaded my bios settings. Anyway, here's my sandra

SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Model : Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Host Name : Remis-PC
User : Remis

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz
Speed : 3.8GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 On-board Cache : 4x 256kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L3 On-board Cache : 8MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 16-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 8 threads sharing

Computer
Mainboard : Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
BIOS : Award (Phoenix) FB 08/24/2010
Bus(es) : X-Bus PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 12GB DIMM DDR3

Chipset
Model : Giga-Byte X58 I/O Hub
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 3GHz (6GHz)

Chipset
Model : Giga-Byte Core Desktop (Bloomfield) UnCore
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 3GHz (6GHz)
Total Memory : 12GB DIMM DDR3
Channels : 3
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 825MHz (1.65GHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)
Memory Module : Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)

Video System
Video Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series (800 SM5.0 860MHz, 1GB DDR5 4x1.2GHz, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor
STREAM Processor : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series (800SP 10C 860MHz, 1GB 4x1.2GHz)
Compute Shader Processor : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series (800SP 860MHz, 1012MB 4x1.2GHz)

Storage Devices
WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 (1TB, SATA, 3.5") : 932GB (E:)
WDC WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ) : 932GB
WDC WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ) : 932GB
WDC WD5001AALS-00LWTA0 (500.1GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache) : 466GB (C:) (D:)
WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", NCQ, 32MB Cache) : 932GB (H:)
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (I:)

Logical Storage Devices
Documents (E:) : 932GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 (1TB, SATA, 3.5")
System Reserved : 100MB (NTFS)
Backups (H:) : 932GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", NCQ, 32MB Cache)
Hard Disk (C:) : 195GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD5001AALS-00LWTA0 (500.1GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache)
Storage (D:) : 270GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD5001AALS-00LWTA0 (500.1GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 32MB Cache)
Optical Drive (I:) : N/A @ HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Giga-Byte LPC Interface Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : ITE IT8720F
Audio Device : Giga-Byte HD Audio Controller
Audio Device : PC Partner EG JUNIPER XT Audio Device [Radeon HD 5700 Series]
Audio Codec : ATI (AMD) HDMI Audio
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte 88SE9128 SATA-600 Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte JMB36X PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte JMB36X PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte JMB36X PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller
USB Controller 1 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #4
USB Controller 2 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #5
USB Controller 3 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #6
USB Controller 4 : Giga-Byte USB EHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 5 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #1
USB Controller 6 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 7 : Giga-Byte USB UHCI Controller #3
USB Controller 8 : Giga-Byte USB EHCI Controller #1
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Giga-Byte TSB43AB23 1394a-2000 OHCI PHY/link-layer Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Wireless Adapter 1 : Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter

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

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 6.01.7600
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 5.9


Anyone have any thoughts?

[guitardom]

How did it run before the overclock??? Have you ran pt on it before you overclocked??? It is obvious there is a serious problem. I would revert everything back to factory spec. Don't worry about the oc till everything is stable. If your bios is back to factory default and still having issues I would pull about half your ram out and start testing again.

[remis]

Originally Posted by guitardom

How did it run before the overclock??? Have you ran pt on it before you overclocked??? It is obvious there is a serious problem. I would revert everything back to factory spec. Don't worry about the oc till everything is stable. If your bios is back to factory default and still having issues I would pull about half your ram out and start testing again.

I honestly haven't had time to test everything fully as of late, so didn't actually try PT on stock settings. I spent some time testing the OC though, it ran stable overnight at 3.8GHz...but yeah it does appear something is wrong I followed all the bios settings instructions in the i7 thread and tried various different things. My audio drive is HFS+ formatted, and I installed the HFS+ support thingo when I installed PT...could that potentially lower my dverb score compared to running off of a NTFS formatted drive do you think? Avid do say in their release notes about the HFS+ support that this qualifies the drive to be used as a read/write drive in Pro Tools, so surely there's something else wrong?

Hmmm, might end up having to put this all on the backburner for a couple of weeks until exams are over as it doesn't seem like it would be a simple quick fix

[MikeLip]

You're not running Pro Tools with the network devices on are you? (re: Sandra).
Mike.

[remis]

Originally Posted by MikeLip

You're not running Pro Tools with the network devices on are you? (re: Sandra).
Mike.

Nope, have that disabled on my PT W7 hot swap drive.

[MikeLip]

If you're having problems running Sandra, then somthing is not right. I'd probably start there. Are you saying the Sandra report above is not your Pro Tools system drive/setup?
Mike.

[remis]

Originally Posted by MikeLip

If you're having problems running Sandra, then somthing is not right. I'd probably start there. Are you saying the Sandra report above is not your Pro Tools system drive/setup?
Mike.

My Pro Tools system drive is pretty much identical to the one I got the Sandra report from. They are both exactly the same type of drive (500gb caviar black) that I use in a hot swap drive bay, and the one the Sandra was grabbed from just had pro tools, my mbox 2 pro driver (most current from avid website) and my ilok driver and ilok client helper (both most current from ilok website) installed. They're the only extra things installed I'm pretty sure, other than firefox. I also have a another OS hotswap drive (hence the HFS+ formatted audio and library drives) and even seemed like I was going to get low dverb results on that platform too, although I didn't have time to see exactly how much...but I do know it wouldn't get anywhere near the sort of dverbs people like shawn have posted with a similar setup

[remis]

Originally Posted by MikeLip

If you're having problems running Sandra, then somthing is not right. I'd probably start there. Are you saying the Sandra report above is not your Pro Tools system drive/setup?
Mike.

I also just tried getting a sandra report from this system drive...no go this is bizarre

[MikeLip]

Reinstall o/s? Maybe drive is on the way out - it happens often. They have a mean time to fail. Some fail in 6 months.
Mike.

[remis]

Originally Posted by MikeLip

Reinstall o/s? Maybe drive is on the way out - it happens often. They have a mean time to fail. Some fail in 6 months.
Mike.

This is happening on two different drives though that Sandra won't work And they're both brand new drives, no more than 2 months old...