Please help me find out why PT is glitching!

[Timber89]

I just had a computer built for high performance and pro tools is spitting and stuttering even occasionally I get the blue screen of death even when Im trying to do something as simple as playback my session.

here are my specs:
-motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
-Graphics: Asus HD 5450 Silent
- i7-2700K
-Crucial M4 SSD 64gb
-OCZ Agility 3 2.5" ssd 60gb
-Western Digital Hard drive 500 Gb 7200 rpm 16mb cache
-Ram: Corsair Vengeance 2X8gb DDR3
-Windows 7 64 bit
-Pro tools 10.2
-Interface: Tascam US-1800

Please help me. I have a session I need to record tonight.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Timber89

I just had a computer built for high performance and pro tools is spitting and stuttering even occasionally I get the blue screen of death even when Im trying to do something as simple as playback my session.

here are my specs:
-motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
-Graphics: Asus HD 5450 Silent
- i7-2700K
-Crucial M4 SSD 64gb
-OCZ Agility 3 2.5" ssd 60gb
-Western Digital Hard drive 500 Gb 7200 rpm 16mb cache
-Ram: Corsair Vengeance 2X8gb DDR3
-Windows 7 64 bit
-Pro tools 10.2
-Interface: Tascam US-1800

Please help me. I have a session I need to record tonight.

You should read the "Help us help you - READ THIS before Posting" link at the top of this DUC web page, and post a Sandra report here. Also follow the link there to the recommended systems optimizations and when you reply confirm which exact ones you have done.

And to clarify what the Sandra report will report for logical disk drives, we need to know what is on each disk drive? Especially where is the Windows OS? Pro Tools sessions and plugins/VI sample files located?

What are *all* the settings in the Playback Engine dialog?

What are you doing in the session? How many tracks, what type (audio, midi, instrument, etc.), which plugins/VIs are instantiated? You can post a screenshot of the mix window to a photo sharing site and link here. Can you create a simple single audio track session with no plugins etc. and record to or play that track?

Since you are getting a BSOD and this PC was custom built for you my first call would be to that builder. If you want to discuss that here you will need to tell us what the BSOD message is. But the likely suspect there is interface device drivers. What interface device drivers have you installed for the Tascam US-1800? - exact versions please. You need to check these are the latest available for your Windows system. You also may not have followed the optimization guide and enabled legacy firewire mode (EDIT: scratch firewire mode, I was confused and realize now this is a USB only interface)....

The Sandra report will also help exclude other problems.



Darryl

[Timber89]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will have all the info asap

[Timber89]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You should read the "Help us help you - READ THIS before Posting" link at the top of this DUC web page, and post a Sandra report here. Also follow the link there to the recommended systems optimizations and when you reply confirm which exact ones you have done.

And to clarify what the Sandra report will report for logical disk drives, we need to know what is on each disk drive? Especially where is the Windows OS? Pro Tools sessions and plugins/VI sample files located?

What are *all* the settings in the Playback Engine dialog?

What are you doing in the session? How many tracks, what type (audio, midi, instrument, etc.), which plugins/VIs are instantiated? You can post a screenshot of the mix window to a photo sharing site and link here. Can you create a simple single audio track session with no plugins etc. and record to or play that track?

Since you are getting a BSOD and this PC was custom built for you my first call would be to that builder. If you want to discuss that here you will need to tell us what the BSOD message is. But the likely suspect there is interface device drivers. What interface device drivers have you installed for the Tascam US-1800? - exact versions please. You need to check these are the latest available for your Windows system. You also may not have followed the optimization guide and enabled legacy firewire mode (EDIT: scratch firewire mode, I was confused and realize now this is a USB only interface)....

The Sandra report will also help exclude other problems.



Darryl

This is all my info. I will try to start a few new sessions to see if I can get a very basic session to run properly

Blue Screen of death error:
*** STOP: 0X000000B8 (0XFFFFFA8012F6B040, 0XFFFFF8800354C0C0, 0X0000000000000000, 0X0000000000000000)

Pro Tools and Plug ins are all on my C: Drive (although I eventually would like to move onto my E: if I can solve this issue.
I am not using any plug ins currently on the session I have been working on lately. 21 mono audio tracks. Click, Aux, Master,. 1 MIDI track disabled since that was an original suspicion of mine. I have tried recording one track all the way up to 9 tracks at once, but always sputters.



Playback engine dialog: US 1800
H/W Buffer Size 512 Samples
Host processors: 8 processors
CPU Usage Limit: 75%
Host engine: unchecked
Delay compensation: Long

Plug in Streaming Buffer
Size Level 2
(unchecked) Optimize for streaming on audio drivers......

Tascam US 1800 driver version 2.02

SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : Tim-PC
Workgroup : WORKGROUP

Computer
Model : GigaByte To be filled by O.E.M.
Serial Number : To be filled by O.E.M.
Chassis : GigaByte Desktop
Mainboard : GigaByte Z77X-D3H
Serial Number : To be filled by O.E.M.
BIOS : AMI (OEM) F6 03/23/2012
Intel vPro : 8.00.00.1351
Total Memory : 16GB DIMM DDR3

Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2700K CPU @ 3.50GHz (4C 8T 3.89GHz, 3.9GHz IMC, 4x 256kB L2, 8MB L3)

Chipset
Memory Controller : Giga-Byte Core (Sandy Bridge) DRAM Controller 100MHz, 2x 8GB DIMM DDR3 1.6GHz/1.33GHz 128-bit

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : AMI CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10 8GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600
Memory Module : AMI CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10 8GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600

Video System
Video Adapter : Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (80 SP, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor

Storage Devices
Crucial M4-CT064M4SSD2 (64GB, SATA600, 2.5", SSD) : 60GB (C:)
OCZ-AGILITY3 (60GB, SATA600, SSD) : 56GB (E:)
WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0 (500.1GB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache) : 466GB (F:)
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (D:)

Logical Storage Devices
SSD (C:) : 59GB (NTFS) @ Crucial M4-CT064M4SSD2 (64GB, SATA600, 2.5", SSD)
Audio (E:) : 56GB (NTFS) @ OCZ-AGILITY3 (60GB, SATA600, SSD)
Storage (F:) : 466GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0 (500.1GB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Optical Drive (D:) : N/A @ TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Giga-Byte Panther Point LPC Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : T2 87-28
Audio Device : Giga-Byte Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller
Audio Device : ASUS Manhattan HDMI Audio [Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series]
Audio Codec : ATI (AMD) HDMI Audio
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte Panther Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Disk Controller : Giga-Byte 91xx SATA 6G Controller
USB Controller 1 : Giga-Byte Panther Point USB xHCI Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : Giga-Byte Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2
USB Controller 3 : Giga-Byte Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
USB Controller 4 : Giga-Byte 3432h
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

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

Network Services
Network Adapter : Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20) (Ethernet)
Wireless Adapter : TP-LINK 300Mbps Wireless N Adapter (802.11g (ERP), WEP n-bit, 54Mbps)

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

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 1.0

[dave911]

You need to do all of the windows optimizations fot PT including turning off the wireless adapter.
You should only use 7 processors in PT.

[Darryl Ramm]

I'm really suspecting you have not done all (or any?) of the Windows systems optimizations for Pro Tools. You really need to get those done asap. Follow the links from the "Help Us help You Link"..

--
A very common cause of problems is disk I/O. The Pro Tools software always needs to be installed on the operating system drive, so you have that. But where are you Pro Tools sessions stored? They need to be on a different disk dive than your operation system. Put the sessions on Drive F:, that's the best spec drive for audio. If you are goign to do a lot of sample/VI based stuff put he sampels on the unused fastest SSD.

You have a quad core i7 with hyperthreading (assuming that is enabled) that means depending on the exact workload/plugins etc. you will have he equivalent of somewhere between 4-8 CPU cores. And you need to leave one CPU for the basic use of Pro Tools. So your playback engine settings should start at say around 4 CPU and increase if you run out of plugin processing power. Decrease if you see cpu limit (or IO) related errors. Definitely do not set this to 8, but this is not likely causing any problems at the moment but will later. Set the limit to 99% and enable ignore errors.

I do not like that your graphics adapter does not show up in the Sandra report. You have the PCIe graphics adapter plugged into the PCIe bus and connected the cable to your monitor is connected into that PCIe card right? If you try to do something graphics heavy (e.g. play around in Google maps or a simple 3D game) does it seem reasonably fast? Personally I would have struck with an NVIDIA card for Pro Tools (the Avid qualified/recommended adapters for Pro Tools PCs, although others will work). Your ASUS adapter has a AMD/Radeon HD 5450 GPU, does that show up in the device manager/display property panels? I'm wondering why Sandra is not seeing it and if somebody just forgot to load a device driver for the display adapter? (Ouch) Poor graphics subsystems can definitely screw with Pro Tools. What graphics drivers are installed? try grabbing the latest drivers from ASUS' web site or call the company/person who built this for you.

The BSOD stop message does not help much, not without a stack trace/more dump info and I don't know if you have that.

Darryl