NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT

[coonbri]

Hi everyone. I am new here and did some searching on this video card to see if others are having any issues. Appears some people are, but I don't see any solutions. The problem I am having is Pro Tools 7.4 pops up the message regarding increasing H/W buffer and then some clock error messages too. When I remove the card, PT works fine. I updated the drivers and still causes problems. PT will actually freeze up and I have to close it with task manager.

I am using PT 7.4 on Vista Ultimate 32bit with an HP Pavillion desktop PC
(a6600i). I did all of the Digidesign recommended Vista performance settings. I am using the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT for dual monitors. I just grabbed that one from the store because it happened to be on sale! Probably a mistake. Maybe I should be using some other brand? I have dual monitors so need a card to work for that.

I don't know what other info to provide. Has anyone else ran into the same issue?

Thanks!

[albee1952]

I use the nVidia 7300 and its fine but have heard of problems as you describe. Really, its a lot more video card than Protools needs but back to the problem....First thing I would try is dopwnloading the latest drivers from the manufacturer's website and try that. If that's a nogo, I would uninstall all the drivers and try it with the stock generic driver in Windows. If all else fails, downgrade to another card(I had good results with a $37 MSI 7300LE card with 2 screens). The only reason I made a change was(like you) I grabbed a nicer BFG card on sale and then bought a second so my 2 systems have all identical components.

[coonbri]

Thanks for the reply! I had already tried updating the drivers for it and no luck there. I uninstalled the drivers for it and did a reboot. When it was back up, it reinstalled the drivers again automatically! How can I make is stop doing that and then how do I install a Windows driver for it?

Thank you for your help!

[BradLyons]

I think there is something in certain GeForce cards. I had a dual DVI card and it was causing major issues. Running a Core2 Quad 2.83ghz w/4gb ram....I had to set my buffers to 4096 so that if I as much as moved the mouse while audio wasn't playing, it wouldn't give me the H/W buffers error and stop. And I'm on ProTools HD! Well after going through a few cards, we put an ATI card in there----perfectly fine ever since. I'd look into that.

[coonbri]

Yeah, I am starting to think the NVIDIA cards are not compatible with Pro Tools (at least the 9600 GT). I wish I could find someone locally that sells other brands. Everyone in Denver area sells NVIDIA GeForce. Found one ATI for $120, but that sounds like way too much for a graphics card that isn't doing any real power graphics in PT.

I guess I will keep hunting around for a card that works. Also, I am assuming not many people use dual video which surprises me actually. I thought most people would have 2 monitors for Pro Tools. I had 2 on my last PT machine and it worked great. I just don't see many people mentioning dual monitor setups.

Thanks and if anyone has any experience on this 9600 GT and knows how to configure it to work, please let me know!

Thanks everyone!

[coonbri]

Well, I put an ATI HD 4670 in and same problem. Gives that "Held of interrupt..." error. When I raise it, it says lower. When I lower, it says to raise it. I noticed in the device manager I have a ! by the SM Bus Controller. Would that be the problem if I don't have a driver for whatever the heck that is? I Googled that device and didn't find anything that meant much to me. No clue what driver I am suppose to be looking for.

Anyone have an idea what I can do with this? I have followed all of the Digidesign recommendations for hardware and software settings. I spent a lot of money on this setup. Sure wish it would work.

All I am trying to accomplish is setting up dual monitors. That is how I had 7.3 working on my old PC. That PC locked up a decent amount with Pro Tools too and that is why I upgraded everything.

Any suggestions out there??? Sorry for sounding so frustrated, but I really am!

Thanks again.

[coonbri]

I got things working!! I uninstalled the video driver and reinstalled and the last error I was getting was due to my network adapter not being disabled. Disabled that and seems to be working great so far.

Thanks for your help guys!