Problems when plug-in interfaces are visible in Pro Tools

[bms9nmh]

Hi Guys,

I've recently bulit a new computer which was a serious increase in power from my old computer. After installing Pro Tools and a few RTAS plugins, the performance is being affected everytime an RTAS plugins interface is visible within my pro Tools session. The tune i'm currently making seems to run fine when i insert FX, but with several of these plugins, when i maximize them and view there panels/interfaces pro tools starts chuggin and popping and i occasiobnally get messages telling me to increase/decrease H/W Buffer size which never seems to work. When I view "System Usage" within Pro Tools, The CPU (RTAS) is fairly low during the tunes playback (about 1/15 of the maximum), but becomes fairly erratic when certain plugins are clicked and visible. Does anyone know what this could be???

Here my hardware:

Intel Q9650 3GB Quadcore Processor
ASUS P5Q Deluxe Motherboard
OCZ 4GB 1200MHz RAM
Mbox 2 Pro
Asus EN210 GeForce210 Graphics Card

I'd really appreciate any help,

Thanks Guys

Neil

[albee1952]

Post a Sandra report for starters. You might be better off with an ATI video card(256 or 512 meg MAX). What hard drive are you recording to?

[bms9nmh]

Thanks for the reply albee1952, The hard drive my samples/audio are stored on, and tune is saved to, is an LACIE external hard drive (USB). Here is my Sandra Report

SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Model : System manufacturer P5Q DELUXE
Workgroup : NEIL HARRIS
Host Name : neilharris
User : Neil Harris

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz
Speed : 3GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 24-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing

Computer
Mainboard : Asus P5Q DELUXE
BIOS : American Megatrends Inc. 2201 05/21/2009
Bus(es) : ISA X-Bus PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 3GB DIMM DDR2

Chipset
Model : ASUS P45/P43/G45/G43 DRAM Controller
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 334MHz (1.34GHz)
Total Memory : 4GB DIMM DDR2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 557MHz (1.11GHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ2FXE12002G 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-24-6-3)
Memory Module : OCZ OCZ2FXE12002G 2GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-24-6-3)

Video System
Video Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 210 (24 SP 1.4GHz, 512MB DDR2, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 210 (16SP 1.4GHz, 511.7MB)

Storage Devices
SAMSUNG HD322HJ (320GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 298GB (C:)
SEAGATE ST3250823A (250GB, USB, 3.5", 5400rpm) : 233GB (E:)
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : 1GB (D:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 298GB (NTFS) @ SAMSUNG HD322HJ (320GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
P5Q_SERIES (D:) : 1GB (CDFS) @ HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : N/A
LACIE (E:) : 233GB (FAT32) @ SEAGATE ST3250823A (250GB, USB, 3.5", 5400rpm)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS LPC Interface Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : T0 A5-13h
Audio Device : ASUS 0BE3h
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Bh
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Bh
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Bh
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : ASUS 4 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS 2 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS 6121 SATA2 Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #4
USB Controller 2 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #5
USB Controller 3 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #6
USB Controller 4 : ASUS USB EHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 5 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #1
USB Controller 6 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 7 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #3
USB Controller 8 : ASUS USB EHCI Controller #1
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : ASUS IEEE 1394a Firewire Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus

Network Services
Network Adapter : Belkin Wireless G Plus MIMO USB Network Adapter #2 - Packet Scheduler Miniport (Ethernet, 36Mbps)

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

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)
Platform Compliance : x86

[albee1952]

USB drives are not supported or recommended for recording(although they MIGHT be okay for samples and such).

[bms9nmh]

i've just noticed that my RAM shows up as PC2-6400 DDR2-800, but it is supposed to be PC9600 DDR-1200. The sticker on the RAM dinfinately says it PC9600???? I havn't managed to get it to run at 1200Mhz yet, this must be why. Hopefully memoryc will allow me to send it back and swap it for what i have paid for.

[albee1952]

That's an interesting find. It may be that RAM settings in BIOS are on Auto, and need to be set manually. When I built my i7 system, the Auto setting for RAM resulted in horrible performance as it seems the Auto setting simply goes for the slowest RAM that the motherboard can use(Auto, my *****)

[bms9nmh]

yeah, the thing is though i've tried so many different settings for the RAM in the BIOS, i actually think it's not what it says on the tin so to speak. I put in the correct latencies, voltage settings and Ram frequency for 1200Mhz Ram and every time i tried to boot up it siad overclock failed, despite the fact none of the settings were set to overclock. I have managed to set the RAM to 1111MHz, only after increasing the latency. The speed in the SANDRA report doesn't reflect RAM setting i'm currently using.

[TOM@METRO]

My vote is to use a qualified firewire or SATA drive for the sessions.

And yes, you could also have a bad memory stick.