HELP! - cpu overload when using DAWs

VegetativeState

I'm probably not gonna be able to describe this problem very well but please bear with me.

When using cubase or FL studio the cpu goes into the 90 - 100 region and the sound distorts and slows down. This only started happening recently. on the advice of a friend I re-installed the operating system (xp) and all the programs but the problem remains. Would it be a hardware problem? The machine was bought second hand - apparently out of use for a year or two.

I don't need to be using an excessive amount of plug-ins or tracks for it to happen, and as I said it wasn't always like this but re-installing everything didn't help. Any ideas? or is there any more info I could give to make the problem clearer?

Zombienosh

What have you changed recently? Where do you run audio from? on the comp or a seperate drive?

DamagedTrax

VegetativeState wrote: »

or is there any more info I could give to make the problem clearer?

processor, ram, soundcard etc

basically all your computer specs.

krd

If it's only started recently it could be several things.

If there's spyware or other junk running in the background that will hog the processor.

If it's a laptop - does it have a powersaver mode - when laptops are in power saver the processors will run slower - you have to set the thing to run at max power or high performance.

Dust and gunk sucked up into the fan. If there's gunk on the processor it will over heat and switch itself to a lower speed.

VegetativeState

Zombienosh wrote: »

What have you changed recently? Where do you run audio from? on the comp or a seperate drive?

Recently installed a few VSTs but removing them doesn't seem to solve the problem. I'm running everything from the C drive.

DamagedTrax wrote: »

processor, ram, soundcard etc

basically all your computer specs.

pentium 4 cpu 3GHz 2.99 GHz, 2GB ram. 465GB hard drive.

I use a Zoom R16 as an interface and run the audio through this. So that is used as the soundcard? or am I mistaken there?

Pardon the ignorance, I really need to get to grips with how computers work. It's still a bit beyond me.

krd wrote: »

If it's only started recently it could be several things.

If there's spyware or other junk running in the background that will hog the processor.

If it's a laptop - does it have a powersaver mode - when laptops are in power saver the processors will run slower - you have to set the thing to run at max power or high performance.

Dust and gunk sucked up into the fan. If there's gunk on the processor it will over heat and switch itself to a lower speed.

I only connected it to the internet once and had Avast running so I'm pretty confident there's no spyware on it. It's a desktop, I opened it up and took a look at the fan and everything, it didn't seem to be dirty or anything, but then again I'm not entirely sure what to look out for.


Thanks for the replies everyone.

krd

Defrag your hard drive. Right click on local disc in explore. Go to properties then tools - then hit the defrag button - it can take hours. It does some invisible re-ordering of stuff.


I don't have a desktop to check - but any powersaving options may clock the processor slower.


Your spec sounds fine. But even on very powerful machines there's a limit to how many plugins you can run at once. Some take more processing power than others. You eventually riun out of processing power. If you're using Asio check your buffers aren't to small - audio buffers that can't be handled are dropped, causing crackles etc.


Another possibility is the mother board being a little cooked. If you're using USB devices it's better to have them using a standalone powerhub - it stops current being pulled through the motherboard.

shayleon

if using PC, download ProcessHacker. It will show you even processes that TaskManager is now showing.

Longshot, but maybe latency settings have been set ridiculously short.

cheers

drumdrum

This may seem fairly rudimentary, but do a virus scan of your whole system just to be safe.

Do what the lads above have recommended also.

Finally, this might work as a SHORT TERM solution, but freeze the tracks you are not working on, and only unfreeze them when you need to alter them. Its a bit of a pain to work this way, but at least it will free up some processor overheads.

Also, if you are using a laptop, check the power settings. If its on "Increased battery performance" or something, this tends to dum down the CPU potential. So change it if it is....

mackinfella

this happened me alot with fl studio... by going into the audio options and changing the sample rate this should help... it helped a little with mine... but i got new comp with strong processor and it works 100% now

mkegvn

change the buffer size! should be ok then!

Daftendirekt

You could try doing a system restore.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Windows XP sets a restore point every month or so by default. (Basically, it takes a snapshot of your system when it's in a particular state, and lets you roll back to it if you ever accidentally screw up your computer. It may or may not help, but it's saved my neck in the past, so it's probably worth a shot.)

Can't remember exactly where you'd find it, but I think it's under something like Start > All Programs > Accessories > Sytem Tools > System Restore.

IIRC, it's handy enough to undo, but you might want to make a backup of anything important, just in case!

Also, as others have suggested, a disk defrag and virus scan couldn't hurt either.