Pro Tools on a PC

Gonzo_Reporter

Im salaving the home PC just for mixing and editing. Its a little old but still capable i think.
Its basic stats are:
intel pentium 3.20GHz
2.GB or RAM (i know i need to increase that)
2 internal HDDs with 400GB of space
Operating System is Windows 7 32-bit
Pro Tools 8LE
mbox2 mini

Ive run PT 8le on XP for over a year without tweaking the PC at all and it worked ok but the computer was struggling, after the upgrade to Win7 the PC works perfectly but recently PT has being suffering with a constant DAE error 6085 complaining about the firwire bus. There doesn't seem to be a working solution online. Anyone come across this?
Researched told me Windows 7 was compatible with the latest version update of PT8 so im at a loss. Playback stops every 30seconds or so, making work impossible.

My overall question (besides the DAE error) is what do i need to have a competent 'home' PC mixing suite? RAM chipset etc etc

Id buy a MAC in a heart beat but my numbers didnt come in last friday...

mkegvn

try upping your buffer size!

Gonzo_Reporter

tried upping it lowering it, every different combination really. I wont lie and say i know tonnes about pc harware and software but im ok.
id typically work off the second of the HDD for mixing which PT isnt installed on so im sure theyre is nothing on the firwire bus.

SeanHurley

Have you any firewire devices plugged in? If so remove them from the equation and see if that helps. Mbox2 Mini is usb and you have enough space on your internal drives to run a session off.

If not there is some info here: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372471&ssdFilterCommunity10=368&ssdFilter_SearchKeyWord=&Hilite=

Gonzo_Reporter

SeanHurley wrote: »

Have you any firewire devices plugged in? If so remove them from the equation and see if that helps. Mbox2 Mini is usb and you have enough space on your internal drives to run a session off.

If not there is some info here: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372471&ssdFilterCommunity10=368&ssdFilter_SearchKeyWord=&Hilite=

No i dont have anything running on firewire. in the past ive run sessions off external HDD via a FW 400 port but have since stopped and now run off an internal drive. i even went as far as disable the FW bus within Device Manger but no joy. Ive come across that site before and as far as i can tell have all the requirements including a "Texas Instrument-branded host controller"... the mystery continues.

I know i should solve one problem at a time but in terms of pc hardware anything that springs to mind?

Thanks for the input so far.

studiorat

the drive needs to be at least 7,200rpm with 8ms seek time. recording on the second drive only, not the system drive. Make sure the drive isn't compressing or indexing the data.

turn off any energy saver routines, sleep, drives spinning down during in-activity etc...

did you check out processor scheduling?

also check the USB power management settings

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=349411

Gonzo_Reporter

studiorat wrote: »

the drive needs to be at least 7,200rpm with 8ms seek time. recording on the second drive only, not the system drive. Make sure the drive isn't compressing or indexing the data.

turn off any energy saver routines, sleep, drives spinning down during in-activity etc...

did you check out processor scheduling?

also check the USB power management settings

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=349411

Will investigate this now thanks

GTE

Gonzo_Reporter wrote: »

studiorat wrote: »

the drive needs to be at least 7,200rpm with 8ms seek time. recording on the second drive only, not the system drive. Make sure the drive isn't compressing or indexing the data.

turn off any energy saver routines, sleep, drives spinning down during in-activity etc...

did you check out processor scheduling?

also check the USB power management settings

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=349411

Will investigate this now thanks

Have you installed the latest update? I think its 8.0.4. It solved a lot of Windows 7 problems with my mbox at the very least.

Gonzo_Reporter

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

Have you opened up the case and checked how the processor fan and main fans look?

If they are covered in dust and fluff it can dramatically effect the performance of the CPU, since it will overheat a lot quicker. To be honest it's probably not what's causing your problem, but worth cleaning the fans every few weeks anyway.

Did a clean recently yeah, also did a clean install this week of both Windows and protools so its not something that's begun to build up... windows likes doing that.

Gonzo_Reporter

Still a few options to try but had a chance to ask an ACTUAL avid rep/Pro Tools expert in person no less today. While saying that DAE Errors can have specific origins on different systems its hard to know without5 sitting infront of the screen, he was somewhat stumped, puzzled why the error was coming up if there was no Firewire things present.
Looks like I'm stuck with this Germlin on the wing... I swear its there.
Thanks for the input guys. Anyone got a number for an Apple store?

dasdog

I ran it on a quad 2.4Ghz AMD/4G RAM (Win7 x64) with an Mbox2 (USB) no problem. Task Manager > Performance > Resource Monitor to see if you have any memory/disk io bottlenecks (move your page file off c: anyway). Look at your BIOS settings as Win7 might be picking up something XP didn't causing adverse effects or causing a conflict.